CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL TAMIL the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT), established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, with a view to promoting the cause of Classical Tamil, has mapped out various plans including preparation of definitive editions of forty one Classical Tamil texts; translation of these ‘works into English and other major European languages ‘as wells into. major Indian languages; making of visual episodes on Classical Tamil language, literature, ‘epigraphy and architecture; development of material for the online teaching of Classical Tamil; writing of a historical grammar of Tamil; undertaking diachronic and synehronie studies of Tamil dialects; creation of a corpus of Classical Tamil texts; establishment of a digital library; stady of India asa linguistic area; and promotion ‘of multidisciplinary research on Classical Tamil ~ all of which will address the vital issue of the antiquity and ‘uniqueness of Tamil CHIEF EDITOR PROF. S. MOHAN EDITOR PROF. K. RAMASAMY ASSOCIATE EDITORS PROF. P. MARUDANAYAGAM PROF. M. S. NAGARAJAN DR. M. RAMAKRISHNAN MESSAGE Meeting National Training Programmes National Seminars MOA Registration From Lexical Affinities berween Tamil and Finnish by Hannu Panu Aukusti Hakala Nore 3537 Afintis of Tamil with Pre-Indo European Languages: by P. Ramanathan EXCERPT FROM BROCHURE 3 Kolaifar M, Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award anricur 29-44 How did the “Great God” get a Blue Neck”? ‘ABBilingual Clue tothe Indus Seri by Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan exeavarion ss ‘Rare Finds ftom Porunthal by Prof. K. Rajan vranures 8 Prof. Kamil Vaclav Zvelebil Prof. V.1, Subramoniam Quotes Archacoogial Finds Fron a Chote From ICT ICT’ Publications aie p Website Dr U.NeSs's 155° Binh Anniversary | Prof S, Mohan being greeted From CICT's Programme Apex Implementation Commitee CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL TAMIL ‘(Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Dept. of Higher Education, Languages Division) Palaru Illam, No. 6, Kamarajar Salai ‘Chepauk, Chennai - 600 005 (Tamil Nadu, INDIA) Ph: 044 - 28443222 / 28442716 Fax: 044 - 28448888, Emails: info@cict.in / director@ciet.inienSen cuffs giSifienn eitePeorta —Lifoio lad by love; bodies of loveless men acnyGene Gonisg ei ee ateet atte mece a Mc: than a hundred years of dream that Tamil scholars and Tamils all over the world entertained about their language, became a reality through the official recognition of the ‘Classical’ status of Tamil on 12 October 2004 by the Government of India. In making the dream a reality, the role played by the Hon'ble Chie Minister of Tamil Nadu, Kalaifar M, Karunanidhi deserves to be engraved in golden letersin the history of Tamil language. ‘The Central Plan Scheme for Classical Tamil, in continuation of the recognition, was evolved in July 2005 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of India and the responsibility of implementation was entrusted to the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL}, Mysore. The scheme included four major components, i.e. Tamil Language Promotion Board (TLPS), Centre of Excellence for Classical Tamil (CECT), Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships and Awards. TLPB, asan advisory body for the entire scheme, was constituted in October 2005, for which, 1 was nominated as the Chairman. As Twas involved in both decision making and implementation of the scheme, | ‘would like to record here some of the significant developments that have taken place so far. ‘Anaction plan was chalked out during the first meeting of the TLPB held in Chennai on 10 December 2005. The action plan was subsequently discussed in a series of sittings by eminent scholars and a major decision was taken that the focus should be on the Classical phase of Tamil, ic. from the earliest period to 600 A.D. The CECT was established in ‘March 2006 under the aegis ofthe Cit with the supervision of its Director. Before the end ‘of 2006, formation of Project Advisory Committees, outsourcing of specialists in diverse areas, awarding of doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships, formulation of procedures for the Presidential awards, establishment of library ina small way, releasing of a newsletter in English, launching of website and conducting academic programmes were completed, ‘A great deal of