suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> > suzmccarth wrote:
> > I assume that
> > > much of what is said in this article, (see link) is established -
> the
> > > absence of the pulli, then pulli used as vowel lengthener, only 8
> > > vowels instead of 12, etc, However, the lack of inherent short
> medial
> > > vowel is new, is that correct?
> >
> > Not credible.
>
> Okay, early Tamil had 9 independent vowel forms - a, aa, i, ii, u,
> uu, e, ee, o. However a/aa, u/uu, and e/ee were differentiated only
> by adding a small mark or medial dot for the long vowel. Then the
> e/ee distinction was lost leaving 8 vowels for 12 centuries.
>
> Could this not point to an earlier script with only 4 or 5 vowels,
> a/aa, (i/ii only dots anyway) u/uu, e/ee, o/oo?

But we know exactly what the earlier script was: Brahmi.

> It was only in the 18th century that the long e, long o and
> diphthongs came to be represented. Was this a result of the
> bilingual German - Tamil dictionaries/grammars and Bible translation
> work?

There are mss. considerably older than that. What's in them?

> It has been suggested that James Evans of the Cree syllabary had
> seen the Tamil script before he worked among the Ojibway/Cree. I
> don't know of any direct evidence. However, the Methodists were
> involved in work in Tamil and had English translations of the German
> Tamil grammars by the time Evans was in his early 20's.
>
> I don't see how we could ever know for sure about this since I have
> never heard that he mentioned Tamil in his letters - but it seems
> possible.

And it "seems possible" that American Indians are the Lost Tribes of
Israel, or St. Brendan's Welshmen. It just isn't so.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...