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of reason, and divided all things, animate and inanimate, into two classes,
viz., Uyarti–ai, the high class, and
AhŠi–ai,
the low class, the former comprising all rational beings, and the latter,
all the rest. Accordingly, they so constructed the language that words
relating to human beings, celestials and God alone indicated gender as
well as number, and those relating to irrational beings and inanimate
objects, only number and not gender. Thus, the two Ti-ais or classes of
words became divided into five philosophical genders, viz., ƒ–pƒl,
masculine singular, Pe–pƒl,
feminine singular, Palarpƒl, masculine,
feminine or epicene plural; O‹Šanpƒl,
irrational singular, and Palavinpƒl, irrational
plural, the first three belonging to the High Class and the last two,
to the Low Class.
| e.g. |
avan,
that man. |
ivan,
this man. |
| |
ava˜,
that woman.
|
avar,
those men, women |
| |
iva˜,
this woman. or persons. |
ivar,
these men, women or persons. |
| |
adu,
that thing.idu, |
this
thing. |
| |
avai,
those things. |
ivai,
these things. |
atanu, and atadu, meaning ‘he’, are Telugu
words derived from the ‘adu’ base.
adu changes into adi as a suffix in Tamil,
though not as a pronoun as in Telugu.
| e.g. |
maŠadi,
forgetfulness.
uvan, the man who is in front of me.
uva˜, the woman who is in front of me.
uvar, the men, women or persons who are in front of me.
udu, the thing which is in front of me.
uvai, the things which are in front of me. |
All frontal demonstrative words have become
obsolete.
There are also pronominal terminations derived
from the an base, for all the five genders, as follows:
anan, ana˜,
anar, anadu or a‹Šu, and ana.
The
‘an’ base of these terminations is generally considered to be a euphonic
connective particle called šƒriyai, by commentators.
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