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Post Info TOPIC: DRAVIDIAN-INDO ARYAN COGNATES IN TOLKAPPIYAM


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DRAVIDIAN-INDO ARYAN COGNATES IN TOLKAPPIYAM
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DRAVIDIAN-INDO ARYAN COGNATES IN TOLKAPPIYAM- Dr. A. KamatchiAssistant Professor CAS in Linguistics Annamalai University

Paper published in Language Vitality in South Asia (Edited by Ali.R.Fatihi, Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh, India)

INTRODUCTION
Tolkappiyam is the earliest grammatical written records not only for Tamil but also for other Dravidian languages.  Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are, as we all know, the separate families of languages.  Of course, cognates mean the forms, which indicate the same meaning with shape similarity and are available in the daughter languages of the same language family.  The reason for calling them as cognates here is that they could be treated cognates in terms of the rules applying to the methods in the comparative linguistics. 
This study is, of course, not ready to argue that no borrowings had been taken place in Dravidian languages from Indo-Aryan.  But it is evidenced there are a number of items borrowed from Indo-Aryan right from the post Sangam period to the early 20th century A.D.  But the so-called statement of borrowings in Sangam Tamil from Indo-Aryan seems to be disputable and questionable from the view point of comparative linguistics.  In the same way, while observing the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyam, applying the rules to Dravidian linguistics is different from the rules applying to the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyam.  One can feasibly know the fact that there could be no different of opinion in the application of the rules in the languages because there is a possibility for the linguists to treat the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyamcognates.  That is, when the system of comparative methods such as metathesis, loss, change of one phoneme to other etc. within the languages of same family should be applied to the so-called borrowings of Tolkappiyam and Sanskrit forms, one can realize the fact that these are actually not borrowings but the cognates.   Thus, the study envisages the possibility to treat them as cognates from the various viewpoints of the comparative linguistics.


 


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Undoubtful Cognates
            It is claimed that the following forms are undoubtedly cognates.  Of course, none of the scholar of comparative linguistics can argue that they are not cognates of the both language families.
 
Tol. Words
 
 
Sutra No.
 
Sanskrit Words
 
Page No.
 
Meaning
 
antam
1096
anta
 37
end, termination
antaram
1096
antara
 37
sky, open space
amar
1010
camara
318
war
amarar
1031
amara
 60
God
amiltam
1096
amrita
 61
*ambrosia, nectar
 


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arai
    11
arddha
  71
half
alal
1029
anala
  27
fire
aaram
1586
haara
 973
garland
pala
  487
pelu, ‘much’
 
many
kaNavar
 
kaNa(pporuttam)
 
husband
karakam
 
karaka
 
waterpot
kaakam
 
kaaka
205
crow
karumam
   
karuma
karuman
197
198
action
kaamam
 
kaama
210
love
kaaraNam
 505
kaaraNa
213
cause
kaalai
kaalam                                                  
   22
 991
kaala
216
time
kuncaram
1521
kunjara
225
elephant
kuTi
  652
kuTi
226
*hut, house
 


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kuNam
  899
guNa
291
quality
kuravai
1026
kura
232
sound, roar
kulai
1590
gulujcha
294
*cluster
kuLan
1141
kula
239
pond, tank
kai
1096
kara
283
hand
kutirai
1161
ghooTaka
311                                            
horse
caakkaaTu
1049
jyaa
355
death
caati
1545
jaati
347
caste
cuuttiram
1427
sutra
940
sutra
taN(mai)
1339       
taNDa
 
water (cooling)
 


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ticai
  432
dis
410
direction
teyvam
  488
daiva
425
God (divine)
teeem 
teeyam
1017
  990
deesa
424
country, nation
naaTakam
1003
naaTya
 
drama, dance
naali          
  241
nadi
 
mareal, eight part of a marakkaal or kuRuNi
pakuti
  501
prakruti
557
part
pakkam
  991
pakSa
490
side
palam
1592
phala
 
fruit
puu
  968
puSpa
546
flower
peem
  849
bheema
621
*fear
maa
1010
mahat
 
great
maa(maram)
  232
maakanda
654
*mango
vaNNam
  563
varNa
737
colour
vali
  850
vala
741
strenth / power


