Is Nagaswamy aware of the phonetic differences between Tamil & Sanskrit?
In Linguistics, loudness plays
a significant role in the acoustic format of a syllable. In tholkAppiam,
the musical sounding pitch of the letters plays the most significant role in
the formation of a syllable.
References in tholkAppiam
and other ancient Tamil texts clarify that the musical sounding pitch of the
letters will lead to the musical formation of the syllables, the basic building
blocks of a lyric.
Anyone studying ancient Tamil
texts has to depend on the Commentaries, Lexicons and Dictionaries. They are
very valuable. Still one has to be aware of their limitations and pursue open
minded research with related inter-disciplinary skills to make discoveries.
The Tamil word 'icai' (இசை -
music) was found in many places in the texts of tholkAppiam. All
commentaries to such texts had treated the word ‘icai’ to mean 'oli'
(ஒலி -
Sound). The two key words 'Ocai ' (ஓசை) and
'icai ' were found in the texts of tholkAppiam. 'Ocai’ is
the sound perceived by the human ear. 'icai' (இசை) is
the sound becoming music on satisfying the conditions relevant to the music. 'oli'
( ஒலி)
referred in cankam literature is related to the sound produced by a body in
vibration.
Sound ('oli' - ஒலி) from
a vibrating body is an objective property and its energy is measured in terms
of the intensity. Sound perceived by the human ear ('Ocai’ - ஓசை) is a
subjective property and its energy is measured in terms of the loudness.
Interestingly ear’s perception of sound is logarithmic and hence loudness is
related to the intensity in logarithmic proportion. By obeying the rules related to music, the
sound perceived by the human ear 'Ocai’ - ஓசை will
become music - 'icai இசை.
By treating all the three
words to mean 'oli' (ஒலி - Sound), the commentaries failed to bring
out the musical phonetics which played a
very important role in the grammar rules of tholkAppiuam related to 'ezhuththu'
(letter- எழுத்து), 'acai' (syllable- அசை), 'cIr'
(group of syllables - சீர்), 'thUkku' (percussion
related group of cIr- தூக்கு), 'thaLai ' (poem related
group of cIr- தளை), 'ati' (line- அடி), 'thodai'
(poem related group of lines - தொடை), 'vaNNam' (musical
aesthetics colour- வண்ணம்). (Note: More explanation in 'DECODING ANCIENT TAMIL TEXTS – THE PITFALLS
IN THE STUDY & TRANSLATION'; Free Excerpt:
The above discovery with the
title ‘Musical Phonetics in tholkAppiam’ was published in the journal from the
International Institute of Tamil Studies, Taramani, Chennai in 2013. Probably R.
Nagaswamy was not aware of it.
The above discovery attracted
the attention of the world-renowned scholars with the following comments.
“Very intriguing. I hope all of this can become part of an
emerging discipline of ‘musical linguistics’ " - Prof.Noam Chomsky
” Very interesting. And happy
to know that you are working on it.''
- Dr. Rajeev Sangal, Professor (Area: Computer Sc & Engg),
Language Technologies Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad
The above discovery may lead
to the world recognition of tholkAppiam as an important source for the emerging
discipline of ‘musical linguistics’.
With the above introduction,
the following statement of R. Nagaswamy is scrutinized to bring out the
phonetic differences between Tamil and Sanskrit.
“The Tamil poetics as
prescribed in Tolkappiyam was adopted from Sanskrit sources as for example
phonetics and alankaras such as Upama.”
- R. Nagaswamy
‘It must be noted that the
phonetic sound of the Grantham letters in Sanskrit was well defined.
In Tamil, the phonetic sound
of the vowels was defined; but the consonants had one or more phonetic options.
For example, the Tamil letter
‘க’
will phonetically sound in the word ‘சக்கரம்’ as
‘Ka ‘, and in the word ‘சங்கம்’ as ‘Ga’, the musical
sounding of the music letter ‘Ga’.’ (‘Why anti-Sanskrit is harmful to the Tamil
development?’;
Musical Linguistics rules for
poems discovered in the ancient Tamil grammar tholkAppiam, are non-semantic
and hence applicable to the musically rendered poems in world languages. The
rules of the musical phonetics are objective, involving measurable acoustic
parameters and hence would help to devise the related algorithm for developing
applications in computational musical linguistics; like lyrical text to music
& vice versa, musical grammar check, transformation of musical forms, etc.
The unique phonetic dimensions
of the Sanskrit letters and the rules of joining the letters in pANini’s
Ashtadhyayi, led to the development of the modern linguistics.
The unique phonetic dimensions
of the Tamil letters and the rules of joining the letters for composing the
poems in tholkAppiam, will lead to the development of the musical
linguistics.
The above rules of joining the
letters for composing the poems are non-semantic and hence
language-independent, but musical structure dependent.
I can very well foresee the
convergence of the logic in Ashtadhyayi employed in the modern linguistics, and
the logic in tholkAppiam to be employed in the musical linguistics, in the
future research;
addressing the criticisms of
Chomsky’s universal grammar (UG)
(http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_rouge06.html
& https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1269 ) and proving that “that structure-dependence
follows from principles of universal grammar that are deeply rooted in the
human language faculty”. (https://chomsky.info/on-the-evolution-of-language-a-biolinguistic-perspective/)
Note: Criticisms refuting Dr. R. Nagaswamy’s views on Tamil, Tamil Music and ThirukkuRaL,
are published mostly in Tamil. Unlike Iravatham Mahadevan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iravatham_Mahadevan),
Dr. R. Nagaswamy’s
views with the subjective bias, is resurrecting the otherwise dying anti-Sanskrit
trend in Tamilnadu. Hence, I like to encourage scholarly dialogue on the views
of Dr. R. Nagaswamy.
‘Philosophy of Peninsular India - ThirukkuRaL_aRam- A comparative study of Thirukkural and Baghavat Gita’ by H.V.Visweshvaran (விஸ்வேஸ்வரன்)
‘Philosophy of Peninsular India - ThirukkuRaL_aRam- A comparative study of Thirukkural and Baghavat Gita’ by H.V.Visweshvaran (விஸ்வேஸ்வரன்)
“Bhagavat Gita (Gita) is also
an old treatise on the meaning and purpose of human life. It is supposed to be an epitome of the
Upanishads. As there is no attempt in the past to include kuRaL as part of
Indian philosophical thought, we try to give an account of the philosophy of
kuRaL , THE PHILOSOPHY OF PENINSULAR INDIA.
This work does not sit in
judgment of which one is superior than the other. Both are superior on their
own right. Otherwise they might not have survived this long and still continue to inspire mankind.”
The above link was forwarded
to Rajiv Malhotra
Thank you professor for citing my article and referring to Rajiv Malhotra.
ReplyDeleteVisweswaran