Tholkappiam in Tamil heritage

by Seva Lamberdar Sat Oct 12, 2019 1:52 pm

"Tholkappiyam from Tamil is the oldest written grammar literature in the world which is very older than rig veda and for that perfection in grammar it is believed that Tamil is spoken even before the Tholkappiyam hence proved that Tamil is older than Sanskrit" (A Sulekha comment: http://creative.sulekha.com/sanskrit-is-older-than-tamil_107509_blog?c=2468339#2468339)

Response:

My observation is that Tamil is not older than several other languages in India.

Tamil has deliberately retained its original inadequate / incomplete alphabet and script which give it the impression as the oldest language in India, while other Indian languages (some of them as ancient and originally contemporaries of Tamil) along the way changed, expanded and perfected themselves (in alphabets, scripts, grammars).

Btw, Tholkappiam (as 'Thol' + 'Kappiam') mentioned in the above seems also to have Sanskrit basis (as 'taal' meaning rhythm and 'kaavyam' meaning poetry). Isn't Tholkappiam the poetic literature on Tamil grammar etc.?

by Seva Lamberdar Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:19 am

Incidentally, the similarity in the words for a very basic and commonly used item such as water, involving just the variations in 'nir' or 'neer', in different languages (Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Bangla etc.) indicates that these languages were comperaries throughout and are presently as old as one another.

However, Tamil over time underwent little development, improvement and updates in its alphabet and script (not adding more letters in alphabet and script to utter and write different / newer sounds), whereas other languages (Sanskrit, Kanada, Telugu, Hindi etc.) continued throughout to transform and update their alphabets and scripts (by adding more letters in alphabet and script to utter and write different / newer sounds).

Naturally, that does not make Tamil older than other languages (including Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada etc.) or the mother of them. It's simply a case of Tamil having stayed where it was thousands of years ago while other languages continued to evolve and flourish.

by Seva Lamberdar Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:55 am

Seva Lamberdar wrote:Incidentally, the similarity in the words for a very basic and commonly used item such as water, involving just the variations in 'nir' or 'neer', in different languages (Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Bangla etc.) indicates that these languages were comperaries throughout and are presently as old as one another.

However, Tamil over time underwent little development, improvement and updates in its alphabet and script (not adding more letters in alphabet and script to utter and write different / newer sounds), whereas other languages (Sanskrit, Kanada, Telugu, Hindi etc.) continued throughout to transform and update their alphabets and scripts (by adding more letters in alphabet and script to utter and write different / newer sounds).

Naturally, that does not make Tamil older than other languages (including Sanskrit, Telugu, Kannada etc.) or the mother of them. It's simply a case of Tamil having stayed where it was thousands of years ago while other languages continued to evolve and flourish.

Here is a sample of 'nir' (or 'neer') based words in relation to water in some of the languages,
Neer/Neeru in Kannada
Neeru/NeeLLu in Telugu
taNNi (taNNir), Nirai (Nir), Nirpayaccu in Tamil

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Tholkappiam in Tamil heritage

Tholkappiam in Tamil heritage

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