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Metatheses Words
            These are the forms which are treated cognates based on the metathesis method of comparative linguistics.  The process of metathesis is very common in Telugu-Kuwi group (i.e. Telugu, Gondi, Konda, Pengo, Manda, Kui and Kuwi) among the Dravidian languages.  Here also, it quite possible to consider the following forms as cognates which are attested in both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan. 
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
*aracu
aracan
1585
1025
raajya
raajan
703
701
kingdom
king
*aravam
  833
rava
aarava
697
119
sound, *roar
*iravu
  228
raa
 
night
*urupu
*uru
uruvu
  141
  14
  17
ruupa
 
form
ulaku
*ulakam
1064
  542
loogaa
 
world
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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 m-ending Words
            It is the common phenomenon that the m-ending forms in Dravidian are attested in Sanskrit without this consonant ending.  The reason is obvious.  The Sanskrit language system does not have consonant ending in the words.  Considering the m-ending forms available in Proto Dravidian, those forms may be treated as the proto forms for Dravidian and Indo-Aryan.  The reason is obvious.  A loss of phoneme in a form is very common phenomenon in the comparative linguistics and therefore the m-ending forms are taken as proto forms here.
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
*antam
1096
anta
 37
end, termination
*antaram
1096
antara
 37
sky, open space
*karakam
 
karaka
 
waterpot
*kaakam
 
kaaka
205
crow
*karumam
   
karuma
karuman
197
198
action
*kaamam
 
kaama
210
love
*kaaraNam
 505
kaaraNa
213
cause
kaalai
*kaalam                                                  
   22
 991
kaala
216
time
*kuncaram
1521
kunjara
225
elephant
*cuuttiram
1427
sutra
940
sutra
*teyvam
  488
daiva
425
God  (divine)
teeem 
*teeyam
1017
  990
deesa
424
country, nation
*naaTakam
1003
naaTya/ naaTaka
 
dance,drama
*pakkam
  991
pakSa
490
side
*palam
1592
phala
 
fruit
vaNNam
  563
*varNa
737
colour


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 Voiceless Initial becomes voiced

 

            There is no voiced characteristic nature of plosive in proto Dravidian.  So it evident to treat the following forms cognates.  Voiceless plosive becomes voiced one in Sanskrit. 
 
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
*teyvam
  488
daiva
425
God  (divine)
*teeem 
*teeyam
1017
  990
deesa
424
country, nation
*ticai
  432
dis
410
direction
*caati
1545
jaati
347
caste
 
*caakkaaTu
1049
jyaa
355
death
 
*kutirai
1161
ghooTaka
311                                            
horse
 
*kulai
1590
gulujcha
294
*cluster
 
*kuNam
  899
guNa
291
quality
 
*peem
  849
bheema
621
*fear
 
         


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Initial ‘c-‘ Loss
            It is the very common nature in Dravidian that the initial *c- of proto Dravidian forms is loss in south Dravidian languages, but while the same nature prevails in the so-called borrowings in Old Tamil, the comparative linguists treat it as a borrowing in comparison with the languages of Dravidian and the languages of Indo-Aryan.  In the same way, in some other languages, initial *c- becomes s- in other languages.  One can observe the same nature in these two language group of families. 
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
amar
1010
*camara
318
war
 
*c- becomes ‘s-‘
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
*cuuttiram
1427
sutra
940
sutra
 
Initial ‘h-‘ Loss
            There is no velar fricative of in proto Dravidian.  So it can be possible to claim the forms such as haara ‘garland’ may be proto language forms.
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
aaram
1586
*haara
 973
garland

 



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Ininitial *k- becomes c-
            Proto Dravidian initial *k- is palatalized to c-before the front vowels.  The following forms are examples for this category. 
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
ciirtti
1040
*kiirtti
224
fame
 
Some other forms may also be treated as cognates on the ground that there is no aspirated nature in Dravidian and no consonant cluster of phonemes in the initial position of the Dravidian words if the following forms are taken into consideration. 
‘ph-’ < > ‘p-‘
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
palam
1592
phala
 
fruit
 
‘pr-‘ > ‘p-‘
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
pakuti
  501
*prakruti
557
part
 
‘-rN-‘ > ‘-NN-‘
Tol. Words
Sutra
No.
Sanskrit Words
Page No.
Meaning
vaNNam
  563
*varNa
737
colour
 


