Goosebumps and pronunciation

Languages used in Carnatic Music & Literature
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srkris
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Post by srkris »

vasanthakokilam wrote:"Kanrin kuralaik kettu kanindu varum pasu pol" - Mukhari. Starting at the higher sthayi, especially by a person singing with high sruthi, even better by a female duo. Last experience was with the Ranjani Gayathri album.
I have heard this also. Very finely sung. However my goosebump effect was significantly reduced after I realized they were pronouncing kanRin, onRukkum & enRaikku as kanDRin, onDRukkum & enDRaikku!!!

A minor thing but I don't like it when pronunciation suffers.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>they were pronouncing kanRin, onRukkum & enRaikku as kanDRin, onDRukkum & enDRaikku!!!

srkris, When the n and R sounds are said next to each other there is a bit of a 'D' sound produced as the tongue changes position from 'n' to 'R'. Is that not allowed? Or you hear more D sound than what is normally allowed?

In any case, do you find many great vocalists who also meet your very high bar for tamil pronunciation?

srkris
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Post by srkris »

vasanthakokilam wrote:srkris, When the n and R sounds are said next to each other there is a bit of a 'D' sound produced as the tongue changes position from 'n' to 'R'. Is that not allowed? Or you hear more D sound than what is normally allowed?
Would பாடுகின்ற be pronounced as பாடுகின்ட்ற?

BTW, we should perhaps split the discussion into a new thread if we have to continue with this digression.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srkris, I meant mine as actual question and not questioning your statement.

Now, I tried to say பாடுகின்ற, it is impossible for me to say it without a little of the 'D' sound there. 'n' sound itself does not have the 'D' sound, 'R' sound does not have it either but when said together, a bit of the 'D' sound creeps in. I have to really artificially constraint myself and also give a little bit of a break if I want to completely avoid the 'D' sound. Then it does not sound right to my ears.

That is why I was asking if your issue with RG's pronounciation is this normal 'D' sound at the sandhi or you hear that they are actually producing a 'D' sound as if the letter 'D' is actually there between 'n' and 'R'?

( we can split it off if this goes too far in the language direction, but I intended it to be a simple Q&A in this thread ).

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

I agree with VK - I can't really naturally pronounce words like pADukinRa without a minor "dra" sound. Srkris, could you upload an audio of how the word should be pronounced?

sureshvv
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Post by sureshvv »

The "d" effect when pronouncing "Ra" seems to have a geographical variation also - much more pronounced (pun unintended) with Srilankan tamils. So this seems to be a minor infraction if at all.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

I have been trying all day now and still can't avoid the "d". This is driving me crazy.

Enna_Solven
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Post by Enna_Solven »

bilahari wrote:I have been trying all day now and still can't avoid the "d". This is driving me crazy.
srkris, Please separate this into another thread.

I am not an expert but know it enough to get incensed if a Thamizh singer can't articulate the difference between the two. I don't/won't listen to one artist in particular, ever :( You can't pronounce 'ra' as if it got squeezed out of the two halves of a millstone. Experts out there, correct me.

http://www.southasia.upenn.edu/tamil/tamilwords.html
Minimal pairs
Contrasts between short and long vowels; single and clusterd consonants; retroflex and non retroflex consonants; flapped and trilled r etc., cause a large number of minimal pairs in Tamil. Difference in pronunciation in such words is usually subtle, and special attention is needed when one attempts to say those words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language

vallina Ra is a trill: வலà¯ÂÂ

srkris
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Post by srkris »

Unless one is retroflexing the medial n before introducing the D, there is no way kanRu can easily be pronounced kanDRu.

What therefore actually happens in most cases here is kanRu is pronounced like kaNDRu.

Let's take the case of koNDAdu & vaNDu - in these words, the D is always preceded by the retroflex N, not the alveolar n or dental n because every case of the D being preceded by a non-retroflex n is a case of mispronunciation.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srrkis, enna_solven:

Could you two please address my main point....

My point is definitely not about kaNDRu ( which is wrong ) or kanDRu ( which I agree is hard to say ) but a sandhi 'D like' sound between the 'n' and 'R' that is automatically produced. It is not the fully retroflexed 'D' sound. It is produced when the tongue transitions from the 'n' postion to the 'R' position. I think that is what Bilahari is also saying.

I am baffled that you two do not seem to hear it or acknowledge it since I hear it so obviously. If I say it without that sandhi sound, like what you two seem to suggest, it sounds awful. I asked a few other native tamil speakers to say it and I hear that 'ndra' sound. I asked them to cut it out and they struggled and struggled and when they eventually did, it sounded awful.

Again, it may be just terminology and we may be talking about different things. I am referring to the sandhi 'D' sound and you two are referring to the fully retroflexed 'D' sound.

