Re: [indic] Re: Written Tamil and Srivas' Theory

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Mahesh T. Pai <paivakil_at_gmail.com> wrote:

> Since I have clarified this with some native speakers of Tamil (no
> literary qualifications), and they both confirmed that this difference
> (in pronounciation) is becasue Tamil does not have a character for
> /zha/,
>

Sadly there are many Tamilians (i.e. people who speak Tamil) today who
cannot read the Tamil script (even in my own extended family). But if at
all they should have honestly said "we don't know" and not made a statement
like "Tamil script doesn't distinguish ழ and ள" which is silly to say the
least.

> I was thinking that speakers of Tamil resorted to contextual
> rules (like "phone" in English, or the silent "r" appearing in middle
> of some English words).
>
> Is this a class / <errr... > caste thing?
>

Well it is true that a greater percentage of the members of a certain
community pronounce this correctly but any properly educated Tamilian
should be able to pronounce it I guess. I think *all* Malayalis pronounce
it correctly but I'm not sure.

-- 
Shriramana Sharma