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Dravidian with Scythic Language  
It is understood that the chief language families in India are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman.  Since the cultivated Dravidian languages abound in Sanskrit words many, many scholars, before Caldwell, once entertained the opinion that Dravidian languages, spoken in the southern part of India, were descended from Sanskrit like the modern Indo-Aryan languages, spoken in the Northern part of India.  While acknowledging the existence of a very large percentage of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan words in the Dravidian vocabularies, Caldwell (1856) came to conclude that the Dravidian languages had no structural relationship with Sanskrit and attempted to prove that the grammatical affinities of these languages were mainly Scythic-Turanian. 
Others’ View
            Among those who accepted his theories in their entirety special mention must be made of Dr. H.Gundert, a profound scholar of the Malayalam language and literature, and Dr. F. Kittel, a eminent scholar of the Kannada language and literature.  However, Dr. G.U. Pope, a distinguished scholar in Tamil language and literature, was reluctant to accept Caldwell’s theories; and in a series of articles in the Indian Antiquity. He carefully mentions (1) that “between the languages of southern India and those of the Aryan family there may be deeply seated and radical affinities; (2) that the differences between the Dravidian tongues and the Aryan are not so great as between the Celtic (for instance) and the Sanskrit; (3) that, by consequence, the doctrine that the place of the Dravidian dialects is rather with the Aryan than with Turanian family of languages is still capable of defense”.
            Caldwell (1856), of course, accepted the existence of the plenty of Sanskrit words in Dravidian.  However, only on the ground that there is no structural relationship between these two language families, he rejects the earlier theory that Dravidian descended from Sanskrit.  On the contrary, considering the Sanskritic theory that Indo-European, one can notice that the theory established by Sir William Jones in 1896 was mainly developed by the common vocabularies, i.e. treated as cognates, available in Sanskrit and the European languages such as German, Latin, Greek etc.   Here it is an important point to be noted that the gap between the Caldwell’s period and the Sir William Jones period is nearly forty years. 

            There should not be two opinions in adopting the rules and regulations followed in the comparative linguistics.  But it is kept in mind that in both the cases the same rules should have been followed in grouping the language families.  The contrast between these two theories that the former theory developed on the basis of vocabularies was accepted by the scholars working in the field of comparative linguistics whereas the latter theory come out before 4 four decades was summarily rejected.  What is the reason behind that, we don’t know. That is, it is peculiar to say that whereas grouping of Sanskrit under Indo-European is based on the vocabularies, the Dravidian theory fails to agree the same formulae, though the Dravidian and Sanskrit have plenty of common vocabularies, which are cognates alike.
Wherefrom Dravidian Comes  
 

            The editors of the series of the Linguistic Survey of India remark that “with regard to the Drāvidas, some authorities believe that they arrived in India from the South, while others suppose them to have entered from the North-West where a Dravidian language is still spoken by the Brāhūīs of Baluchistan (Linguistic Survey of India, Vol.IV, p.5).  According to Zvelebil (1990), “that the speakers of Dravidian languages moved from west or Central West Asia to the South Asian sub-continent seems to be indisputable”.  He (1972) earlier proposes a hypothesis that Dravidian marched from the mountains of eastern Iran to South India and Sri Lanka, ‘dropping off’ groups along the way rather like a bus depositing passengers.  He (1972:57) further writes: “the Dravidians were a highlander folk, sitting, sometimes around 4000 B.C. in the rugged mountainous area of North-eastern Iran (where they came into extended contact with the speakers of Uralian / Altaic languages), whence, round about 3500 B.C., they became a South-eastern movement into the Indian subcontinent which went on for about two and a half millennia”.
Speakers of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan
            As Southworth (1976) puts it, “there is nothing against the assumption that the Indus Valley was the area where Dravidian speakers first made their appearance in the subcontinent, after their presumed departure from West Asia”.  According to Emeneau, Zvelebil, Southworth and so on, the speakers of Dravidian language family might have moved from central west Asia to India.  Suppose that the so-called Sanskrit words in Tolkappiyam are treated cognates of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, there is a possibility to believe that both the speakers of Dravidian and the Indo-Aryan jointly as one family without two groups might have moved together from Central West Asia towards Indian subcontinent. 
            Some other theories say that showing the existence of Dravidian language, Brahui in Baluchistan, the well settled Dravidian speakers in the Sindhu Valley might have been driven away to southern part of India by the Aryan people.  In other way round, it can be presumed that the period at which the Dravidians fled from this valley, is assumed to have separated from each other only after they had lived together in the valley.  In that period itself, both the languages of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are presumed to have been a single language family of Indo-Dravidic Aryan.
 