Enna_Solven
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Post by Enna_Solven »

vasanthakokilam wrote:srrkis, enna_solven:
I am baffled that you two do not seem to hear it or acknowledge it since I hear it so obviously. If I say it without that sandhi sound, like what you two seem to suggest, it sounds awful. I asked a few other native tamil speakers to say it and I hear that 'ndra' sound. I asked them to cut it out and they struggled and struggled and when they eventually did, it sounded awful.
I asked my better half and she said the 'D' clearly & fully. So, my comment 'we may lose it.' Majority does not make it right ;)
vasanthakokilam wrote: Again, it may be just terminology and we may be talking about different things. I am referring to the sandhi 'D' sound and you two are referring to the fully retroflexed 'D' sound.
As I said before, the difference is minimal but very discernible. I do hear the partial 'D' like sound when I say senREn, kanRin, etc., myself. However, I do not fold my tongue back which is what the singers seem to be doing. I listened to that song again. That opening 'kanDRin' sounds clearly wrong to me. (plus pashu vs. pasu, ancAthE vs. anjAdhE, etc.) They do a better job with 'enRaikku.'

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

I agree with VK and I reiterate that the best solution is an audio clip of the correct and incorrect pronunciations of words with nR.

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>I do hear the partial 'D' like sound when I say senREn, kanRin, etc., myself.

That is all I am talking about, and not the full retroflex 'D' which is indeed wrong. So my question is targeted at that limited and narrow scope..'Is that partial D like sound wrong?' . I am just trying to shake you two down to admit that it is not wrong :lol: Since you said 'Majority does not make it right", let me clarify that the few people I quoted do not say it with a retroflex 'D' but with the partial 'D' like sound.

>I do not fold my tongue back which is what the singers seem to be doing. I listened to that song again. That opening 'kanDRin' sounds clearly wrong to me.

You answered the question that I was asking srkris originally. In fact, that was the only question I had at that time. Thanks.

I have not really listened to the R&G song in a while, I will try to listen to it later and see if I also hear the retroflex D, I can not find my CD readily. I thought a version of it was in youtube as well but could not locate it.

But I do remember hearing the 'pashu' which was indeed distracting and lessened the goosebump effect for me. .... that pashu ( पशà¥ÂÂ

Enna_Solven
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Post by Enna_Solven »

VK,
I read the other pronunciation thread that went for 7 pages. Should have read that first before jumping into a storm! Didn't realize it existed. Anyway, tolkAppiyar should have clarified how to pronounce னà¯ÂÂ

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

E_S, :)
OK, so it IS just the full D that irritates you. When speaking quickly and fluently, I don't think people have the time to emphasise the D even if they think that's the right way to pronounce it. The vallina-idayina "ra/Ra" difference is not conducive to everyday speech, I think. Even the French "r", which should rightfully be uttered with the tongue brushing the back of the palate is not pronounced in quite so vigorous a manner by natives, who often pronounce it just like the English "r".

And yes, "zha" is a hallmark letter in our language and is probably the most widely mispronounced too. Another commonplace disability is in pronouncing "La" vs. "la".

srkris
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Post by srkris »

It seems convenient to hear an alveolar??? 'd' (not necessarily a retroflex D unless the n is also retroflexed) between the alveolar n & alveolar R. Why it is convenient is because the d occurs midway between the n & R and the tongue while moving from n to R probably grazes that d too.

As I said earlier, Tamils are not steadfast in phonetics and hence are very tolerant of changes in pronunciation. Even kaNDRin may be acceptable to many, I don't know.

It is demonstrably easier to say kandRin and patRu rather than kanRin and paRRu, but that doesnt make it the right pronunciation though. To pronounce sUnya as sunna may be more convenient, it may even be the 'right' pronunciation for them, but not for others who are used to pronouncing sUnya as such.

If you take me for example, kandRin sounds more awful for me to hear than kanRin, but that's only because I am particular with the pronunciation and I am more used to kanRin than kandRin or kaNDRin. For those who are habituated to pronouncing/hearing kanRin as kandRin, the reverse may be true. Maybe these are allophones.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>that's only because I am particular with the pronunciation and I am more used to kanRin than kandRin

Without getting into the value judgement about what is right and wrong...

Can you narrate the circumstances and environment that led you to be more used to kanRin? Did you grow up with people who said it that way or someone knowledgeable in Tamil taught you that way or this is based on your own reading and then inculcating it?

I am not asking this to be argumentative, but really curious.

>patRu vs paRRu

Again, the same question.. Is it theoretical or this is how you heard and inculcated it while growing up?

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Post by sridhar_ranga »

Our cousin to the West, Malayalam, may offer some help. At least in case of RR (paRRu, kARRu, etc.) I hear a distinct Malayalee way of pronouncing the sound that I find difficult to transliterate....to my ear the sound borders between a softer T and C/Ch.

In case nR (onRu, kanRu, etc.) i hear simply nn (onnu, kannu) again with a distinct na sound of Malayalam (remeber KJY's 'kannukkuTTI' in the Sindhubhairavi film song "tannittoTTi tEDi vanda kannukkuTTi naan"? )

It's difficult for me to visualize (is it "auralize" for imagining a sound? :) ) anything other than kanDru and kannu for kanRu! Around Madurai you may even hear folks say 'kanDu' for kanRu.

