Hub Magazine | oPod Top 50 | Latest Discussion

Intro | Using the site | Posting in Tamil | Login Problems? | Contact Us | Hub Policies

The Hub : Tamil Literature Hello Guest, Login to post.

TAMIL W0RD DEVELOPMENT

Topic started by bis_mala on Thu May 25 11:01:04 2006. [Full View]

The purpose of this thread is to illustrate to those interested how words developed in Tamil.

We shall consider how the word "kaththi" (knife) developed. But before that, there are some preliminary matters.

Humans used stone as cutting instrument in the very olden days, before the advent of the iron age when humans made iron tools.

Let's look at the position in the Indo-European family of languages as it will broaden our research and knowledge.

Latin: secare (to cut) :: saxum (a stone).

seax (OE) - a knife.

The above words show that early man used stones as cutting instrument.
]
In Tamil, we have the word "kaththi".

In the very old days, long long before Tolkappiyam was ever written, this word "kaththi" should have been in the form: "kalthi" . kal means stone. thi is the suffix. It later dropped its "l" and became kaththi.

If you use the "puNarchi" rules of grammar, it should be kal+thi = kaRRi. Such rule had not yet been formulated as yet when the word kaththi was formed or it was not followed, as it occurred in other words too. We shall reserve such examples for the time being.

Thus you have kal > kaththi, a knife, the root being "kal".

Word formation in Tamil appears to be similar to the Indo-European languages.



AddThis Social Bookmark Button | RSS Feed | Email me when a reply is posted

Responses:


AddThis Social Bookmark Button | RSS Feed | Email me when a reply is posted

Want to post a response?

(Hello Guest, you need to Login to post a response. Are you a New User? Register first.)
Subject: (Optional)

Your response:           Post Emoticons | Tamil TypePad
For Quoting text: use [quote]....[/quote]

Firefox Users: use this extension to post tags without quitting Lite View!

Jump to Full View for more...!


Back to Tamil Literature forum