Indian Palaeography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300 c8.s6.t1.1

c8.s6.t1.1

The Tamil, as well as its southern and western cursive variety, the Vaṭṭeḷuttu or "roundhand," differs from the Sanskrit alphabet by the absence not only of the ligatures, but also of the signs for the aspirates, for the *mediae* (expressed by the corresponding *tenues*), for the sibilants (among which the palatal one is expressed by *ca*), for the spirant *ha*, for the Anusvāra and for the Visarga, as well as by the development of new letters for final *n*, and for *ṟa*, *ḻa* and *ḷa*, which latter three characters do not resemble those for the corresponding sounds in the Kanarese-Telugu script. The great simplicity of the alphabet fully agrees with the theories of the Tamil grammarians, and is explained by the peculiar phonetics of the Tamil language. Like all the older Dravidian dialects, the Tamil possesses no aspirates and no spirant. Further, it has no *ja*, and only one sibilant, which, according to CALDWELL, lies between *śa*, *ṣa* and *ca*, and which, if doubled, becomes a distinct *cca*. **[71]** The use of separate signs for the *tenues* and *mediae* was unnecessary on account of their mutual convertibility. The Tamil uses in the beginning of words only *tenues*, and in the middle only double *tenues* or single *mediae*. Hence, all words and affixes beginning with gutturals, linguals, dentals and labials, have double forms.¹ A knowledge of these simple rules makes mistakes, regarding the real phonetic value of *ka*, *ṭa*, *ta* and *pa*, impossible. The use of ligatures probably has been discarded because the Tamil allows even in loan-words no other combinations of consonants but repetitions of the same sound, and because it seemed more convenient to use in these cases the Virāma.²