From: bkannan@ha06.eng.ua.edu (Balaji Kannan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Re: Similarity between Telugu and Tamil
Date: 29 Aug 1992 17:54:35 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu



>Let me rephrase the sentence. " I can not understand why dis-association
>with Tamil is all that important for some, while at the same time,
>dis-association with Sanskrit is not at all considered that important".
>
>Actually, most of your points, apply equally well as regards relation to
>                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Tamil or to Sanskrit, while the reaction is different.
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>KS


       That is the way *you* perceive it and unfortunately that may not
       be the case with the "some" you accuse. "Equally well" may be the
       way you'd have viewed it were you one of *those*. You are overlooking
       the fact that *evil* influences of Tamil & Sanskrit  are probably
       being viewed on a relative scale.

       I cannot understand why people should take this 'issue' so seriously
       & keep rephrasing over 'n' over again. After all, this ain't going to
       change the attitude of "those" people much, unless there is some amount
       of self-introspection on "our" side too.

       Anyway, let me give it a final try.


>         2)  The reason we sometimes deny history is either because we
>             consider that
>
>            a) something *has been* an evil influence. [point of view]
>            b) association with something ain't pushing your
>               reputation currently.

              a)  O.K, 'something *has been* an evil influence' better be
                  something has been/is  an evil influence [point of view]

              b)  still holds good IMO. Can be phrased differently also.
                  Feel-goodism by associating with something else might
                  be the reason.

>        3) By dissociating now, and distancing eventually, hope to chart out
>           an independent growth for the language in the future.

               This has happened with some Germanic languages. There is
               even a view that "British English and American English are
               moving away from each other [advanced by Robert Burchfield,
               of OED fame] that they'd end up being separate languages"
               How much of it is spontaneous, how much thro' design, is
               very difficult to say. IMO, it  reflects on the attitudes
               of people. If one group is against borrowing from other
               tongues and another group takes a more enlightened approach
               about influence of other languages or takes a more "descrip-
               tivist" view of language than the other, at some point of
               time their languages [once closely knit] will branch out too.
               Dissociating and distancing *may* already be "happening" in
               the case of Kannada/Telugu etc.


          But to totally deny the history of Tamil is unfair. Actually, I'm
          yet to meet someone who says that he thinks "Kannada and Tamil are
          not related" or "Telugu and Tamil are not at all related". "Kannada
          is Sanskrit" and "Sanskrit is Kannada" etc. Most of them tell that
          their language ain't a poor second in influencing others. I think
          it was Jay Naik who reinforced this view or came close to it and I
          guess he is a Kannadiga. If you still cannot understand why some
          people like to dissociate from Tamil, maybe you should conduct
          a survey [seriously] on alt.culture.karnataka or sci.telugu and ask
          for their honest opinions/views on this issue. Seriously though, I
          could care less [it ain't giving me sleepless nights]  You can
          educate people. But, it is difficult to change their attitudes. That
          is left to them.

          bk


     PS:  Why do "some" get pissed off, the moment "Sanskrit" is uttered?
          I know. But, I'm not interested in playing games. Not now.