No Short Vowels and o in Toda
Emaneau further mentions that “proto Dravidian *orepresents a correspondence in which all the languages have o,  except that  Toda often has wa, wï, or ï, Gondi in some dialects has a  and Brahui has either ō, u, or a”.  (Emaneau 1970 : 25).
(Ta)              (To)
cevi    ‘ear’   kїfy
eli        ‘rat’   isy
nencu  ‘heart’  nїz
“PDr.  *e represents a correspondence in which all the languages have e, except that Toda often has ö, Parji sometimes has a, Gondi in some dialect, has a,  and some of the other languages sometimes have a;   Brahui has either i or a,”   (Emaneau 1970 : 21).
(Ta)                                           (To)
oTunku  ‘become reduce’         wїDg-
oTi          ‘to break’                    war-
kolu         ‘fat, prosporous’         kwalp-
koy          ‘to pluck’                   kwїy-
            Out of 380 entries with e in DED in total, only 4 occurrences of near cognates have attested in Malto whereas merely 6 occurrences of near cognates out of 374 entries with o in DED, exist in Malto.  In the same way, only 7 occurrences out of 380 DED entries with o and merely 3 occurrences out of 374 with the short o in DED have been recorded in Kurukh, one of the north Dravidian languages.  So, due to this meager percentage of occurrences with e and o available in Malto and Kurukh of the north Dravidian languages, Kamatchi (2006) (SALA-26) claims that there had been no short vowels of e and o in proto Dravidian.
No short Vowels e and in Dravidian
A close watch on the vowel symbols employed in the early Dravidian records of early Tamil-Brahmi, belonging to 3rdcentury B.C. to 1st century A.D., evidently shows that there was no distinction between short and long vowel of e and ee and o andoo as available in Sanskrit.  That is, as in the vowel system of Indo-Aryan, no symbol for either short e or o has been recorded in the early Dravidian records.  They were actually not developed to graphemic status in the early period, as far as the paleographic status is concerned.  Suppose that Dravidian had e and o in her phonemic system, why didn’t it have the symbols for e and o in the early records.  So, one can strongly claim that no earlier Dravidian records show the symbols for the short vowels e and o.  What it means is that there might have been no phonemic status for these vowels.  So there is reason to belief that proto Dravidian had no short e and o in its phonemic system.  Therefore, it is assumed that in the later period only, these might have been developed to phonemic status in the languages. 
Comparing this system with the loss of e and o in Brahui, Kamatchi (2005), in his paper on “Are the short vowels of e and oloss in Brahui?”, presented in the SAP-National Seminar on Tribal studies in Dravidian languages, posits that the theory of loss of e and o in Brahui should be reconsidered and further claims that the Dravidian vowel system did not seem to have eand o
Dravidian Borrowings in early Sanskrit
            Burrow had found some twenty words in the earliest Sanskrit recorded, the Rgveda, which he considers to be of Dravidian origin.  A number of them have been accepted by Emeneau; among the most important and most interesting are Skt. khála- ‘threshing floor’, ‘open place’, ‘battle field’ etc.;  Skt. phála- fruit:  Tamil…Malto, palam ‘fruit’, palu ‘to ripen’ etc. and so on.  As Emeneau says, “if the Rig-Vedic examples, or any of them, are accepted, this is evidence for the presence of Dravidian speakers as far toward the northwest as the Panjab, i.e. the Upper Indus Valley, in the first centuries (it is uncertain how many) of the presence of Sanskrit-speakers on Indian soil”.  Though the scholars treat these forms as borrowings, this study, based on the comparative linguistic methods, claims that these forms are purely cognates for these language families.
Conclusion
Linguists all over the world are viable to the rules and regulations in approaching the languages due to the fact that linguistics is scientific study of languages.  But, as we have noted earlier, in comparative Dravidian linguistics, it seems that they fail to follow the very common phenomenea such as metathesis, loss and so on.  In addition, there are a number of forms like these available in Sangam literature to substantiate this study.  Of course, this is the preliminary study.  We are in the computer world. Using the computer, we can collect more evidences thorough internet and e-mail from the scholars belonging to other languages families in the world. If the study goes on this way of hypothesis, we are able to prove that the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are under the same umbrella.

