Language as a Unifier

[vgowri]

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When I come to think about the greatness of languages especially Tamil, my thoughts finally come down to the hard realities of today.

Tamil is considered a great language only by Tamils, where as other languages like Chinese, Latin, etc. are accepted as great languages world over.

People in Tamilnadu would rather speak english but not hindi. Similarly the languages like Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu claim to have been derived from Sanskrit rather than Tamil. So they would rather speak english and hindi than tamil.

So, indians as a whole - have we stopped being objective? Or are we just subjective when it is convenient?

Could something be done so that the language could help bring harmony rather than chaos?

 

[Nacchinarkiniyan]

Tamil is considered as a very old language which is independent of Sanskrit. It is accepted as such in all academic circles all over the world. For purely political reasons many Indians including a section of the Tamil Brahmins do not accept it.

Though it has been proved by Philological research that Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam have evolved out of classical Tamil, for political reasons they would not accept it. In India everything is politics.

Hindi imposition is opposed by all non Hindi states. The opposition is very high in Gujarat and Bengal. But there is no political party exploiting it in these states. This imposition of Hindi was one of the main points raised during the Punjab agitation.

Tamil language is being used by political parties in Tamil Nadu. The reasons are many. But the most important are.

1. Occupation of Tamil Nadu by Non Tamil rulers for more than 300 years and the neglect of Tamil. The last Tamil king was a Chola.

2. A sizable percentage of the population of Tamil Nadu are even today non Tamils. Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam speaking population could be anywhere between 30 to 40 %.

3. The Tamil Brahmins started with the advantage of having nurtured Tamil for centuries. Their contribution to Tamil is immense.

But this was blown away because of the actions of some narrow minded Brahmins who saw the rise of Tamil as a challenge to their brand of Brahminism. Their actions helped the political parties project Brahmins as anti Tamil.

 

[vgowri]

Thanks for your enlightening response. I can recount a conversation with a gujarati guy in new york and he is of the view that Hindi is our national language and we should all shed our differences (culture,language,identity, etc.) and become true indians. Not sure who brainwashed him.

But still I find it difficult to convince people that constitutionally there is no national language in INDIA. Heck, there is no national language in USA. So, still there are lot of people with ignorance.


So, coming back to brahmins and their contribution to tamil, after reading your previous posts and other posts from one mr. appaiah, I find that traditionally brahmins have contributed a lot to the tamil literature and now they have stopped it in the last 50 years or so. And the results are for all to see. The quality of literature have dipped.

So, who do you think were the last batch of tamil scholars who have contributed to tamil literature post independence. Kalki is one name that comes to mind and i believe rajaji also did good before he became very active in politics.

At this time are there any upcoming brahmin tamil writers?

 

[vgowri]

May be where the language fails, classical arts like Karnatic Music and Bharatanatyam can help build the harmony among the different south indian communities. More than bharatanatyam, carnatic music could be a better means because people from every region have contributed for it.

Just a thought..

 

[malgova.mango]

Just some thoughts...

I could remember KI -VA -Jagannatha Iyer - a very humorous personality and a Jambavan in Tamil literature.

Nowadays - Literary circle is divided into two - One to cater "Vegu jana rasanai" other puritans. Some of the puritans works are too hard to digest or to be understood by ordinary folks. Also to read books you got to set aside some quality time. Which is hard to get by.

I can suggest a no. of good books in tamil

Illakkiyathil Nagaichuvai - a small book, it illustrates the detail of our ancient kavi's works
especially "kavi -kalamegam and others" very witty and good humour - Must read

Athma CHINTANAI - Sayings of a roman emperor - Translated by Rajaji - Saab would like this.

kanavugalin thathuvam - By Swami Sivananda - Also Sabb would like

Kamba Ramayanam - A MUST READ FOR ALL - please try reading as a poem to enjoy the words of kamban

I can also suggest a no. of old tamil movies , give a lot of good perspective about our culture.
the dawn of DK (dark) era spelt the doom of this kind of good cinema, it took turn and become super emotional before that you can expect some very good natural dialogues and song sequence

Shakuntala - No. 1 in anything
Nandanar - The hero "Dandapani desikar" is vadhyar of our present CM
Sivakavi
Chintamani - a very unique film (a kind of trendsetter)
Thiruneelakandar
and so on...

 

[Nacchinarkiniyan]

There have been many Tamil writers from the Brahmin community in the last 50 years.

Just to name a few.
அகிலன்
நா. பார்த்தசாரதி
சாண்டில்யன்
ரா. கி. ரங்கராஜன்
மெரினா ( பரணீதரன்)
ஸௌந்தரா ராமஸ்வாமி
வசுமதி ராமஸ்வாமி ( அப்புசாமி தாத்தா fame)
அசோகமித்ரன் and
ஸுஜாதா

I can go on.

I am out of touch with the Tamil literary world now.

 

[Saab]

One of the greatest writers of my times was KALKI. He wrote epic novels! Those days the 'writers club' and the 'lawyers club' were mostly composed of Tamil Brahmins. Their children studies Engineering and Medicine. The next gen went into computing far away from the imaginations and social studies! One day things might revert.

Also see:

http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-iyers

 

[fire]

Economy in TN

I have heard all languages are derived from sanscrit in india, some say tamil,sanscrit are older languages in India, some claim even both of them would have been derived from others. But i dont think we can ignore or love a language based on these criteria. If I am a guilty I would have loved it.Similarly with other languages.Actually the simple reasons I found it, if you know something well, you should take proud of it. You canot go and say to a person who knows English well,'You know Gandhi was against English.He preferred Hindi over it'.Ofcourse its our mother tongue.We know the language well ( atleast to read and write day to day language).But what is it situation today? Do we keep the so called tamil culture ? In speeches? In Nadahath tamil (dramas and cinemas)?In music?? All are moving towards commercialisation. People who really want to propagate the good things of tamil can do a lot. But nothing happens except political fights.You wont have a good physics book or Maths in Tamil.There are no authors.No takers.Tamil phd guys who do it on literary cannot interpret Kamba Ramayana.I can assure you this.You simply wont have.Its same thing with many other Indian languages.To create interest people have to create career opportunities around it.Ofcourse not through reservations.If you know english you can survive anywhere.But if you know tamil alone, even in TN you cannot survive.Thats pathetically the real situation.