Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s4.t1: 2.4.1 Phonological structure of the script
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s4.t1
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2.4.1 Phonological structure of the script
c21.s4.t1.1
Subrahmanya Aiyer begins by pointing to a "powerful misguiding factor" that what is written in Brāhmī must necessarily be in Pāli or Sanskrit, as the script and the language are "inseparably associated in our minds".¹ Having freed himself from this assumption, he proceeds to delineate the phonological structure of the script employed in the cave inscriptions as follows.²
c21.s4.t1.2
¹ K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer 1924: p. 282.
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² Ibid. pp. 283-284.
c21.s4.t1.4
(1) The *varga-prathamas* have generally been used.
(2) The soft consonants i.e., the *varga-tṛtīyas* are conspicuous by their absence.
(3) *śa* and *ṣha* are not met with, though *sa* is occasionally found.
(4) The lingual *ḷa* occurs frequently.
(5) Almost all the vowels with the exception of *ai*, *au*, *ṛi*, *lṛ*, *aṁ* and *aḥ* are represented.
(6) In the case of combined consonants the occurrence of short *e* and *o* deserve special attention, the two being the special characteristics of the Dravidian alphabets.³
(7) The aspirates are seldom used; the only two letters that are met with are *ṭha*⁴ and *dha*.
(8) Some symbols which never find use in the contemporary Asokan edicts are here employed and the sounds which they represent remain to be determined. This is a factor which at once points out that the language employed in the inscriptions contains sounds that could not be represented by the symbols extant in the Asokan code.
c21.s4.t1.5
³ The reference is obviously to the short *e* and *o* sounds in Dravidian, which are not, however, graphically represented in the early cave inscriptions.
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⁴ *ṭh* does not in fact occur. The earlier form of *ḻ* was misread as *ṭh* by Krishna Sastri and Subrahmanya Aiyer.
c21.s4.t1.7
Subrahmanya Aiyer also drew pointed attention to the complete absence of conjunct consonants in this script.⁵ His analysis decisively ruled out Indo-Aryan as the language of the cave inscriptions.
c21.s4.t1.8
⁵ Ibid. p. 288.