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Post by srkris »

Sridhar, valid points there. Malayalam is credited with preserving the alveolars well. While kARRu (air) of old tamil (i.e standard tamil) becomes kAttu (காத்து, pure dental t) in modern tamil, malayalam retains the alveolar t in kAttu. I would suppose that popular tamil today brings the alveolar t into the standard kARRu to make it kAtRu, which is apparently what VK claims to be the actual pronounciation of kARRu.

VK, I thought I heard and grew up with my current beliefs about pronunciation hearing how others around me spoke (I used to listen a lot and rarely spoke, maybe I retain that trait now for I don't speak much in person if you meet me). I did not have to go back, analyze and correct my pronunciation at some point in time. I also was aware all along that there exists a significant bunch, maybe the majority, who can't be bothered to pronounce properly, even discounting dialectical variants. Now after some grounding in basic phonetics, I am able to express better what I used to feel about the topic earlier but couldn't express properly. My arduous efforts in understanding tamil grammar in secondary school seems to be paying off quite a bit now big_smile

I found an interesting example today quite unexpectedly. I was browsing youtube when I came across this song "manRam vantha thenRalukku" from the film mauna rAgam (bilahari please note the difference here), where SPB seems to pronounce manRam the way I would pronounce it myself, although he apparently makes a major transgression in pronouncing bhUpAlam as pUvALam/pUbALam, understandably due to the tamil script's limitation in distinguishing between pa, pha, ba & bha of words borrowed from sanskrit. But if he had done the same to a tamil word, it would have sounded horrendous to the tamil ear (imagine "bhAnam unDO sol" or "bAzhkai enna").

Even those who know better usually pronounce bhU as bU because of their environment and conditioning (and this group may include me). I find it an uphill task to sing one kriti of dikshitar for example with perfect phonetics, the more familiar the song, the harder generally it is. We have been raised in a tamil environment where we don't distinguish certain sounds as distinct, and it's only by a careful ear that one can spot mistakes even in the best of singers wrt their pronunciation. Some mistakes are blatant, like this kandRin, ondRu etc. Mallus do not have such a big handicap in this department unlike tamils since they view sounds differently.

Compare the way the opening line "rAga sudhArasa pAnamu jEsi" is pronounced in the following two versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vz9V0D-7NA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1acw72i89k

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>manRam vantha thenRalukku".....seems to pronounce manRam the way I would pronounce it myself

I listened to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5v1xOQmcQE

I clearly hear the alveolar 'd' there. That is how I will pronounce it too. If this is how you pronounce it yourself, then we are basically saying the same thing. Is this just a case of transliteration issue?

>kARRu to make it kAtRu, which is apparently what VK claims to be the actual pronounciation of kARRu.

Again, based on the above sample, we may both be saying it the same way. How do you say kARRU which can not be transliterated as 'kAtRu'. I thought that is what happens in the sandhi of two Rs.

bilahari
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Post by bilahari »

Indeed, not just manRam but thenRal too has a discernible 'd' sound in the video VK has linked. And this is how most people pronounce it too.

srkris
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Post by srkris »

VK, I heard the video very closely multiple times and didn't hear any d in manRam there, it's there in thenRal in the same line, but not in manRam.

In the RG album, it is very discernible.

The point is, if the Ra starts from a d sound, I consider it wrong. The Ra has its own unique sound and it should not start with a d sound. It should not sound like the English word "drum".

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

I hear the 'drum' in manRam too srkris. That is even more convincing that we all say it the same way ( not RG, I will go with what you and Enna Solven said. I will get back when I get a chance to listen )

( BTW, check out the title of the youtube video I linked :lol: I just noticed that myself )

srkris
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Post by srkris »

Maybe my expensive earphones are no good then, or my ears are beyond repair. :D

BTW I noticed the spelling of manRam in all video titles on youtube is rather mandram. It looks a bit like the popularity of vALaipaLam to me. :D

S.Govindaswamy
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Post by S.Govindaswamy »