References

Burrow, T. (1968)  ‘The Loss of Initial *c/s in South Dravidian’. In Collected        Papers on Dravidian Linguistics. Annamalai University : Annamalai nagar.
Caldwell, Robert (1856) A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South         Indian Family of Languages (3rd edition, London, 1913, reprinted: Madras,     1956.
Emeneau, M. B. (1954) ‘Linguistic Prehistory of India’, PAPS-98, p.282-92.
Southworth, Franklin C.  (1976) ‘On Subgroups in Dravidian’, IJDL-5, p.114-37.
Subrahmanyam, P.S. (1983) Dravidian Comparative Phonology. Annamalai University : Annamalai nagar. 
Zvelebil, Kamil (1972) ‘The Descent of the Dravidians’, IJDL, pp57-63. 


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Tamil Language Through the Ages-(Early Period to Later Sangam Period).
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Tamil Language Through the Ages-(Early Period to Later Sangam Period).

 
Courtesy: Published in the proceedings of International Conference on Recent Advances in Linguistics (ICRAL), held in the Department of Linguistics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.
 
TAMIL LANGUAGE THROUGH THE AGES
(Early Period to Later Sangam Period)
 
Dr. A. Kamatchi
Assistant Professor
CAS in Linguistics
Annamalai University
Introduction
In the world, there was/is no language without changes.  There have been changes being taken place automatically in every language time to time, of course.  In the same way, Tamil, too, faced many changes through the ages from early period to contemporary period.  Historically speaking, there are languages which have gone not to exist in the world only because of not accepting the changes.  There were changes in writing system of Tamil, phonology, Morphology, syntax and semantics.  Thus the present paper attempts to highlight the categories which had gotten the changes in the components of the language through the ages from early period to the later Sangam period.
Changing in Writing System
There were many changes taken place in the writing system from the early stage to present day language.  Accordingly, for instance, there were no symbols for short vowels, e and o.  Only after four or five centuries later than the early period, the symbols of short vowels of them were distinguished by getting dot on their respective symbols of long vowels to differentiate from the long to the short vowels, according to Brahmi Tamil.  
While we are talking about the Brahmi scripts, it is important to note that they are divided into two kinds of Brahmi – Northern Brahmi and Southern Brahmi.  The latter kind is further subdivided into two – early Tamil Brahmi and later Tamil Brahmi.  
Short and Long Vowels of and o
It is noticed that there has been no primary symbol for the short vowel o throughout the period of Brahmi Tamil and however, there has been dot on the symbol to represent the secondary vowel ofo in the later Brahmi Tamil period of 3rd century A.D.  As far as the symbol of short vowel e is concerned, the symbol for the e is not attested in the early Brahmi Tamil period and also until the period of 3rd century A.D.  Its attestation is noticed only in the 4th century A.D.  Coming to primary and secondary symbols, the former one is attested only in the period of 4the century A.D.  whereas the latter one occurred in the period of 5th century A.D.  However, in the medieval period, the system of putting the dot on the symbol to distinguish the long versus short was missing, of course.  However, the context alone determines the long and the short vowels of e ando
Dipthong au and ai
Linguistically speaking, in both the early and later Tamil Brahmi, there was no symbol for the dipthong au.   In the same way, there has been no primary symbol for dipthong ai until the period of 6th century A. D., according to the paleography evidences although its secondary symbol is attested even in the early Brahmi period of 3rdcentury B.C. 
Consonants   
No language in the world gets dot on the symbols to represent consonant category in the writing system.  But such system is available only in Tamil.  Putting the dot on the symbols was developed only after the period of 2nd century A.D. in Tamil language.  Though such type of system had existed in the language of Tamil in the early inscriptional Tamil, this system has not prevailed in mediaeval period as well as until the nineteenth century A.D. The reason why this system is missing in these periods may be only because the palm leaves might have damaged when one could put the dot on it.  Therefore in these periods, the representation of consonant was determined according to the context identified by the word which means its meaning.
Phonology
Phonemes and Combination of Consonant and Vowel in Distribution
