been strictly adhered to from the very beginning. Now that Descriptive Linguistics is introduced in the Tamil Nadu Universities, the standard of Tamil is undermined and corruption and adulteration of the language approved and encouraged. This has also led to quackish or quislingite Tamil scholars occupying the Tamil Chair in the Linguistic Departments of many of the Indian Universities. The speech-habits of the common people are not to be approved, even as their social conduct is not approved by the Judiciary.

The western dialectologists are ludicrously meticulous in their classification of dialects, so as to recognize even a personal dialect and this has been adopted by the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which gives the definition of dialect as follows:

     “Form of speech peculiar to a district, class or person.”

     The distinguishable vocabulary, pronunciation and idioms of an individual would not be enough to constitute a dialect.

     The Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary is more sensible in defining dialect as a variety or form of a language peculiar to a district or class.

     The exponents of Descriptive Linguistics have developed a mania for finding a prototype for each and every language and family of languages. The thought of a prototype for each of the members of the same family of languages, is like conceiving of a separate mother for each of a group of brothers and sisters of common parentage. The reconstruction of the parent form of a particular family of languages by comparing all the living members of the family with one another and striking the average, resembles a photographers’ or portraitist's attempt to produce a likeness of a living or dead mother, by comparing the faces of her living children with one another and conceiving a common form.

     All this illusion is entirely due to the total rejection of the aid of History. If historical or geneological treatment of languages is followed, no problem of prototype would have arisen.

      History is a distinct branch of study requiring patience and fair play to a high degree. World History is to begin from the South, i.e., Tamil Nadu. Western scholars, basing their linguistic