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The Hindu
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
Decoding the Kamal-Kannada episode
Actor Kamal Haasan's remark that 'Kannada was born from Tamil' has sparked several debates. But this is not a new idea; it has existed within the Tamil discourse for two centuries. Robert Caldwell and other linguists have said Dravidian languages branched off from a shared language, termed Proto-Dravidian. However, Tamil nationalists have never accepted this view. They have claimed that all Dravidian languages are offshoots of Tamil. At its peak, this belief extended to proclaiming that Tamil is the world's first language and that all other world languages were born from it. The more acceptable idea Even today, these two schools of thought continue to thrive in the Tamil intellectual space. The idea of a Proto-Dravidian language has gained traction beyond Tamil Nadu. In contrast, the notion that Tamil is the source of all languages has little traction or acceptance outside. We now live at a time when awareness around linguistic dominance has grown politically in India's multilingual context. Every national group tends to hold its language as the primary marker of its identity. Any idea or action that is perceived as one that diminishes their linguistic pride often invites a fierce backlash. In such a climate, it is more appropriate on public platforms to affirm the idea that all Dravidian languages emerged from a common Proto-Dravidian root. Culturally and politically, this view fosters harmony and equality. To say other languages came from Tamil can easily be perceived by others as demeaning to their language and identity. They may see such a claim as a form of dominance imposed on them. For Tamil nationalists, who mix ancestral pride with political messaging, such assertions may help construct a narrative of ancient greatness. But beyond that, in contemporary politics, this view only serves to isolate Tamil Nadu. Without strong, widely accepted academic evidence, there is no need to insist that Tamil is the source of all languages. "I won't apologize if I am not wrong" Kamal Haasan on Kannada-Tamil controversy The classical attributes of Tamil — its antiquity, literary richness, and unbroken literary tradition — are well known to other language communities and to the world at large. Merely presenting these strengths is enough to bring honour to Tamil. Even when compared with modern literature of any Indian language, Tamil literature stands equal, if not superior. What we need are conscious efforts to take this richness of Tamil to a wider world. In 2022, Hindi writer Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker Prize. This year, Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq received the same honour. Tamil, too, deserves to be taken to such global heights. What we need is a sustained cultural effort in that direction — not the unproductive habit of making provocative statements that alienate speakers of other languages. When Mr. Haasan said 'Kannada was born from Tamil,' his intent was not to insult that language. Kannada actor Shivarajkumar was on stage, and Mr. Haasan was speaking with pride about his warm relationship with that family. He was pointing to the kinship between Tamil and Kannada and was trying to say 'we are family; ours are sibling languages'. It is likely that in that moment, the idea that 'Tamil is the origin' — an idea long held by a section of Tamil thinkers — came to his mind. But there is no reason to doubt his intentions. He has the freedom to express such a view in public. Those who hold opposing views can disagree, and speak or write in response. But to issue threats to him is a violation of his right to express an opinion. The court's view When a case regarding the release of his film Thug Life came before the court in Karnataka, the judge almost compelled Mr. Haasan to apologise. While linguistic fundamentalists are prepared to turn this into a conflict between two regional nationalities, should the court be approaching it in a way that favours them? The police may treat this as a law-and-order issue, but the court cannot view it that way. Should the court function like a kattapanchayat (extrajudicial body) enforcing commercial compromise? The court should have treated this as an issue of freedom of expression. Anyone can say they are hurt by a particular view, but what is the measure of being hurt? Anyone can deliberately create social tension. The court cannot consider such people as a party to compromise. The court should have said that it will carefully examine whether Mr. Haasan has the right to express such a view; that this has no relation to the release of the film; and that it will allow the film's release with police protection. Whatever way the case came before the court, it should have been approached from the standpoint of freedom of expression. In a democracy, the court is the final refuge that safeguards that right. Mr. Haasan did not apologise. He explained that 'the opinion was not wrong; it was misunderstood.' Normally, if any issue arises around a film, the standard response is to issue an immediate apology, remove scenes, and make compromises to facilitate the film's release. For the first time, someone from the film industry has said, 'I will not apologise.' 'Thug Life' premieres amid fan frenzy & tight security in Tamil Nadu Whatever commercial calculations may lie behind that stance, the courage to make such a statement must be acknowledged. As the court itself said, this is not a matter of arrogance, but of self-respect. A person has every right to express an opinion and to stand by it if they believe it is right. Democratic opposition to such views can certainly be voiced. But issuing violent threats or denying someone their right to live must be treated as punishable crimes. Perumal Murugan, scholar and literary chronicler who writes in the Tamil language
