Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s22.t1.1

c26.s22.t1.1

Caldwell's celebrated 'law of convertibility of surds and sonants' states that the stops are always pronounced as surds in initial position and when doubled, and as sonants in medial (intervocalic and postnasal) positions.¹ The law was formulated by him on the basis of modern Tamil pronunciation. The question whether this law held good in earlier times has long been debated.² There is no direct evidence as the Tamil script does not distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants. Attempts have been made to settle the question on the basis of Tamil loanwords in Indo-Aryan and Western classical languages and also in Kannada and Telugu literary works and inscriptions, as the scripts of these languages could have faithfully recorded voicing in the loanwords.³ The problem has also been studied more rigorously utilising the comparative method of Dravidian phonology.⁴ As far as Old Tamil is concerned, there is at present a consensus among Dravidian linguists that stops had weakened or lenis articulation leading to voicing in medial positions.