Srkris wrote:
“However my goosebump effect was significantly reduced after I realized they were pronouncing kanRin, onRukkum & enRaikku as kanDRin, onDRukkum & enDRaikku!!!
A minor thing but I don't like it when pronunciation suffers.”
Even when we join first standard the teacher tells us that the correct pronunciation is panDRi, onDRu etc and not panRi, onRu for பன்றி, ஒன்று etc.
vasanthakokilam responded:
“srkris, When the n and R sounds are said next to each other there is a bit of a 'D' sound produced as the tongue changes position from 'n' to 'R'”
I agree with this partly, as this is the way most of the people speak alhough srikris seems to have different opinion. However , as explained later, the position of tongue is the same to produce the sounds ‘na/ன’ and ‘Ra/ற’. Because of the difficulty of producing the two sounds in sequence ‘Da’ comes in to smoothen the flow. I fully agree with what Vasantha kokilam says as
“Now, I tried to say பாடுகின்ற, it is impossible for me to say it without a little of the 'D' sound there. 'n' sound itself does not have the 'D' sound, 'R' sound does not have it either but when said together, a bit of the 'D' sound creeps in. I have to really artificially constraint myself and also give a little bit of a break if I want to completely avoid the 'D' sound. Then it does not sound right to my ears.” If one tries to avoid the ‘Da’ sound it will not be Tamizh.
As the discussion is about Tamil grammar I will continue in Tamizh without trying to respond in contrived English, which being not phonetic, is inadequate to give the correct sounds. Members of the forum, not knowing Tamil may please excuse me.
தொல்காப்பியம் எழுத்ததிகாரம் பிறப்பியலில் றகார னகாரங்களைப் பற்றி கூறப்படுவது ;
அணரி நுனிநா வண்ணமொற்ற
றஃகா னஃகா னாயிரண்டும் தோன்றும்
(நச்சினார்க்கினியாரியின் உரையைக் கூறாது நான் அறிந்துகொண்ட பொருளைக் கூறுகிறேன்).
பொருள்-நாவினது நுனி மேல் நோக்கிச் சென்று அண்ணத்தைத் (palate) தடவ ’ற’வும் ’ன’ வும் பிறக்கும். ன என்னும் எழுத்தின் ஒலி மற்ற இந்திய மொழிகளில் இல்லை. இது ’ன’ விற்கும் ’ந’ விற்கும் இடைப்பட்ட இடத்தில் பிறக்கிறது. ’ன’ விற்கும் ’ந’ விற்கும் (தந்நகரம்) உள்ள வேறுபாடு அறிவதற்காக கீழே கொடுக்கப்பட்டுள்ள சூத்திரத்தைக் காணவும்.
அண்ண நண்ணிய பன்முதன் மருங்க
னாநுனி பரந்து மெய்யுறவொற்றத்
தாமிது பிறக்குந் தகார நகாரம்.
பொருள்- அண்ணத்தைச் சேர்ந்த பல்லினடியாகிய இடத்தே நாவின் நுனி பரந்து சென்று, தன் வடிவு மிகவும் உறும்படி சேர தகார நகாரம் பிறக்கும்.
ந விற்கும் ன விற்கும் உள்ள ஒலி வேறுபாட்டினை பலர் அறியார். தவறாகவும் எழுதுவர்.
இனி கன்று எனும் சொல்லில் ன் ஐ த்தொடரும் று வை நோக்குவோம். ன் னும் ற வும் ஒரே இடத்தில் பிறக்கின்றமையால் ஒரு இடைவெளி விட்டு ஒலித்தால் தான் வேறு எந்த ஒலியும் நடுவே வராது. (kan +Ru).
பி3லஹரி கூறுகிறார் - I have been trying all day now and still can't avoid the "d". This is driving me crazy.
நான் வட இந்தியாவில் 27 ஆண்டுகள் வாழ்ந்தபோது இரு வட இந்திய மொழிகளைக் கற்றுக்கொண்டதோடல்லாமல் சிலருக்குத் தமிழைக் கற்றுக் கொடுத்தேன். ன் க்குப் பின் ற வந்தால் நடுவில் ட3 (Da) ஒலிக்கும் என்றும் அதே போல் ற இரு முறை வந்தால் நடுவில் ட (Ta)ஒலிக்கும் என்று தான் கற்றுக் கொடுத்தேன். Srkris அவர்கள் ட3/ட (Da/Ta) வை ஒலிக்காதவர் எவரையேனும் கண்டாரா?
ட3 வை சேர்த்து ஒலிக்கும் போது ஒலி எளியதாகிறது. ட3 ஒலிக்கக்கூடாது என்பதற்கு இலக்கணச்சான்று உண்டா?
ன் என்ற மெய்யெழுத்தின் பின் ற் + உயிர் அல்லது ப்3+சில உயிர் மாத்திரமே வரும். (எடு) அன்பு3.
“Enna solven wrote :
say 'nR': no, 'nDR' please. No need to fold back the tongue (=D) to harden the 'R'.”
As I have mentioned above when ற follows ன they can be produced either with a break as two separate sounds or with an intervening touch of Da for which the tongue has to go back a LITTLE. A touch of Da comes. If the tongue bends backwards too much and touches the back end of palate, Da becomes emphatic as Da is born here.
Srkris! You are saying,
“Unless one is retroflexing the medial n before introducing the D, there is no way kanRu can easily be pronounced kanDRu.
What therefore actually happens in most cases here is kanRu is pronounced like kaNDRu.” Even a child before joining school can easily and correctly say ஒன்று, கன்று etc. I disagree with your statement that “because every case of the D being preceded by a non-retroflex n is a case of mispronunciation” , because n does not precede Da. The exception may be English (e.g) ‘and’. Tamilians and Malayalis pronounce this as aND. (அண்ட்3/ അണ്ഡ്). We are not discussing about ன/na preceding ட3/Da but ன/na preceding ற/Ra. It is well known that only N /ண் precedes Da/ட3.


