Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s12.t4: 5.12.4 Tamil-Brāhmī ṉ
Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c25.s12.t4
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5.12.4 Tamil-Brāhmī ṉ
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(a) Formation of ṉ
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The Tamil-Brāhmī *ṉ* is formed by the addition of an angular or cursive attachment to the top of the Brāhmī letter *n* (Chart 3: IV.1-3).
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Dravidian linguists are not agreed on the question whether the dental nasal *n* and the alveolar nasal *ṉ* are two different phonemes or merely allophones of one phoneme. These are, however, treated as different sounds in Tamil grammatical tradition (*Tol. Eḻu.* 20). The fact that those responsible for the invention of the Tamil-Brāhmī script fashioned a separate character for *ṉ* by modifying *n* is clear evidence that there must have been a distinction in sound between the two letters in the language at that time. The retention of two sounds (but represented by one letter) in Malayalam even at present corroborates the view that the alveolar nasal *ṉ* was a distinct phoneme in Old Tamil. However, even in the cave inscriptions there are instances of *ṉ* being written as *n* (e.g., No. 59).
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(b) *Evolution of ṉ
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The earliest form of *ṉ* in the cave inscriptions resembles an inverted J (Chart 3: IV.³). The angular form (ibid. IV.²) preserved in the pottery inscriptions at Arikamedu (Chart 7: AKW 9; AKB 22) and Kodumanal (ibid. KDM 38) is probably equally early as indicated by the similar mode of formation of the letters *ḷ*, *ṟ* and *ṉ*. In one of the variant forms, the top attachment is almost flattened making the letter look like *nā* (Chart 5B: *ṉ*: *21*). In course of time, the baseline to the left of the vertical becomes shorter and the top hook gets bigger and tends to bend lower until it almost touches the baseline and goes down even below (Chart 3: IV. 4). In a parallel development, the baseline gets elongated towards the left and the hook at right becomes smaller (ibid. IV. 5). In Early Vaṭṭeluttu, the baseline has shrunk into a small hook attached to the top left of the larger curve (ibid. IV. 6). See also Charts 5B and 6 to 8 for attested forms.
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(c) *Occurrence of Tamil-Brāhmī ṉ in Sinhala-Brāhmī inscriptions
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Pushparatnam,¹ has recently discovered the occurrence of the Tamil-Brāhmī letter *ṉ* in a couple of Sinhala-Brāhmī inscriptions published by Paranavitana (e.g., detail in Fig. 5.8).² He made the discovery in the course of his study of the Tamil loanword *marumakaṉ* occurring in the cave inscriptions of Sri Lanka. While in most cases the loanword is spelt with the dental *n*, the alveolar nasal *ṉ* of Tamil-Brāhmī occurs twice.³ This discovery is important because the expression is shown to be borrowed from Tamil,⁴ and also because the occurrence of *ṉ*, the most characteristic letter of Tamil-Brāhmī, in the Sinhala-Brāhmī inscriptions proves the existence of the Tamil-Brāhmī script from at least the 2nd century B.C., the date to which one of these inscriptions (No. 643) may be assigned on palaeographic evidence.
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¹ P. Pushparatnam 2000b (unpublished): Figs. 1 & 2.
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² S. Paranavitana 1970: No. 643 (Early Period) and No. 1161 (Late Period).
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³ Ibid.
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⁴ Cf. especially the variant *marumān* < Ta. *marumakaṉ* in No. 1161 (ibid.).