            The consonant y occurs only with the vowel aa in initial position in Tolkaappiyam period , according to Tolkaappiyam sutras.  But, in addition to this vowel, the vowels such as a and uu also began to occur in Sangam Tamil, as in the examples like yavanar andyuukam, respectively.  Considering the later Sangam period, the vowel oo also occurs with the consonant y in this period, as in the case of yookam
            As far as the distribution of c is concerned, the phoneme coccurs with all the vowels except the vowels such as a, ai and au in the initial position.  Nonetheless, in Sangam period, its occurrence was also with the vowels a and ai.  In other words, the vowel aualone did not occur with the consonant, c, in the initial position.  Concerning the distribution of ñ, in the initial position, this consonant occurs only with the vowels aaand o in Tolkaappiyam period.  In Sangam period, however, the consonant ñ occurs also with the vowelsand i in addition to the vowels which have been mentioned earlier. 
            Until the Sangam stage, there had been no word with initial consonant r.  From the later Sangam period onwards, the word with initial r started to occur in Tamil, as in iraaman and iraavaNan.  Actually, such type of words was borrowed from other languages and tamilized in the language. Nonetheless, this type of words always occurs with the vowel, i, in initial. The reason why these words are getting this vowel in the initial position is that as pointed out earlier, the structure of early Tamil did not allow the consonant r in the initial position of the word and also it should maintain the language structure.  At the same time, the language should fulfill its needs so that the language should accept the words borrowed from the other languages as well.         
In the same way, the lateral consonant l is not allowed to enter into the initial position until the period of Sangam age.  From the later Sangam period onwards, its initial position was gradually permitted to use it in the initial position.  As a result, we see the words like lookamin the later Sangam texts. 
Among the eighteen consonants in Tamil, ten consonants – N, n, m, ṉ, y, r, l, v, l,  and  - occur in final position of the word, according to Tolkaappiyam.  All the same, in Sangam period, one more consonant, ñ, not occurring in the final position in Tolkaappiyam period, started to occur in this position in Sangam period.
Morphology
Tense
In Tolkaappiyam period, there are three tenses – past, present and future – according to Tolkaappiyam sutras.  Though it mentions three tenses, it does not point out what are the tense markers in Tamil in Tolkaappiyam period.   But, in contrast to this statement made by Tolkaappiyar, there are only two tenses – past and nonpast – in Sangam period, according to the findings by modern linguists working in the field of classical Tamil.  When we go to Brahmi Tamil, it is evidently pointed out that the past tense markers are elaborately attested in the Brahmi Tamil but only one occurrence with future marker is attested in this corpus.  Although modern linguists pointed out that only two tenses – past and nonpast – occur in Sangam period, the very rare occurrence of present tense marker is, however, attested in three times in Narrinai.  Though the number of occurrence in NaRRinai is three, its finite verb form is only one, i.e. aakinRatu, ‘becomes it’.  But in ParipaaTal text, this marker comes along with other verb root, ceer, like ceerkinRa ‘which joins’, the occurrence of which is the adjectival participle as far as its structure is concerned.   There are two markers – kiR and kinR – to denote the present time in the later Sangam period.  Nevertheless, both the markers occur in Manimekalai text whereas the form -kinR- alone is attested incilappatikaaram text, but there is an absence of -kiR- marker in this text.  It is peculiar to be noted that the form –kuv-, which was not mentioned by Tolkaappiyam and not attested in the later Sangam period, existed in Sangam period to denote the concept of nonpast in general and future in particular.   
Case and Postposition
            As far as the case markers are concerned, the marker –aal was developed to represent the instrumental case in the later Sangam period. Furthermore, another case marker –uTaya is also developed to denote the meaning of the genitive case in this period.  In the same way, from this period onwards, the new concept of postposition began to develop in the language and the postposition markers, such askoNTu to denote the meaning of instrumental case and uTan  to mean the sociative case, started to exist in the first time in the language in this period. 
Pronoun