If the Da becomes prominent ன will change to ண, as ட and ண form a group. inRu will become iNDru (இண்ட்3று) as Da and Na are produced when tongue bends and touches rear end of palate.
Was this the way the artistes sang? Most of the people, even not knowing grammar correctly speak without stressing Da.
Srikris wrote :
Govindaswamy

vasanthakokilam
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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srkris: I do not know. I asked a couple of people to listen to that song, they say they hear the 'dra'. I am not convinced if there is really a difference in what you and I ( and bilaharii ) consider to be correct.

( I know you are only joking about vALaipaLam, but just to be sure, I do not want this and the kARRu to be combined with other obviously wrong tamil pronounciations involving 'zha', 'l' 'L' etc. )

It is not just youtube titles, check out this tamil association web sites... ( to be fair, I did find a lot that had manram )

http://www.gptm.org/gw/home.htm ( Greater Portland Tamil Madram )

http://www.sactamil.org/ ( Sacramento Tamil Mandrum - written in tamil also properly )

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Post by srkris »

Govindaswamy, thanks for replying. Could you please make your post a bit more easier to read by using the quote tags where you are quoting?

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Post by srkris »

VK, I support democracy, but not for science. Phonetics is a science.

So it does not matter if someone decides to spell themselves as a "tamil mandram" or teach it to others that way. The idea of putting a d in the spelling is misconceived. It does not matter how popular a misconceived idea is. I go back to vALaipaLam to point out the same trend.

The difference between mandram and vALaipaLam is only the level of confidence with which we both disagree about the pronunciation. I disagree equally with both, but to you one seems to be obvious and the other no so much.

What is interesting is we are hearing the same song but apparently hear different sounds in the same word. Probably its because you are expecting a dRa there, so you hear it everytime anyone says it??? I don't expect a dRa, I only expect a Ra, and when I find a dRa, I object, otherwise I don't. Ranjani & Gayatri should come to the rescue now with their kandRin kural.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srkris: just to clarify, my posting about tamil mandram is not for any evidence, but just for fun... And also when I asked others to listen to the youtube link, that is to get what they hear and not their opinions on how it shoule be said

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Post by srkris »

True VK. Probably I should put a lot more smileys in my posts.

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Post by Enna_Solven »

Thank you Govindaswamy sir. Your comment
[quote]னà¯ÂÂ

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Post by Enna_Solven »

I get an error when I try to edit my post if I have some Tamil letters in that post. Do others have this issue? I use Firefox.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

e_s, I get the same error too.
Ranjani & Gayatri should come to the rescue now with their kandRin kural.
I found the CD and listened to it. Yes, R&G say it as 'kaNDrin' which is not correct. As you both said, the root cause is the N instead of the n which brings in the retroflex D.

Here is an interesting thing. In the same CD, there is a Thodi song which starts with Kunram and also contains the word manram which they pronounce correctly. Correctly in the sense of kundram and mandram ( no retroflex D but just that sandhi introduced 'd' ).

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Post by Enna_Solven »

cool, I wasn't tilting at windmills. :cool:

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Post by erode14 »

certainly there lies a great difference while saying kanRu and kanDRu...

viRRu vittAn and viTRu.. [leave it] vittAn... also..

one more thing is singing puLNiyam oru kOti instaed of puNNiyam, kizhNam for kiNNam and all...

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Post by rshankar »

I am so impressed by the demand (may be that is too strong a word) to make clear differences that are subtle at best (for instance, I have no idea how to differentiate the 'r' sound from 'R', let alone the 'nR' sound) when blatant mispronunciations occur with sounds that should be obvious to even the deaf (:P) - e.g., difference between k and kh, k and g, k and gh, kh and g, g and gh, and so on and so forth...., and when the 'L' sound replaces the uniquely elegant (not my words, but Sri LGJ's) 'z' sound (the latter seems to be the norm for many of the 'newer' tamizh news readers - a very far cry from the Shobhana Ravis and the Ramakrishnans).

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Ravi, I hear your exasperation. The ones you refer to are different but significant issues with different origins for the troubles. ( CM krithis with a mixture of tamil and sanskrit bring their own issues which is yet another separate matter ). Of course 'L' for 'zha' is just plain wrong and so is using 'l' for 'L' and vice versa, I do not think it is even a matter for debate. As I mentioned to srkris, mixing these well known issues into the same pot takes the focus away from subtle things, at least for me. ( and subtlety may be in ear of the beholder ).

Our current discussion is subtle indeed within tamil words themselves. We all agree, I think, that kaNDRin sounds odd and wrong. The unresolved item is very narrow and specific. Is there a non-retroflex 'd' sound in kanRin, manram etc? Quite interestingly, there are two samples, we agree on both of them, the one that is not right ( we hear them the same way ) and the one that is right (though we seem to hear them differently).

Once this 'kanRin' is resolved or set-aside, let us talk kARRu. What srkris says as the right way is so astonishing that I am currently hanging it on I not understanding srkris's point.

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Post by S.Govindaswamy »

srkris wrote :
VK, I support democracy, but not for science. Phonetics is a science.

srikris, An uneducated Tamil woman, who has not studied தொலà¯ÂÂ

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Post by srkris »

erode14 wrote:one more thing is singing puLNiyam oru kOti instaed of puNNiyam, kizhNam for kiNNam and all...
Obviously your association with Tamil is larger than mine coz I have not heard of these mispronunciations at all. One needs to listen a lot to spot such things.

