Tamizh thai? tamil as mother goddess?

[Guest guest]

Our devi_bhakta never ceases to amaze me! week after week he

introduces such wonderful topics - this week he has chosen ' tamizh'

thai' Tamil as mother goddess!!!

 

now, members may ask and wonder how can a language be regarded as

a 'goddess' ...

 

a poet (bharatidasan) sings...

 

Language is breath

Language is consciousness

Language is life

..................

language is world

without language, who are we?

 

REALLY, Who ARE WE?

 

it is our language that defines us...

 

when you ask a tamilian who is he? he will not say - i am an indian

or a hindu - he will say I am a tamilian- such is his 'passion'

and 'devoti0on' to his mother tongue!! i

 

I recall very vividly a incident that occured in my life while i was

in new delhi india several years ago... the census LADY had come to

our house to do an interview.... after asking the usual questions-

how many people in the household, the gender of each of my

children , husband's salary ( i was a full time mom and a householder

at that time-) my religionon etc.... she came to the most difficult

question of all - " madam, what is your mother tongue? " i was

speechless for one whole minute---- now, pray , what is my mother

tongue? i asked myself? well, my dad is a die-hard tamilian being

born in erode and educated in chennai, tamizhnadu .... he spoke pure,

chaste tamil...my mother, although a tamilian , was born and brought

up in new delhi under the british raj- my grand dad was a lawyer in

the high court in the british raj- my mom attended a convent-

st.thomas school - she spoke fluent english and was well-versed in

hindi? but, tamil- her tamil was just like my dad's hindi - that

bad!! smiles.... and i, cannot call 'tamil' my mother tongue !

technically, it was but in reality it was not as parents always

conversed in english- only when they had argumments -they will swear

at each other in their respective languages!!! so, i was very

embarassed and with great difficulty i said rather unconvincingly my

mother tongue is tamil!!! it was then that i decided to learn Tamizh

if not master it!!! no doubt, it is a hard language - grammar is as

complicated as the japanese language- sounds as guttral as dutch -

but is very romantic and poetic like french if you know the

real 'tamizh' language (sangam) not the colloquial version!!!

 

our penkatali, a linguist of sorts, quotes ...

 

ônkal iTaivant uyarntôr tolaviLanki ênkoli ñâlat

tiruLakarrum,

ânkavarruL minnêr taniyâli venkatiron rânaiyatu tannêr

ilâta tamil.

 

There are two things born from mountains, shining so brilliantly that

the great bow down, driving darkness from earth circled by roaring

waters. One is the flaming sun, single wheel bright as lightning, the

other is Tamil that has no comparison!!

—from the taNTiyalankârum

 

please visit this site penkatali's beautiful translation of

bharatiyar songs...

 

http://www.penkatali.org/bharati.html search within this site

 

our db has mentioned about thiruvalluvar's tamil classic 'thirukural'

in the group page! except our beloved shankaree how many people quote

from this great text? we all like to quote from the gita, vedas ,

upanishads and other sources but seldom quote from thirukural!! we

thank shankaree for bringing these 'gems' to us!!!

 

Shri rama said to lakshmana " mother and motherland are dearer than

heaven" ( janani , janmabhoomicha swargatpi gariyasi!) - i will add

one more to this list- mother, motherland and mother tongue are

dearer than heaven...

 

a tamilian always says - "' this body is for the earth ; but this

life is for tamizh"'- udal mannukku' ooyir tamizhukku!!

 

you have seen suicide bombers killing themselves for their motherland

or for their religion but so called passionate tamilians self-

immolate themselves for their mother tongue!! such is their passion

and intensity !!!

 

members, i would like to draw your attention to a book called -

 

Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891-1970

(Studies on the History of Society and Culture , No 29)

by Sumathi Ramaswamy

 

available at amazon.com

List Price: $24.95

Used & new from $4.38

Edition: Paperback | All Editions

 

the author asks ---

 

"why would love for their language lead several men in southern India

to burn themselves alive in its name? Passions of the Tongue analyzes

the discourses of love, labor, and life that transformed Tamil into

an object of such passionate attachment, producing in the process one

of modern India's most intense movements for linguistic revival and

separatism." Sumathi Ramaswamy suggests that these discourses cannot

be contained within a singular metanarrative of linguistic

nationalism and instead proposes a new analytic, "language devotion."

She uses this concept to track the many ways in which Tamil was

imagined by its speakers and connects these multiple imaginings to

their experience of colonial and post-colonial modernity. Focusing in

particular on the transformation of the language into a goddess,

mother, and maiden, Ramaswamy explores the pious, filial, and erotic

aspects of Tamil devotion. She considers why, as its speakers sought

political and social empowerment, metaphors of motherhood eventually

came to dominate representations of the language. --

 

Sumathi Ramaswamy is Assistant Professor of History at the University

of Pennsylvania. --

 

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in short, we are all attached to our Mothers, mother tongues and

motherland? and above all , we are all attached tO mother GODDESS -

she manifests herself in everything !!!!

 

om sree matrayaii nmaha!