The absence of the first person is noticed in the period of Brahmi Tamil.  The form yaam is pointed out by Tolkaappiyam.  This is also attested in Sangam and later Sangam periods.  But the formnaan, the equalent form of yaan, is attested only one time in ParipaaTal of Sangam texts and later it was well developed in the period of later Sangam.  As far as the second person plural is concerned, the forms niir and niivir are clearly pointed out by Tolkaappiyam.  But in Sangam period niir and niiyir are attested.  As far as the oblique form of second person plural is concerned, the formnum, but not um, is attested in Sangam Tamil.  The form um, which is derived from num after loosing the initial phoneme in num, started to occur in ParipaaTal where it is available in only one place.  Nevertheless, its occurrences have increased in the later Sangam period.  In the same manner, there was a form nin for representing the second person singular in Sangam period and however, instead of nin, the form un started to enter into the texts of the later Sangam period.  
Place Adverb
            The interrogative place adverb yaaŋku started to become eŋkuonly in the later Sangam period.  In other words, it can be explained that the long vowel in the initial syllable started to get shortening from this period.  From this period onwards, the initial long vowels of demonstrative place adverbs such as aaŋku and iiŋku become shortened like aŋku and iŋku, respectively. 
Demonstrative
            There are three demonstratives – a, i, and u – enumerated by Tolkaappiyam.  The same forms are attested in Sangam period.  But in the later sangam period, in addition to these demonstratives, they were developed to demonstrative pronoun status like anta and inta.  Nonetheless, though the remote and proximate demonstrative pronouns were attested, we are not able to find out the intermediate demonstrative pronoun in the later Sangam period.  Further, it is to be notably pointed out that the form anta and inta ate attested in Manimeekalai, but the latter form only occurs in Cilappatikaaram.
Lexicon
Many words with initial plus aa which existed in Tolkaappiyam period began to lose the initial consonant y from these words, rarely in Sangam period and widely in the later Sangam Period.  For instance, one can exemplify the words such as yaaTu >aaTu, yaamai>aamai, yaaRu>aaRu and so on.  The form ellaam, which occurs only with nonhuman noun in Tolkaappiyam period and in Sangam period, started to go with the human noun as well from the later Sangam period.  It is evident to say example like antaNar ellaam, that is the only one example (attested in the later Sangam period) which started to violate the rules of the language structure that prevailed in the early periods.   
Conclusion
For this study, only the random samples have been selected and analyzed in this paper.  If this methodology is used to whole texts of composed and published materials produced in time to time in different periods in the language, a lot of things could definitely be unearthed through the study.  Of course, it is the pioneer attempt in this field.  We have a lot of facilities nowadays.  Using these facilities we can easily find out what are the grammatical items available or not available in the texts belonging to a particular period and/or different periods. Further, it is noteworthy to mention that every text in medieval Tamil should be typed and supplied to the computer.  Of course, for this laborious work, definitely it needs not only man power to do the work but also the huge amount of funds.    Otherwise, we cannot achieve this task.  One problem we are going to face is that feeding the texts available in Sangam period or the later Sangam period is not a problem.  However, it is not easy task when we try to feed the texts pertaining to the mediaeval period as well as the modern period texts.  The reason is that there are numerous text materials available in the language and everything should be computerized for this study and then we have to start such work so that this study will achieve the tremendous task in this field, of course. Once we complete such a work, I hope, it will be the pioneer one in this field, no doubt at all.
Bibliography
Agesthialingom, S. 1979. A Grammar of Old Tamil with reference to PatiRRuppattu, Annamalai University Publication : Annamalai Nagar.
Anjali Annabai. 1980. Tolkappiyam and the Language of Manimekalai, Ph. D. Thesis, Madurai Kamaraj University.
Israel, M. 1973.  The Treatement of Morphology in Tolkappiyam.  Madurai : Madurai University Publications.
Mahadevan, I. 1970.  Tamil-Brāhmi  Inscriptions.  Madras : Tamilnadu State Development of Archaeology. 
Mahadevan, I.  2003.  Early Tamil Epigraphy (from the earliest times to the Sixth century A.D.).  Chennai : Cre-A & Cambridge : Harvard University.
Meenakshisundaran, T. P.1965.  A History of the Tamil Language.Poona : Deccan College Post Graduate and Research institute.
Sakthivel, S. 1984. Tamil moli varalaaRu, Manivasakar patippakam, Chennai.
Subramanya Sastri, P.S.S. 1979. Tolkappiyam – Collatikāram with An English Commentary.  Annaalai Nagar : Annamalai University. (First published in 1945)
------------- 1955.  Tolkappiyam-eluttatikāram.   Commentary by Naccinārkkiniyar.  Madras : Kalakam Edition.


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