Tamils and Sumerians

[Guest guest]

Wed, 15 May 2002 10:27:05 +0800

"Dr.K.Loganathan" <subas

PabaNar on Sumeria

 

PaavaaNar on Sumeria

 

Dear Friends,

 

PavaaNar stands out not only as the most creative Tamil linguists

who

came up with his innovative notion of Etymological studies where he

evolved a developmental view but also one who had a larger vision

of Tamil

culture and how it spread across the world. While some of his views

may

require some revisions here and there but the essentials remain the

same. I am providing the following section from his History of

Tamil

Literature ( Tamil Ilakkiya VaralaRu) reissued recently by Pulavar

N.

Nakkiiran. I have also added English translations for the benefit

of the

scholars who may not be familiar with Tamil

 

Tamil Ilakkiya VaRalaaRu : pp 49-57

 

9. The Spread of the Tamils.

 

 

Because of population explosion, trade, desire to see new lands, war

and destruction, enmity, poverty and pestilence, floods and deluge

and

such reasons the Tamils of Kumari spread across the land in

different

directions.

 

After Tamil was sufficiently developed, the main direction of their

migration was towards the North. The fact that Bengal has as its

capital

city KaaLik Koottam, a word in pure Tamil itself is an indication

that

in the ancient times itself the Tamils migrated as the far as the

snow

clad mountains of the Himalayas.

 

Because Tamil was the natural language and the only one language for

a

long time there was no specific name for it, it was just known with

the general name of 'language' as such. But as it spread across the

Northern lands, it started changing and assuming new forms. Because

of this

the ancient Tamils called the North a land of changed language. It

is

only at this point the Southern variety was known as Tamil

 

 

When Tamil changed and became a branch language that was

unintelligible

, the word Tamizam also became Tiraavidam( tamiz > tamizam> tramiLa>

travida. travidam. traavidam). And because of that the language that

differentiated itself from Tamil came to be known as Tiravidam.

Initially

it was just a single language but in course of time multiplied into

a

variety of such branch languages. And because Telugu was the first

such

a language to branch off, it was called Vadugu ( a language in the

North or of the Northern lands). Then it became vadugu. This word

assuming

the -am ending became also 'vadugam'. This word 'vadugu' became

'badagu' in Kannada. We must note here that the tribal people

living

in the Nilgiri Hills and who speak a language that branched off

from

Kannada are called Badagar.1

 

 

[...............]

 

 

It is only a branch of the Northern Dravidians who went further

North

West and founded the Sumerian civilization.

 

The city of Abraham dated around 2000 B.C. is said to be Ur. This

word

in Babylonian language means a township, a city etc. In ancient

Tamil

Nad , only large settlements in the agricultural areas was termed

Ur.

One of the beams unearthed in the excavations done in (Sumerian) Ur,

is

said to be teak wood from KeraLa. The initial 'aab" in Abraham

appears

to be a variant of 'appan' a Tamil word meaning father.

 

Notes: (Loga)

 

Ur was the capital of Sumer. As a general name for a city it was

wide

in use in SumeroTamil literature. You can see this in Sirbiyam,

MutarIbiyam, and Suruppak's neRi that is currently being studied and

serialized. Yes it is in the agricultural lands that Ur as a

settlement and a

city originated. Moral thinking and legal institutions also

originated

here as part of temple culture. You can see evidences for this in

the Kes

Temple Hymns of Enhudu Anna ( ~2200 B.C.) and the Suruppak's NeRi).

The

name Abraham can also be derived from ab-ra-akam where it

means 'the

one who came (ra) from the waters (ab-ba). In Sumerian we have both

abba

as father and ab-ba as a large sea. Abraham may a descendent of

Ji.usudra, the hero of the deluge. Saivites retain this memory as

the TONi

Appar, the Old Man of the Boats.

 

 

 

The place where Yacob, the grandson of Abraham slept and dreamed was

called bethel. The word 'bethel' means the home of the God.

 

Ta. viidu Ka. biidu- biid Kaa. beth

 

Ta. el = light, sun, deity. beth-el> bethel

 

Such compound words occurring in the reverse order was an ancient

practice. E.g. Kaa. kaanaaniyam. At the time of Abraham there was

neither

the Arabic nor the Hebrew languages; Abraham spoke Akkadian.

 

Notes( Loga)

 

This is interesting for in the most ancient account of the Deluge in

Sumerian it is Ji.usudra who is supposed to have fallen asleep and

dreamt

about the flood and so forth in the precincts of the a Temple he was

raising. In NeRi we have also Ji.usudra mentioned as the son of

Suruppak

and the grandson of Ubartutu. Thus it would appear that the biblical

Yacob is in fact Jiusudra and Abraham, Ubartutu , the Grand Old Man

of

the ancients who gave the moral instructions.

 

While it may be true that Abraham spoke Akkadian but if he is the

same

as Ubartutu, then he should be taken to have spoken SumeroTamil. It

should be noted that Hammurabi, the one who displaced Sumerian with

Akkadian as court language however wrote his edicts in Sumerotamil

(These are

available now in the SumeroTamil Campus).

 

PavaNar is also right in his observation of the reverse order of the

adjectival compound in Sumerian. This is the standard in Sumerian :

lu-sir-ra . uLu siirra: the singer, lugal-a-ri-a : uLukaL aariya:

the

Ariyan King; ki-bal-a : kiiz paalla: the lands across, the foreign

lands

etc.

 

 

The word bidu also occurs in Akkadian in the same sense though 'e'

(=il) is more frequent. It may be possible that bidu is related Su.

du and

Ta. vidar: a crevice in the hills and hence caves.

 

[.........]

 

 

One of the splinter groups from the people who developed the

Sumerian

civilization spread through Egypt and another through Asia Minor

reached the Mediterranean Šea and then the European continent and

became the

Western Aryans.

 

Notes (Loga)

 

Here we must add that a substantial number of these Sumerotamils

colud

have returned to India especially the South and established the

CaGkam

Culture as the continuation of the Sumerian. The similarities are

so

great that there must have been large scale return of SumeroTamils

perhaps to their ancient homeland with which they were always in

contact