Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s7: 2.7 The first linguistic study
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s7
- Language
- English
2.7 The first linguistic study
c21.s7.1
In 1964, Kamil Zvelebil, the renowned Dravidianist, published the first formal study of the language of the cave inscriptions.⁵ The linguistic analysis is based on his readings of 34 inscriptions from 13 sites.⁶ His readings from the photographs of estampages published in *ARE* stay close to those of Krishna Sastri and Subrahmanya Aiyer with only a few relatively minor emendations. It is thus inevitable that Zvelebil's readings share the same problems which have affected the earlier attempts, namely, lack of understanding of the relevant rules of orthography, wrong identification of the earlier forms of ***ḻ*** and ***ṟ***, and the generally incorrect readings based on unsatisfactory estampages. As regards orthography, Subrahmanya Aiyer's rule that the penultimate vowel in a word tended to get unnecessarily lengthened, was extended by Zvelebil to include the "ultimate and penultimate syllables" ⁷ also. However, this modification too does not cover all the observed cases of apparent lengthening of vowels (e.g., **i ḷā nā tā ṉa** for ***iḷanataṉ*** in **No. 17**).⁸ The simpler and more elegant solution to the problem of apparent lengthening of vowels is to recognise the dual values of the medial sign representing **-a** and **-ā** according to the context. In spite of these problems, Zvelebil was able to reach the conclusion that the language of the cave inscriptions is basically Tamil, though in a "hybridized form".⁹ We shall consider the results of Zvelebil's linguistic analysis more fully in the next chapter.¹⁰
c21.s7.2
⁵ Kamil Zvelebil 1964: *Archiv Orientalni*, 32, pp. 647-675 (reprinted in ) *Tamil Culture*, vol. XII, No. 1 (1966): pp. 13-50 (=KZ). Citations are from the latter source.
c21.s7.3
⁶ Excluding Sittannavasal II which belongs to a later period (ca. 8th century A.D.).
c21.s7.4
⁷ Kamil Zvelebil 1966: p. 46.
c21.s7.5
⁸ My earlier attempt to explain the apparent lengthening of the final syllable (-a > -ā) as due to writing the final *-ṉ* as *-aṉ* also failed for the same reason (I. Mahadevan 1965c).
c21.s7.6
⁹ Kamil Zvelebil 1966: p. 48.
c21.s7.7
¹⁰ See section 3.1.