Intervocalical -k- in Tamil

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In Tamil speech, intervocalical -k- is pronounced as -h-.

This has been noted by many Tamil scholars. Interestingly,

nowadays all intervocalical -k- is written as -g-!

May be due to the influence of english journalism in

Chennai and India, who have little time, training in

tamil.

 

Given some citations from Tamil scholars and linguists such as

Kanchi paramacharyar, S. Ilakkuvanar, S. Natarajan,

K. Karunakaran (for VC of universities in India), M. S. Tirumalai,

K. Zvelebil and G. L. Hart. The URL is:

http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2002-11/msg00013.html

 

Thanks for reading,

N. Ganesan

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INDOLOGY, "naga_ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...> wrote:

>

> In Tamil speech, intervocalical -k- is pronounced as -h-.

> This has been noted by many Tamil scholars. Interestingly,

> nowadays all intervocalical -k- is written as -g-!

 

 

This is true only of an idealized "Real Tamil" or "kanni thamiz"

beloved of Tamilists.

 

But the real Tamil used by Tamil speakers knows no such rule.

 

Take words like Murukan, Mukundan, Prabhakaran, Raghavan and other

personal names. If what Mr.Ganesan says is true, then when Tamils

bearing these names give their names in English to telephone

directories, school and college lists, they would have given their

names as Muruhan, Muhundan, Prabaharan and Rahavan.

 

But such a usage is very, very rare. Perhaps one in a thousand. When

Tamils pronounce their personal names without the presumed

intervocalical -k- pronounced as -h-, we have no reason to believe

such a linguistic rule exists in practice.

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, jiva das <sadavij> wrote:

> Is this not just another example of consonant erosion,

> which we see in so many languages, where the French

> elide the "s" in e.g. "sans"? Or look at Tibetan, the

> Grand Canyon in this respect, where initials and

> finals are not spoken but still written.

 

Tamil consonants, called "hard/powerful", are k,c,T,t,p,R

have sounds depending on their context of occurence.

See prof. George Hart's note on tamil transliteration:

pmadurai/message/353

 

Have given the Tamil professors and the Kanchi saint's

words attesting to the fact, which we observe among monolingual

speakers, that the intervocalical -k- is pronounced as -h-.

http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2002-11/msg00013.html

In this CTamil message, Tamil scholars explain why

the predomiance of -k- as -g- for words in english letters.

 

Perhaps, the high "prestige" folks with good training in english

and sanskrit lack tamil reading/writing skills. Once the english

journalists from other states, urban elites with little

training in tamil phonetics and grammar put -g-, and this

percolates down to folks with "low" caste or economic background.

(English) journalists are skewed towards high castes, acc. to a

Washington Post article:

agathiyar/message/10681

 

Sanskritists such as R. Nagaswamy transliterate -k-

as -h-. See Sivabhakti, his classic study of Appar bronzes

and Appar's Tevaram hymns. In any event, I prefer a

standard transliteration for Tamil such as followed in

Madras univ. Tamil Lexicon, Cologne tamil database, or CTamil list.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan