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oceans,
and the Pƒlai, the great desert of Sahara
and its continuation in Arabia, Persia and Mongolia.”1
“Thus
it may be seen that the South Indian people whom we designate Dravidians
are descendants of the Neolithic peoples with a distinct culture and civilizations
maintaining their individuality through the ages...........They were an
indigenous people and not foreign to the land of Southern India.
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The
colloquial dialect of Tamil best spoken at the Southern extremity
of Tamil Nadu
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(1)
The primitive pronunciation best preserved in the
peasant dialect of Thirunelveli
It
is in the speech of the peasants of Thirunelveli, that we find the pronunciation
of Tamil sounds best preserved in the original form. They are not able
to reproduce voiced and aspirate sounds, even if they are repeated a good
number of times. They pronounce ‘jƒti’ as
‘sƒdi’, and ‘sƒk™i(Œ’
as ‘sƒkki’, exactly in accordance with the
rules laid down in Na‹‹‡l for Tamilisation
of Sanskrit sounds, though they are not aware of them. Even voiceless
unaspirates are not as hard in their utterance, as in the Sanskrit language.
This kind of situation is undoubtedly due to their close proximity to
the place where the original home of the Tamil existed, and to the circumstances
of their being comparatively free from Aryan influences.
(2) The richness and purity of the Thirunelveli dialect
Though
provincialism is a common feature of all the Tamil districts, there is
no rival to the southern most of them viz., Thirunelveli, in the matter
of dialectic richness and purity as is evidenced by the following sets
of words: (i) Evidence of richness ilakku, a fixed place. iŠangoŠŠi,
usufructuary mortgage of land.
1.H.T,p.14
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