awareness about Classical Tamil studies was created among the scholars ‘across the world through the Centre's multifarious activities. During the tenure of the TLPB, an Apex Implementation Committee (AIC) was constituted by the MHRD for establishing a Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CIeT) at ‘Only these two Chennai, I served as a Vice Chairman of this committee. Based on the recommendations atising of the AIC, the establishment of CICT was approved by the Govt. of India on 13 August 2007 @ and it was inaugurated by Mr. Arjun Singh, the Hon'ble Minister of HRD, Govt. of India from among high hills tinder the Chairmanship ofthe Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on 18 August 2007 in flourish ‘Chennai, The CECT was shifted to Chennai on 19 May 2008 and subsumed under CICT, which started functioning under the Chairmanship of the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Tamil venerated by the great Nady and guidance ofthe AIC. Aesteoy ‘The progress on the whole is significant, Several research reports have been completed the darkness of the world and they are being evaluated. A book on Dravidian comparative grammar, seven issues of i English newsletter, an audio CD on the traditional rendering of Classical Tamil verses and surrounded by the noisy seas oe Seve cbs onthe recitation of Tolkdppivam have been released. Twenty five visual One episodes (DVDs) relating to ancient Tamil literature, grammar, inscriptions and coins have a lightning-ike been produced. The Library is equipped with about 15,000 rare books and Cbs containing Singular die the digital versions of palm leal manuscripts. Thirty doctoral and twelve postdoctoral fellowships have been awarded to deserving young scholars engaged in research on the hot-rayed sun classical Tamil, Financial assistance for short term projects has been extended to sixty the other scholars. Two eminent scholars and fifteen young scholars have been selected for the te tebalel Presidential awards forthe years 2005.06,2006-07 & 2007-08. With the valuable support of the Union Government and scholars from all over the forld, I hope that the Institute will flourish as an organization of academic excellence ith international stature. . vere br. pinta see one ee ee atieey a hnataeeey WisitConi_getump CouiaxAGyrsir Gpensora igs VICE CHAIRMAN p NCO aeivGar Peon gab.AFFINITIES OF TAMIL WITH “PRE-INDO EUROPEAN” LANGUAGES RAMANATHAN 1 Nhe Polish scholar, Benon Zbigniew Szatek, (Professor, Heuristics and Praxiology (Head), Faculty of Arts, University of Szczecin), has been doing uniquely valuable work in the highly specialized field of affinities between proto Tamil / proto Dravidian with the “pre-Indo European” languages which existed in Mediterranean countries and in Anatolia (Asia Minor! present Asiatic Turkey) before the intrusion into the area of Indo-European speakers circa 1700 B.C., and also with Egyptian, Sumerian and the language of Indus Valley. When he published in 1999 his The Narmini Report deciphering the Indus script as Dravidian, he joined the handful of scholars (Parpola, Mahadevan, Madhivanan and Jeeva) now with us who are now ‘engaged in arriving at an acceptable decipherment of Indus script based on the most likely hypothesis that the Indus language and script were Dravidian. 2 In his present 72 page analysis, supplemented by 130 tables occupying 166 pages, Szalek's conclusions are: a, “According t© my research, the Lycian and Lydian inseriptions from Asia Minor (dated at the ‘7th - 2nd centuries B.C.) contain Dravidian texts.” ©. 63) Lycian 150 onstoneobjectsand 100 on coins.] [The number of inscriptions is small: b. “My impression is that the Lycian language is closely related to the Tamil language.” (p.45) c. “Lydian is a Dravidian language, closely related to Tamil.”