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Ramanuja List Archive: Message 00054 Mar 2004

 
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Dear Sri Sriram,

I am glad you raised an important point regarding the standard manner of 
writing of Sanskrit and Tamil words in Roman alphabet.

The Tamil language being an original and, differing as it does generically from 
Sanskrit , it does not need the letter-defined phonemics of Sanskrit. For this 
reason, I consider your statement <Unfortunately Tamil is the corrupting 
influence etc> as unfortunate.

We are now speaking of language-skills in general. The corruption (as you 
describe it) does not lie with the Tamil language, per se, but it issues from 
the Tamil-dealer politicians of to-day who have so consistently promoted a 
pompous illiteracy as has left every single young person (who could be 50 or 
less to-day) incapable of speaking, reading, or writing Tamil itself properly, 
and to any purpose whatsoever. I trust you would appreciate that the average 
Tamil person commits greater offences in Tamil itself than he does in the 
Sanskrit language.

The Tamils have denied to themselves the additional nourishment of the Sanskrit 
stream, and have become total imbeciles in terms of language skills. Their use 
of English is so hilarious as could cure the most confirmed melancholic-and- 
depressive manic of their malady. (For this reason, the Tamil language will 
never have a proper etymological dictionary, and the personnel of the Tamil 
Nadu government outfit set up years ago can do nothing other than draw their 
salary from public funds, or anything more precious than swatting of flies and 
enjoying their own regular burpings !)

The Sanskrit which you have 'in the market' to-day is the gibberish which 
supplies (thro the pulp press dispensers, jnAna-this, jnAna-that) the emotional 
props to the decadent brahmin (whose conceit is so deep and absurd as to 
believe that he is 'born' into Sanskrit) for mumbling thro one or the other of 
his uncomprehended rites, sandhyA, pitR-tarpaNam, the numerous planet-placating 
(graha-preeti) stOtram etc. This kind of pathetic pseudo-Sanskritism of the 
brahmin (who truly cannot distinguish between the family-planning handout in 
Hindi from a text of upanishad-bhAshyam) is as deplorable as the pseudo-Arabic 
complacency which the Tamil Muslim draws from his unnecessary Urdu jabber. 
[Just think of the great Tamil scholars we had in the Muslim community !]

You cannot properly Roman-write a Tamil or Sanskrit word unless you know the 
Tamil or the Sanskrit word itself properly. The popular brahmin scholars 
indulge in ignorant prattle of 'janmA', 'karmA', 'nAmA' all the time, whereas 
it should be 'janmam', 'karmam', 'nAmam' (when used in Tamil), which is how 
they are rendered in our precious 'aruLi-c-cheyal'. The 'sEvA' monthly steadily 
refers to some entity called 'bramhA', which seems to be an assault on the 
intended 'brahma' or 'brahmA'. Here is illiteracy with conviction.

What is the point in labouring to communicate on 'sampradAya' works when the 
reader cannot be certain about how to read basically the bare words that the 
writer has written ? On one of my visits to the U.S.(when I had not carried my 
core books), I went to a well-known vaishNava website (administered by a 
brilliant young scholar I admire) and took a print-out of Sri vEdAntAchArya's 
hymn, sudarSanAshTakam. The roman-writing of this precious work was execrable 
and I had merely wasted my time in reaching for it and trying to read it. 

The way out is happily available to us for writing non-English words in Roman. 
The non-English words / names are spelt as per the Harvard-Kyoto scheme 
dispensing with diacriticals, and this is reportedly adopted in the Cologne 
Digital Sanskrit Lexicon. Roughly speaking, here the Upper case represents 
accenting or voicing (rAma, aruL, pallANDu, aRam, ANDAL, kaNNan) and 'h' is 
added for aspiration (sukham, bhAGyam, rAGhavan, atharva vEdam). The three 
Sanskrit sibilants can be written as ~ sahasram, Sree, purusha. There are minor 
innovations to take care of special Sanskrit (RGvEdam, kRshNa, dRshTAntam) and 
Tamil phonemes. 

aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan,
tiru-manjanam sundara rAjan,
in SriranGam.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 5:59 PM
Subject: [ramanuja] Digest Number 735

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 06:56:42 +1100
From: <purohit@xxxx>
Subject: Re: Standardisation of Spelling

Dear Bhaktargal

we really need to start paying more attention to spelling 
as well as the pronounciation of Sanskrit names and terms. 

Unfortunately Tamil is the corrupting influence because of the lack of 
aspirated and hard consonants.

For example: INDRA in Sanskrit is written as Indhira, Indira, Intra, Inthra, 
Intira, Inthira in Tamil. RUDRA is written as Ruthira, Ruthra, Rutra, Rutira, 
etc. etc. 

All our sampradaya terms are dealt with in the same
lackadaisical method.

This is very confusing as well as annoying showing a lack of attention to 
detail. Kumbhakarna intended to ask for IndrAsana but said NidrAsana instead 
and got a different result.

Some pronunciations by Tamil speaking pandits can also be hillariously funny:- 
I have heard on numerous occasions pandits saying "dArA phalam" instead of 
"tArA-balam"!! TArA-balam means the "strength of a certain contellation - 
dArA-phalam means "the fruit of a wife".

Tamil speakers need to be made aware of these problems and to be encouraged to 
attend a few elementary classes in Sanskrit pronunciation.

Adiyen 
Sriram 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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