DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Absence of /kha/, /ga/, /gha/, /cha/, /tha/, etc, signs in T

**Lillie_Steins** · 04-21-2006, 08:00 AM

What is wrong about making changes that expand the sounds we can pronounce:

I want to write George Bush in a way that, even if my reader doesn't know the name he will read iot right. Not as Saarchchu Bus.

Ironicaly 'Bus' is better written in Tamil than English, we need to figure a way around that too

From the 12th century up to around the 19th century, Tamils used to have a rather interesting way of writing when the subject matter required them to use a lot of Sanskrit words. They used to in effect write using both the Grantham script (which was basically a different script, with some letters similar to Tamil and others different, which Tamils used to write Sanskrit) and the normal Tamil vattezhuthu. If, therefore, they had to write the phrase "tirumaalin kamalanayangal", they would write 'tirumaalin' in the vattezhuthu, "kamalanayana" in the Grantha script, and "ngal" in the vattezhuthu. I have an old copy of a commentary on a portion of the amarakosha in Tamil, and they use this system. It works very well.

So an interesting solution to the problem, which may be a middle way, will be to readopt this system. We take the old Grantham script, and add a few letters to it to represent sounds which we need today, but which Sanskrit doesn't have (like "f", the flat "ö", the rounded "å", the flat "ä" or "æ", and so on). We then use it together with the Tamil vattezhuthu, just as was done when using Sanskrit words with Tamil.

04-21-2006, 08:00 AM	#16
Lillie_Steins Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 4,508 Senior Member	What is wrong about making changes that expand the sounds we can pronounce: I want to write George Bush in a way that, even if my reader doesn't know the name he will read iot right. Not as Saarchchu Bus. Ironicaly 'Bus' is better written in Tamil than English, we need to figure a way around that too From the 12th century up to around the 19th century, Tamils used to have a rather interesting way of writing when the subject matter required them to use a lot of Sanskrit words. They used to in effect write using both the Grantham script (which was basically a different script, with some letters similar to Tamil and others different, which Tamils used to write Sanskrit) and the normal Tamil vattezhuthu. If, therefore, they had to write the phrase "tirumaalin kamalanayangal", they would write 'tirumaalin' in the vattezhuthu, "kamalanayana" in the Grantha script, and "ngal" in the vattezhuthu. I have an old copy of a commentary on a portion of the amarakosha in Tamil, and they use this system. It works very well. So an interesting solution to the problem, which may be a middle way, will be to readopt this system. We take the old Grantham script, and add a few letters to it to represent sounds which we need today, but which Sanskrit doesn't have (like "f", the flat "ö", the rounded "å", the flat "ä" or "æ", and so on). We then use it together with the Tamil vattezhuthu, just as was done when using Sanskrit words with Tamil.
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