(p. 55) dd. “Was there a genetic continuity between the Termiloi of the 14" century B.C. and the ‘TRIM"MILI of the 5" century B.C.? According to Herodotus, they arrived from Crete, and as we know from frescoes, Crete was inhabited (before 1200 B.C.) not only by tribes belonging to the white race, but also by an ethnie group (non Indo-European), whose representatives were dark-skinned. Were they of Bravidian origin?” (p. 59) ©. “According to my research, Old Egyptian is an agglutinative language (like Sumerian) and has much in common with Tamil and other Dravidian Languages spoken by dark-skinned peoples.” (p.39) f. “ult is possible that the Pelasgians were related to the Etruscansand Sumerians...” (p.28) iology (2006, Poland, Europe: Szczecin, pp. 72+166). SN a Chemijii: Hi co [Herodotus: “a band of Termilai led by a chief named Pandion was settled in Athens.” The Athenians claimed a Pelasgian ancestry and. in doing so, believed that they were the autochthonous inhabitants of Attica} ig. “My findings cast new light on the affiliation of and Lydian languages but also on the development of our civilization.” (p.5) 3 Father Heras had expressed in an article as early as in 1936 that the "Termilai’ of Herodotus are the same as Dramilar (Tamilar) of India and he has reiterated this in 1953. in his Studies in Proto-Indo Mediterranean Culture (p. 484). No doubt Heras’s decipherments of the Indus inscriptions (he read them all as logographic) in his book are now not accepted, but the book contains many rare insights which are now slowly getting validated, S.K. Chatterji (1953), H.S, David (1954 etc.), and J.T. Cometius (1971) have also mentioned that Lycians (Termmilai), Carians and Lydians were not Indo-European but Dravidian, Legrand (1954) listed a numberof Greek words which he thought were not Indo- European, but entered Greek from Pelasgian (some ‘words through Minoans or Etruscans). Headed “I have ‘no doubt about their ultimate Dravidian origin” (If he ‘was writing now, he woulld have nuanced his conclusion by adding that some of them might be Nostratic survivals). The words listed by Legrand were palai [Palaiya]; nereids (= nymphs of the sea) in Iliad, nero (modem Greek) [ni]; per, peri [perival; tyrannes [tiran|; pagos [paku, paiku); gyne [pen] aner [ax]: paida (paiyay]; gala = milk (pal, Kannada hau]; cheir (kai) F Much stronger (stronger than the findings ofthe scholars ‘mentioned in pre paragraph) support for Szatek's thesis has been provided by N. Lahovary in his Dravidian Origins and The West (1963). He has, with hundreds of citations of structural and morphological parallels, etymological parallels and points explained from the phonetic angle, furnished persuasive proof for the following conclusions the Lyci 1. From India to the Atlantic, there extended, some six thousand years ago, a continuous bloc of the same type of polysynthetic and mostly suffixal languages, which shared to a varying degree, a note on Benon Zbigniew Szalek’s Lycian, Lydian and Other Ancient Languages in the Light of Heuristics andEB Bnosyi partially common vocabulary. Dravidian, Elamite, Sumerian, Hurti, Caucasian, and without doubt, other Asianic languages, such as Haldi and Hatt, formed thus a continuous chain of more or less related tongues with a very particular structure, (p.366) ji, Dravidian was related, not only to Basque (= Euscara), a pre Indo-European language which still survives inthe Pyrennees on the borderland between France and Spain, but to all the pre Indo-European languages ofthe ancient western world. (9. 367) iii, All these languages were closely connected and were probably but dialects of the same mother tongue, with Basque somehow as its vanguard inthe extreme southwest of the continent. (p. 367) twill be clear from paragraphs 2 and 3 above that Prof Szalek’s thesis is fully justified. It remains to set down a few telling instances of affinities found by Szalek between Tamil on the one hand and Lycian and Lydian on the other. Before that, it is necessary to demolish some Aunt Sallies usually setup in this field (9 One objection blithely ralsed is “Have proto forms been reconstructed and accepted?” On this point, following the wise advice of Dell Hymes in his brief biography of Morris Swadesh appended to Swadesh The Origin and Diversification of Language (1972) is appropriate: Some linguists have wanted to workas ifeach level of relationship had to be fully reconstructed before a deeper level of relationship could be broached, and as if the penetration of the linguistic past could bbe accomplished only in additive, unidirectional mechanical way. I (Hymes) believe this approach tobe demonstrably wrong. Certainly it was not the way of working of Sapir and Swadesh, who moved back and forth between the immediate and the remote levels of prehistory (finding the two mutually illuminating). Swadesh once mentioned that Sapir had corresponded with Berthold Laufer fon Sino Tibetan connection with Athapascan. (p. 265) (ii) On this “reconstruction” business mentioned by Hymes, it should be noted that in their Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (1961/1984), Burrow and Emeneau had wisely decided not to hypothesize proto Dravidian reconstructions, with asterisked symbols. Jaroslav Vacek was also of the same view [Archiv =e Orientalni 64,(1996)]-vide: “Reconstructions are mostly a means of summing Uupa group of lexemes and thus they may very well serve pedagogical purposes, but hardly anything more, especially ifwe have todo with afield where many things are quite uncertain or our knowledge of the subject is stil developing. Reconstruction are simply relative to the state of development of our knowledge and in such a situation, there is, danger that reconstructions might be misleading and would not help the proper understanding of the material.” “,.meaning is of great importance... a semantically structured group of related lexemes cannot be easily explained away asa coincidence.” (p.37) (iii) Richard D. Janda and Brian D. Joseph also cautions us in their The Handbook of Historical Linguisties (2003): “We do not so much “reconstruct” a proto- language as “construct” it in the first place (although subsequent revisions of such CONSTRUCTS could perhaps be called RECONSTRUCTS). In fact, it might be preferable, as a precautionary measure for diachronicians to talk about “speculating” a proto- language (or part of an attested language state) rather than about “reconstructing” it.”(p.95) ‘The following encouraging words of Janda and Joseph have alsoto be mentioned: “A. scientific (sub) discipline cannot make significant progress by refusing to propose any ‘generalizations until it has gotten everything right.”(p. 128) “Cooperation among historical linguists of differing interests and expertise is also likely to bea sine qua non for future breakthroughs in linguistic. diachrony.”(p. 129) i We have also to bear in mind that, unlike during the time of the scholars mentioned in paragraphs 3 and 4 above, there has in the past two decades evolved an overwhelming consensus among scientists that Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) evolved in Africa about 1,50,000 years ago and spread outto the rest of the world after about 70000 BP and one main line of spread was along South India (including its Continental Shelf- which before 10000 BP would have extended two hundred miles beyond the present shoreline, as was the case everywhere at the time). Recent Nostratic studies & 3 January-Juneetc., have also confirmed that proto Tamil/Dravidian speakers have been autochthons of South India since many many millennia before 10,0000 BP and that other language families like Indo-European, Ural-Altaic ete. are likely to have hived off (from the common “proto Dravidian-Indo-European-Ural-Altaic”) during. the course of the ASCENT of proto-Dravidian out of South India and India; Sumerian, Egyptian, Mediterranean, Etruscan, Lycian, Lydian ete., having branched off earliest from proto-Dravidian, (See Ramanathan 1998; 2003; 2004 and Levitt 2007) It should be kept in view als that in the view of Burrow, Zyelebil, Devaneyan et., it willbe quite proper to work fon the basis of ancient literary Tamil in the matter of comparing Tamil/Dravidian with other ancient Languages: Burrow (1968); “It is not necessary to go beyond the phonetic nature of classical Tamil to account for primitive Dravidian.” (Quoted in Zvelebil 1972, p.63) Zvelebil (1972): “It is, I think, quite evident that fneient Literary Tamil has a phonological and grammatical system which correspond in many points rather closely with the those of parent proto-Dravidian speech.” (P. 62) Thus the lines on which Szalek has worked in establishing affinities between Tamil/Dravidian and Lycianand Lydian are quite sound. A few telling instances of lexical and morphological/grammatical affinities between Tamil/Dravidian on the one hand and Lycian and Lydian onthe othe, revealed by Szalek may now be set down: LYCIAN ‘TAMIL The mei rmey=truth. ‘selleime cellam = fortune, benevolence adime slave) ebttchi ku ippatikki (=so) Idi (wife) abreviation of illam llth Pronouns, ene vyan,e0 ene! ‘enn ati itu, ata ebe ivai.avai Verbs seije eey=do aladhali (Conditional form of verb) alanta-k-kal LYDIAN TAMIL, ‘gran aran ak kk Che ‘akan aknad ebad emt cenak ilam inal i kovkud favl pt putai hidden, buried (A more careful and leisurely study of the hundreds of equivalences suggested by Szalek can confirm a firmer and longer list) akap akkipatu ippati 10 Further cooperative research by historical