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Thursday, March 16, 2006
My mother tongue isn't perfect?
We have heard of people telling Sanskrit is perfect. Some of us might also have received forwarded mails telling that Kannada or Telugu is 99.99% perfect. When a language like Kannada or Telugu which is derived from a ‘perfect’ language, why isn’t it perfect? Or what is that tells a language is perfect and or imperfect? There are many criteria. One of which everyone can easily see and comprehend is – what we write should be what we spell. English, as we all know doesn’t come into this group. But what about our own mother tongues? When we carefully observe them we can say that they actually aren’t. What? But what I write is what I speak - This is what I felt at first instance when I was told about this by my Sanskrit teacher.
Now lets look at it carefully. Try to pronounce these and probably you will have the hint already in your mind. (read - Kannada, Telugu, Hindi )
... and what is this?...
got any inkling? How come 'gum' become 'gun'? Ideally it should have been 'gumga' isn't it? Isn't there something fishy? Now check this out too...
...and now again....
How are they in Sanskrit? Are they as they are read? Yes, they are. They are actually written as (many have a wrong prresumtion that Sanskrit doesnt have a script. Actually Hindi doesnt have one. Hindi uses Devanagari script which was used for Snaskrit. oh! our National Language has no script of its own?)
 and  .
Isn't this interesting? There may be some other reasons too through which our languages may not be perfect. But i dont know all of them. I am greatful to my Sanskrit teacher Sri. Avadhanuluji for sharing such an interesting topic.
Posted at 06:45 pm by kaushik
 | | | bachodi
March 20, 2006 04:17 PM PST
you dont seems to be get convinced, that is not my concern anyway. but while you ask this to your question to your teacher keep two more examples with you.
"thande" ( dad) and "thimma"( a name, also a lion ) are proper kannada words. i.e. not brought from sanskrit.
we write "thande" as "tha + 'O' + "de" , but in literature you also find it written as " tha + ne + (half) da"
also we write "thimma" as "thi + ma + (half) ma) but the great DVG writes it as " thi + 'O' + ma" ( remember "neenyarigadeyo mankuthimma)
please note that they sound the same , either way when you read it, that is the flexibility.
also ask about the gender for the words !! that really irritates me .. ,while remembering gender for all the words. neither my teacher convinced me, in these aspects | |
| | | kaushik
March 20, 2006 02:32 PM PST
1. kiran, as you may know no languages were born in a day. most of them have gradually derived from one or many languages. In due course of time, they become so different that they no longer look similar to their parents. telugu and kannada were also derived in same fashion. it is just another way to express your love to a language by telling that 'my language has been influenced a particular(or some) language(s), but not influenced by it(them)'.
2. Raghu has probably seen a transliteration of sanskrit version of KANCHI. even in telugu it is written the same way as in kannada: 'ka'+'0'+'chi'.
3. insofar as organization of words in trishulingas are considered, i too had a doubt on this. when i questioned regarding this to my teacher, he told the same thing as you are telling - beauty of the language. somehow i wasnt convinced then. probably i should put forth the question once again and get to know it more logically(if any).
4. good doubt regarding why only dvivachanam. why not trivachanam and chaturvachanam etc. i will ask to him regarding this too.
5. 'ksha','tra','jnya', again same answer - I dont know yet. but will confirm.
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| | | bachodi
March 20, 2006 09:16 AM PST
small correction for Kiran's comment.
its not "some" words that kannada, telugu, and malayalams have taken.
its more than 60%. i.e. general spoken languages, in poetic dravidian languages the penetration of sanskrit is lesser.
only tamil has less than 20% words from sanskrit. | |
| | | bachodi
March 20, 2006 09:12 AM PST
may be i put it in wrong way. i should have told it as an option instead of a rule. we also differ the way we look at same "problem" .
you call it a loss of perfection, and i , call it beauty of poetical language.
after reading your entry raghu brought into my notice , in kanchipuram a telugu board is diaplayed with KANCHI with the n is represented with "ny"( the last letter of "ch" group). did you observe by reading both the ways make ti pronounce the same.
how do you defend the compound letters "ksha" "tra" and "jnya" have two different symbols in devenagari. they look different but sound the same.!!! that is another option given in the poetic language. i call it a beauty of the language instead of calling it Wrong!! | |
| | | Kiran
March 19, 2006 12:07 PM PST
Interesting.
btw, Telugu & Kannada were not 'derived' from Sanskrit. These Dravidian languages were influenced by Sanskrit, & absorbed some words. | |
| | | kaushik
March 18, 2006 11:07 AM PST
yes, may be it is a rule. just to make the writing more simpler. but by doing so, what i mean to say is there is a loss of perfection. thouig we may read it properly, from a perspective view it is WRONG. | |
| | | bachodi
March 17, 2006 08:03 PM PST
this is a nice example. But there is a grammatically correct answer for this. For the answer lets take alphabetical system. Indian languages have beautiful arrangement of classified consonants. There are tabulated in five rows and five columns. Starting from sound "k" to "m". the columns are "unaspirated voiceless" "unaspirated voiceless" "unaspirated voiced" "aspirated voiced" and "nasal" . the rows are velar ( k kh a gh gn) palatal ( ch Ch j Jh jn) retroflex( T Th D Dh Nh) apcio dental (t th d dh n) and labial ( p ph b bh m). this is most scientifically organized according to sounds and pronoounciation .note that this is my own convention of a software, not UNICODE stationer.
Now come to the point. I don't know telugu, and I never learned Hindi grammar as coerce. But I can tell the rules of Kannada and Sanskrit. The rule says " you can always (while writing) replace a "O"(symbol in kannada, telugu, in devanagari it is just a dot) i.e. anuswara symbol by the last corresponding column of the consonants table, of the preceding consonant" did you get it. ..?? lets take the very example.
"ganga" is officially allowed to write using both the forms it is presented in devanagari. An "O"(in kannada and telugu, devenagari it is just a dot)has to be replaced now, you can replace it by a symbol "gn", refer consonant table. What is Nasal sound for sound 'g' … replaces it with the anuswara.
As for as I remember using the nasal is the correct form of writing. And "O" is the short cut. But I am sorry I am not sure about this information, which came first. But both are very much valid in kannada, kannda words and all the languages which use devanagari script. There is no problem at all !!
i have written more in my blog
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