Indian Express
30-05-2025
- General
- Indian Express
Kannada wasn't ‘born' from Tamil. The truth is much more interesting
Latin had its roots in the Aeolic dialect of Greek. Or rather, that's what some scholars in antiquity, chiefly Greeks as one might expect, believed. Modern historical linguistics shows this notion, known as Aeolism, to be false; the two languages merely share a common ancestor, Proto-Indo-European. In India, the 15th-century Manipravalam grammar, Lilatilakam, hewed a little closer to the truth in its speculation: The author groups the languages of the Kerala, Pandya and Chola regions under the name 'Dramida', but rejects the inclusion of the 'Karnata' and 'Andhra' tongues as they were too distant from the language of the 'Tamil Veda', that is, the Tiruvaymozhi. He does admit, however, that others would include the latter two languages in the category; who these others were, and what exactly they thought, is lost to time. Such passing references offer us tantalising glimpses of a vanished world of Brahminical scholarship, of historical-linguistic imaginations that by far antedated Robert Caldwell's 'discovery' of the Dravidian language family. Let's set this against another piece of historical evidence: A mediaeval prashasti, or praise-poem, from Venadu, a kingdom that controlled parts of southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which later became Travancore. Dating to the early 1100s, it praises a king of Venadu for his defeat of a Pandya lord, Rajasimha, who is described as 'Tamil', implying that his rival was in some sense not Tamil. Perhaps it's a question of Tamil versus Malayalam, as the former had split off from Early Middle Tamil a few centuries prior. However, this particular poem is not in Old Malayalam but in standard literary Tamil. Malayalis would also continue to call even their own increasingly distinct language 'Tamil' for centuries to come. It's a reminder that questions of language on the one hand, and ethnic identity on the other, have long been complex matters in 'Dravidian' South India. Amid the brouhaha over actor Kamal Haasan's statement that Kannada 'was born out of Tamil', it's important to set a few things straight. Although there are still yawning chasms in scholarship on the Dravidian family, and more work is urgently needed, the taxonomy of at least the literary South Dravidian languages is broadly established. The split between Kannada and Tamil is older than any of the surviving literary or epigraphic evidence. Their common ancestor, itself a descendant of Proto-South-Dravidian, is conventionally termed Proto-Tamil-Kannada, but we don't know what its own speakers called it. Both branched off from this unattested language; it is meaningless to say that Kannada came from Tamil or Tamil from Kannada. In general, it's also meaningless to say that any natural language (with some exceptions such as sign languages) is 'older' than any other, as ancestral forms of both would have been spoken at any given point in time. The surviving corpus of Tamil literature is likely older than its Kannada counterpart, dating to the last few centuries BCE or first few centuries CE, despite revisionist attempts to cast the Sangam poems as an elaborate faux-historical forgery created at the court of the early mediaeval Pandyas; such claims fly in the face of all logic and plausibility. That still doesn't say anything about the age of the languages themselves. Another claim is that Tamil is more conservative than related languages, preserving older forms, but counterexamples are easy to find (even ignoring the advantage Tamil has by dint of being attested in earlier forms): The Tamil word for 'ear' is cevi, whereas Kannada has kivi, preserving the older Dravidian *k (reconstructed form). That said, several mysteries remain in the classification of the Dravidian languages, the best known being the debate over the origins of Brahui, spoken largely in Pakistan and to an extent in Afghanistan and Iran. The question is whether Brahui arrived in this region in mediaeval times or it descended from a language that was present there thousands of years ago, when Dravidian languages were far more widely spoken. The answer could, perhaps, tie into the origins of the Dravidian family itself, and whether it was spoken in the Indus Valley Civilisation. The classification of the common ancestor, Proto-Dravidian, is another open question, with theories such as the one positing a connection to Elamite, spoken in Iran before it was Iran, having found little support. The controversy over Haasan's comments reveals the minefield of competing ethno-linguistic claims that any appeal to Dravidian brotherhood must navigate to be successful. To rise above it would require a politics of regional aspiration and counter-hegemony that is shorn of chauvinism and claims of historical priority, leaving the linguistics to the linguists.