But it is easy to explain these.

L, N, Zh are all retroflexes. Hence one retroflex gets easily replaced by another.

puLNiyam rather than puNNiyam (in Sanskrit puNya has only one medial retroflex N, but tamil stresses on the N and ends up with two).

Regardless, it is not possible to express all the sounds that are produced in their minutest detail in written expression. Hence it may not be puLNiyam or puNNiyam but something between the two.

By the way the zh (ழ) is not an l (ல) sound, contrary to popular opinion, it is a retroflexed r (ர) sound. The retroflex of l is L (ள). So zha should logically be written as R.

We need a more logical system for Tamil transliteration in the roman script, we are using harvard-kyoto and IAST both of which were developed for sanskrit and are not very suitable for tamil.

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Post by srkris »

Govindaswamy,

English script has only the dental n, but in its spoken form has the alveolar n too. In places like India, spoken English has all the three forms (including retroflexes).

I fail to understand your logic about the uneducated Tamil woman. Just because she can pronounce certain things properly (which itself is doubtful in the first place), is all her pronunciation perfect? Many uneducated tamil women pronounce zha as La. Uneducated people are the most prone to mistake (that's why we have education :D). So let us not hold uneducated people as beacons of knowledge.

Wouldn't it be simpler if people accepted that they pronounce differently for whatever reason rather than argue that what they pronounce is correct just because they found others who also mispronounce the same way.

Each written akshara has only one correct way of enunciation. All others are either allophonic variants or pure and simple mistakes.

Allophonic variants are those accepted by everyone concerned to be an alternative but acceptable pronounciation (for example ka and ga in modern tamil).

Some people think that pronouncing zha as La is wrong just because they know La is already available in the script as a separate phoneme. This is a simplistic way of seeing things. Availability or otherwise of a phoneme in the script is a primary but not a sufficient standard to determine whether pronunciation is proper.

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Post by S.Govindaswamy »

Srikris,
I am afraid that you are putting words into my mouth, nay, finger tips and keyboard, by mentioning "So let us not hold uneducated people as beacons of knowledge."

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Post by srkris »

Sorry for putting words in your fingers :D

It appears to me you have an emotional socio-political bondage with Tamil. So my words may not matter much to you, but I believe I have a wider readership, so here goes.

>>Only easy sounds exist in Tamiz.<<

That is an (if I may add, misinformed) opinion, not a fact. There are no easy or hard sounds. Sounds are sounds, and they have a particular pronunciation. Zha may be a hard sound for those who are used to saying it as La, but you get the drift. Else you need to prove to me that easy and difficult are absolute determinants for all people. Mandarin is easy for the Chinese, so it should be easy to all of us. Likewise Sanskrit was easy to Panini, so it must be so for us too. Vedic was easy for Vasishta and Brihaspati. Welcome back from lala land to reality.

>>the common woman/man has no such problem.<<

They dont care a damn, and they are obviously wrong. They prefer the free-flowing madras tamil, rather than split hairs in learning and pronouncing pure tamil as it should be, and it seems you prefer it too.

>>This is because Tamiz has been an old natural language, without any harsh sounds which came into other younger languages.<<

All languages are old natural languages, since all languages derive from older speech. Like tamil, all of them experience changes to varying levels in pronunciation, grammar, vocab, etc. Tamil is no exception to it.

Besides Tamil is just a label for a continuously changing dialect. Tolkappiyar would jump in the well hearing your uneducated tamil men and women speak their free-flowing madras tamil instead of splitting hairs over his hard grammatical pure tamil. People of the 10th century would not agree that the uneducated tamil people of today speak tamil at all. People of the 1st century would not agree with the speech of the people of the 10th century. Anything else is political brainwashing.

>>As compred to these uneducated people the educated ones like us trying to split hairs with each word can not speak one sentence in Tamiz without using English words.<<

The uneducated people are speaking pure free-flowing tamil according to you coz they dont know, and we are the ones having the most difficulty speaking it because we "know better". Right?

>>Probably because of this easy and smooth flow, Tamiz has been a living language for more than 2000 years.<<

Tamil is just a label for a continuously changing set of dialects, nothing more nothing less. I could as well rename Hindi, Vedic and Proto-Indo-European as Sanskrit and say that Sanskrit has been living for more than 5000 years. Or I could rename French as Latin and say that Latin has been living for 3000 years. Today's Tamil is poles apart from the tamil of 2000 years back. The name of these languages is the only thing that has remained constant. Oh no, even that has become tamiL. It is not even the same language that was spoken 2000 years back, it is a different language altogether, as much as Vedic was to Sanskrit and Sanskrit was to Prakrits and Prakrits to modern Indian languages. It needs education to tell apart the differences, and if you believe tamil now is the same language as the language which was called tamil 2000 years back, then you may find your place among your pet uneducated tamil men and women that you so adore. They are totally different in all respects, so much so that one needs explanations to understand tiruvalluvar and tolkappiyam. And I dont even think Tiruvalluvar & Tolkappiyar lived 2000 years back to start with (if you go by Iravatham Mahadevan's research). He says the pulli (dot) which tolkappiyam mentions did not exist in the tamil brahmi (earliest tamil script) until the 7th century. This agrees well with the evidence of other dravidian grammatical literature starting from the 7th century onwards (i.e telugu and kannada).

