Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c5.s3.14

c5.s3.14

Vaṭṭeḻuttu letters; the others differ totally, yet several of these sounds (**ḷ**, **ḻ**, **ṟ**) exist in the other Dravidian languages, and distinct letters have been invented to express them. Thus the Tamil-Malayāḷam **ḻ** is expressed by ழ, the Canarese identical letter by ೞ. Again the Telugu-Canarese **ṟ** is expressed by ఱ, whereas the same letter in Tamil is written ற, so the Telugu-Canarese and Tamil **ḷ** which are identical in sound are written quite differently. There is also a peculiarity in the popular Tamil way of naming the letters; in Sanskrit (excepting repha=**r**) names of letters are formed by adding -kāra to the letter in question; in Tamil -na is affixed to short and -vēna to long syllables, every consonant being named with some vowel following it¹).