and comparative linguists by pooling of knowledge and skills may enable further refinement of the findings of the Polish scholar in his path-breaking study. REFERENCES, Burrow, T. 1968. “Studies in Indian Linguistics”, quoted in Zvelebil, K. 1972, Bury, J.B. etal, The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. IU The Egyptian and Hittite empires to circa 1000 B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chatter, SK. 1954, “Old Tamil, Ancient Tamil and Primitive Dravidian”, Indian Linguistics XIV (reprinted in Tamil Culuire V2, 1956). Comelius, J.T, 1971. “Key to the problem of Dravidian Origins”, in Proceedings of the First Annual Conference of the Dravidian Linguistics Association. Thituvananthapuram. David, H.S. 1954. “Dravidian Question”, Tamil Culture 11-2. April 1954 Heras, Henry, 1953, Studies In Proto Indo Mediterranean Culture, Bombay: Indian Historical Research Institute Joseph, Brian D. and Richard D. Janda, 2003, The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, London: Blackwell. Lahovary, N. 1963, Dravidian Origins and the West, Madras: ‘Orient Longmans. Legrand, F, 1954. "Tamil Toan words in Greek”, Tamil Culture U-1Jan 1954. Levitt, SH. 2007, “A word for horse in Chinese and Dravidian’, £/DL XXXVI-2. Ramanathan P. 1998. 4 new account ofthe history and culture ofthe Tamils, Channai: SISSWP Society. 2003, “Direction of movement of Dravidian Speakers in prehistoric times", Dravidian Studies 1-3 April 2003. 2004, “Introduction to Devaneyan: Nostraties ~The Light from Tamil according to Devaneyan”, Chennai: SISSWP Society. Swadesh, Morris, 1972. The Origin and Diversification of Language, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Szalek. 1999. The Narmini Report, Poland: Szczecin. 2006. Lycian, Lydian and Other Ancient Languages inthe Light of Heuristics and Cryptologs: ‘Vacek, Jaroslav, 1996, “Dravidian and Mongolian: Summary of Results”, Archiv Orientaini 64, pp. 31-46. Zvelebil, KV, 1972.“ ThedescentoftheDravidians” UDLI-2. 1990: Dravidian Linguistics — An Introduction, Puducherry: PILC,CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL TAMIL PROF. K. RAMASAMY OFFICER IN CHARGE, PROF. S, MOHAN DIRECTOR JUNIOR RESOURCE PERSONS SENIOR FELLOWS Prof. K. Ramasamy Sundaramoorthy FELLOWS: Prof. Annie Thomas Dr. Na, Aranamuruval Prof. R. Kothandaraman Dr. R. Kumaran Dr. $. Manoharan Prof: P. Marudanayagam Dr. Arimalam S, Padmanabban Prof. K. Sivamani Dr. K, Umaraj Dr. K.G. Venkataraman Prof. E ASSOCIATES, Dr. K.M, Bhuvaneswari Dr. M. Ramakrishnan (CHIEF RESOURCE PERSONS Dr. M. Dominic Raj Dr. K, Jayakumar Dr. MS. Nagarajan Dr. §, Soundarapandian ‘SENIOR RESOURCE PERSONS Dr. A. Arokindoss Dr. R, Arulmani Dr. S. Elumalai Dr. U. Jayabharathi Dr. K. Jayakumari Dr. K. Kamala Angel Bright Dr. P. Kannadasan Dr. R. Kumarasamy Dr. V, Mariappan Dr. T, Poovaisubramanian Dr. K, Rajasekaran Dr.M. Susila Dr. M. Tamilvanan Dr. $. Velmurugan Mr. V. Alagumuthe Ms, M. Anusooya Mr. K, Kannan Mx. S, Karumbayiram Ms. D. Lalithamala Mr P. Muthusami Mr. M, Nagarajan Ms. S. Nagoorammal Mr. N. Periyasamy Mr. P. Raja Mr. A.G, Rajadurai Mr. S. Rajeshkumar Mr. C, Ramachandran Mr. T. Saravan: Mr.G. Sathish Mr. M, Selvadurai Me. K. Senthilnathan Mr. K. Sivakumar Mr. G. Srinivasan Mr. $. Tamilselvan Ms. M, Thamaraiselvi Mr. G. Uthiradam Mr R, Venkatesan POST DOCTORAL FELLOWS Dr. N, Ananthi De. J. Arangaraj Dr. N. Devi Dr. A. Jayakumar Dr. S. Manickam De. J. Muthuselvan Dr. R. Rajalakshmi Dr.S. Silambumani DOCTORAL FELLOWS. Mr. A. Arivumozhi Me E. Iniyan Me. R. lyyappan Ms. J. Proethi Mr. J. Ravi Ms. G. Sathyadevi Mr R. Selvan PROGRAMMERS Mr. R. Akilan Mr. $. Karthikeyan Mr. A. Murugaswaminathan Me D, Senthil Kumar WEB DESIGNER Mr. C. Gunasekaran SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR Mr. R. Sundara Ganapathy UPPER DIVISION CLERKS Mr. JV. Baskaran Mr. G, Punniyamoorthy LOWER DIVISION CLERKS Mr. M. Muruganantham Mr K. Perumal RESOURCE PERSON (CECT OFFICE, MYSORE) Mr. A.N. Venkateshan® DATA ENTRY OPERATORS, Ms, V. Gayathri Ms. R. Jayanthi Ms. B. Kalpana Mr. A. Murugesan Ms. R, Naleena Mr. K. Sankar Mr. V, Sivaprakasam PROOF READER Ms. Subashini DESPATCH CLERK Mr. M. Govindan OFFICE ASSISTANTS, (CECT OFFICE, MYSORE) Mr. G. Narendra Swamy Naidu® Mr. J. Santhosh® HOUSE KEEPING ASSISTANTS Mr. A. Arumugam, Mr $. Babu Ms. N. Jayallakshmi Ms, M, Sumithra PRINTED AT > _ cut PRINTING Press lai; rons, MANAGER MSR Sel —— Se * Upto 31 Marend ld il i eq { ELINOR GUINEA