>>As compred to these uneducated people the educated ones like us trying to split hairs with each word can not speak one sentence in Tamiz without using English words.<<

Again you are reversing the roles. It needs education to speak pure tamil. It is easy to remain uneducated and have a don't care a damn attitude.

>>I wonder if your Tamiz teacher taught you and your class mates the following two kuRaLs without Da and Ta.<<

Yes she did.

>>You have been empnatically maintaing that the soft sounds like ga, ja, da, Da,& ba were not existing in old Tamiz.<<

I have revised my opinion on that. They perhaps did exist in old tamil (50-50 chance), but certainly did not exist in proto-tamil (which was some form of Dravidian). They may have started being used newly by the time the tamil alphabet system was devised, which is perhaps why they were not included in the alphabet system as they were considered to be mistakes in pronounciation. They gained wider acceptability later but did not find the need to change the script since they were included as allophones of the same sound.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

>>I wonder if your Tamiz teacher taught you and your class mates the following two kuRaLs without Da and Ta.<<

>Yes she did.

srkris, I am now really curious how you say that second kuraL that Govindaswamy posted. Transliteration adds only to the confusion. Can you recite it and post an audio link? If you do not want to do that, then try another method like find a youtube or esnips link where you can find people saying similar words wrongly or correctly.

Along the same lines, listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCiqqFVY4Xw Is the first word correctly pronounced? If not, what should it be?

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Post by srkris »

It is correctly pronounced.

However it is easy to fool ourselves into thinking we are listening to something we are not. There is (and should be) a difference in pronunciation between RR and tR/TR, however subtle that may be.

I give attention to detail here and therefore object to your general claim that it is a 't' sound that comes with -RR-. It may be very close to a t sound, but it is not a t sound. Perhaps I'm being too unnecessarily detail oriented.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srkris: Now we are in sync. btw, I do not claim that RR is same as tR, that is just some silly transliteration difficulties.

( side bar : As I wrote before this is not about any arguments, I am just trying my darnedest to clearly understand what you are characterizing as the right way and the wrong way. The reason it is taking these many posts is the natural difficulties in talking about sound related issues with text. I want you to go into the details but at the same time see if any seeming differences are just due to transliteration difficulties. What you wrote above made sense to me and helped to see where the difference is )

But then, what I fail to understand is why you did not give any significance to what I was saying in the kan(d)Rin context regarding the extra/different sound that gets introduced. I think, if you had done that but pointed out that the disagreement is in the different characterization of what that extra sound is, that would have focused the issue more clearly. Reason I am stating that here is to see if you do acknowledge that extra/different sound ( no matter how we write about it here ) or there is a disagreement there.

Btw, I do not think phonologists would disagree that extra sound is produced. I remember reading Harold Schiffman when we discussed these kinds of issues before and I recall him notating those extra sounds. I am not saying you will necessarily disagree with this but stating it here for reference.

In a related matter, let me get to a very specific thing you wrote

>Each written akshara has only one correct way of enunciation. All others are either allophonic variants or pure and simple mistakes.

How literal is that rule? Does that really hold in the case of RR? Meaning, the so called extra/different sound that gets introduced between two letters seems to violate the above rule, if the above rule is to be understood as 'very strictly phonetic'. We do not say kARRu with the first short R sound same as the short R sound in mERku and the second R same as payaRu. If you did not mean it that strictly and literally, that is fine. In either case, please clarify so we can decide if we are in violent agreement or there is really some worthwhile differences. Again, these are all for proper understanding and learning.

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Post by srkris »

But then, what I fail to understand is why you did not give any significance to what I was saying in the kan(d)Rin context regarding the extra/different sound that gets introduced.
There is no extra sound introduced anywhere. There is a kan+Rin, and nothing else between them.
Btw, I do not think phonologists would disagree that extra sound is produced
Of course they will. If you want, ask any of them.
How literal is that rule?
101% literal.

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Post by Enna_Solven »

srkris wrote: understand tiruvalluvar and tolkappiyam. And I dont even think Tiruvalluvar & Tolkappiyar lived 2000 years back to start with (if you go by Iravatham Mahadevan's research). He says the pulli (dot) which tolkappiyam mentions did not exist in the tamil brahmi (earliest tamil script) until the 7th century. This agrees well with the evidence of other dravidian grammatical literature starting from the 7th century onwards (i.e telugu and kannada).
srkris,

Do you have any online reference for this research that you mention? I am curious. I read a book long ago by Dr. N. Mahalingam (? I think) of Madras University, "tamizh mozhi varalAru. " He called the old root language as tol drAvida mozhi. He says kannadA and telugu branched of around 6/7th centuries. Malayalam much later, around ninth century. I do no remember him saying anything about tolkAppiyar's time being so much later. Otherwise, it would have struck me odd as it does now.

