Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s2: § 2. Canarese Phonetics
Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s2
- Language
- English
§ 2. Canarese Phonetics
c10.s2.1
The Hindu civilization of the Canarese country is quite as old as that of the Tamil people, but the earliest traces we find of writing are in a modified form of the Açoka character, and the orthography, with a few unimportant exceptions and allowing for the obsolete form of the letters, is just what we find now. About the tenth century A. D. Canarese grammar was treated on the principles of the Sanskrit grammarians of the Aindra school[^1), and with steady reference to Sanskrit phonetics; the author of the Canarese Grammar “Çabdamaṇidarpaṇa” evidently considered the alphabet he used as a mere adaptation from the Sanskrit, and he was perfectly right in doing so. His account is as follows[^2):
c10.s2.2
There are fourteen Sanskrit-Canarese vowels (a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ṛi, ṝi, lṛi, lṝi, e, ai, o and au) and in Canarese e and o have both long and short forms. There are 34 Sanskrit-Canarese consonants classed (vargāxara) and unclassed (avargāxara), that is to say, the ordinary Sanskrit alphabet with xa; but of these aspirates are not used in Canarese, except in some peculiar cases. To these are added the peculiarly Canarese letters r̥, ḷ̥ and ḷ. The author then states (p. 44) that there are only 47 letters in pure Canarese—a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ĕ, ē, ai, ŏ, ō, au; k, kh, g, gh, ṅ, c, ch, j, jh, ń, ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh, ṇ, t, th, d, dh, n, p, ph, b, bh, m, y, r, l, v, s, h, x, r̥, ḷ̥, ḷ. The Sanskrit prepossessions of the author have induced him to include erroneously the aspirates and x; h is the modern representative of p. Rejecting these letters, therefore, the remainder represent very nearly the sounds we find really to exist in Tamil.
c10.s2.3
This Canarese Grammar is, like the Tamil Tölkāppiyam and Nannūl, a very complete work, and is really what it professes to be.
c10.s2.4
[^1): As to what is to be understood by the Aindra Grammar see my book on this subject, 1875. [^2): Kittel’s “Çabdamaṇidarpaṇa”, pp. 13-45.