I have to get at least a B.A. in Tamil when I retire. I have an emotional socio-political bondage with Tamil, starting from day minus 10 months :D

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

srkris:

In this link : http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/pub ... iquids.pdf ( the article is not about our current issue but happens to mention this in passing)

Harold Schiffnan ( in 1980 ) quotes ( bottom of page 8 ) the British Phonetician Firth (1934 ) :

"..... with no phonetic contrast between / r / and /R/ ,
although some reflex of geminate / rR / and / nR / occur in the
sample. The former, he states , are often realized as [ t t R ] ( b u t
also [ t t ] ) , while / nR / usually is realized as ndR, a more literary pronunciation."

( I changed his notation to R here since his notation did not display properly here )

Is this the same thing we are talking about?

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Post by srkris »

VK,

There are things called descriptive grammars and prescriptive grammars. A descriptive grammar describes the grammar/usage of the day. A prescriptive grammar prescribes what is right. Over time descriptive grammars gain prescriptive authority. It is likely that tolkappiyar was just describing what he heard in his time, but those became prescriptions as time went by.

I have no problem accepting that some/many people pronounce nR as nDR/ndR, just as how many pronounce zh as L. That is the descriptive part of it. When we reach the prescriptive part (how it should be pronounced), I definitely would disagree with the way many sounds are being pronounced.

Harold Schiffman quoting Firth, is a case of description of the contemporary language of Firth's time, not prescription. So I don't disagree with them.

Enna solven,

The South-Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada-Tulu family) tree http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-me ... 57BC29.gif

The Central Dravidian (Telugu family) tree http://www.institutespiritualsciences.o ... hart_1.jpg

The Telugu family (central and south-central dravidian) was one of the first major dravidian languages to split off from Proto-Dravidian. When this split happened there was no Tamil, Tulu or Kannada yet (their common ancestor was however there, called by linguists as Proto-South-Dravidian).

It is not factual to say therefore that Telugu and Kannada branched off in 7th century... such an opinion is blatantly against whatever we know about Dravidian. The split off of the telugu family happened sometime in the middle of the 1st millenium BCE (i.e 500 BCE or thereabouts), and this is evidenced by the existence of the Bhattiprolu script dated to 100BCE. The split of Tamil/Kannada happened about 300-500 years from the telugu split and are both therefore equally old. I am not saying that Tamil did not exist for 2000 years. I am saying the tolkappiyam and thirukkural may not be that old, and the language we call old tamil today may be based around the 7th century. Before that we have only terse inscriptions on rocks, not much literature. So Mr. Mahalingam, whoever he may be, does not have his facts in line with current mainstream scholarship.

From wikipedia article on Tolkappiyam:
PuLLi - Pulli concept is one of the distinguishing feature among the Tamil characters. Although it is not unique and brahmi also has pulli. It is distinguished by placement . According to tolkappiam which talks about pulli and its position, that is on top of the alphabet instead of side as in Brahmi. This is also one of the characteristics of Tamil brahmi according to Mr. Mahadevan. The first inscription of this type of pulli is in vallam by pallvas dated 7-8th century AD by Mahendra varman pallava.

So we have a terminus post quem for the Tolkappiyam's date as the 7-8th centuries. It could have been anytime around or after the first inscription, not centuries before, considering the thousands of old inscriptions the ASI have unearthed in tamil, the pulli does not figure at all before the 7-8th centuries, and came into widespread use even later.

These are not a disjointed set of data, there was a significant "push" of Buddhism and Jainism to down south as North & Central India fell to Muslim hands. It is commonly the Pallavas whose time is credited with the spread of literacy (writing) in the South, they later introduced the pallava ezhuthu (pallava writing) that became standard in the Chola period that followed. This was a period of resurgence for local literature all over south India, not just TN. Most of the old tamil literature belongs to the period between the 5th and 10th centuries, but some of them (like Silappathikaram) talk of history i.e events that happened much before their time but were romanticized and made larger than life when they were put to writing (like Kannaki reducing Madurai to ashes).

Iravatham Mahadevan (in case you didnt know) is the foremost scholar of Tamil Brahmi, it is he who first discovered and explained that brahmi was used to write tamil (in addition to sanskrit and prakrit). It was called tamil brahmi since it was a slightly modified form of brahmi to suit tamil's phonemes.

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Post by vasanthakokilam »

Srkris: OK, I understand. That is Firth's description of what he heard. But let me state it in passing that he also says "while / nR / usually is realized as ndR, a more literary pronunciation..". So he heard that extra 'd' sound even in literary circles..

I am still confused. We both heard "kARRinilE varum geetham", both of us say it is pronounced right. You say I am fooling myself in hearing stuff that I should not be hearing. That may be so, the problem may be in describing what we hear. That is where my confusion is. Can you work a little bit more to make me understand by shedding some light on this one?

"We do not say kARRu with the first short R sound same as the short R sound in mERku and the second R same as payaRu"

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