Re: [WMASTERS] Response to Kumar

[Anukanth Anumanthan <anuman@mbcrr.harvard.edu>]

	I would be more than happier if Murasu-Anjal and Inaimathi
	are accepted as standards.  I supported it because Muthu
	has done wonderful job.  Further, it is a tamilan job.

	Mr. Hart,  You won't talking here about tamil, neither I,
	if tamils had not fought their war saving tamil against
	crusading attack of Sanskrit.  I am not sure whether
	it is 10,000 years old war or even older.

	Starting from Robert GoldWell, and G.U. Pope,
	and upto Maraimali Adikal, Parithimal Kalainjar, there are
	many many Europeans and Ariyans loved tamil and fought for 
	its survival.  The period many tamil net members are living
	is the golden period of tamil.  After the ancient golden periods
	of three Sangam, this is the first ever golden period, after adark
	period of many thousand years.
	Tamils finally got awakened and they have got partial political
	freedom also.

	Many tamil net members who are tamils by birth may not even know
	what happened to tamil in various period of time in the history
	and how many attempts were made by Ariyan invasion in the open
	and tamilnadu brahmins in the disguise and north indian politicians
	in the name of United India.  I was just reading the speach of
	Indian defense minister Hon'ble Mulayamsing Yadhav.  At madras 
	he said that English has to be thrown away from India and 
	all the regional languages have to rule the country.  He said 
	many in India love tamil, and during his chief-ministership
	he introduced tamil teaching in UP schools.  He said that when
	tamilnadu M.P.s spoke in parliamment in English, he told them
	to talk in Tamil.  What he said ha did, he really did.  They are
	all true.  He also said that he will never try to impose hindi
	on any other regional people.  I have first ever seen a man
	from UP talking like this.  This is the first ever period 
	that regional parties in India formed a govt ad the centre.
	I would rather request the leaders of this coallision govt
	to remove hindi from official language status in the constitution
	itself, and rewrite it to give equal status to all the Indian
	languages, irrespective of how small a group speaks that language.
	Unfortunately, still it is congress, still it is the same Nehru
	family that rules India.  The moment any of the regional parties
	raise this issue, congress will withdraw its support and the
	govt will fall.  Mr. KarunAnithi, hon'ble chief minister of tamilnadu
	knows this.  No body can bring in a true democracy untill the
	backbone of congress and BJP are broken and the regional parties
	realize what they should really do.  These regional states are the
	majority in India.  Unfortunately, they have been so maneoured
	by Congress (in the name of united India or non communal and
	secular party) and BJP (in the name of united hindu concept).

	During british rule there was a time that brahmins joined together 
	and gave a memorandum to the sate to remove tamil from schools 
	and colleges and leave only Sanskrit and English be taught.
	Suriya Narayana Sasthri, although he is a brahmin, and also
	a very good sanskrit scholar, got so angry. Hhe was
	so emotionally attched to tamil.  He was serving as tamil
	professor of Christian College, Madras.  He was the first
	person to start Pure Tamil Society (Thanith Thamiz Iyakkam).

	He argued that it is because tamilans are letting the sanskrit 
	lovers to sankritise tamil, sanskrit lovers went to the extent 
	of requesting the govt to remove tamil from school, that too
	in the land of tamil.  He called the people to join with him
	to boygot Sanskrit in every possible way.  He insisted that tamils
	to save tamil, should speak in tami and write in tamil, not in 
	sanskrit.  Had it been another person no less than a sanskrit 
	scholar and brahmin like Suriya Narayan Sasthri, many would have 
	destroyed him and his movements.  Tamils were so innocent
	people and they did not even know what is happening to their
	language.  Tamil, like "Peyak kaNdum nanjuNdu sAthal"
	have been so tamed not to fight with enemies in improper ways.
	They tried to preserve their pride of being honest and brave even
	when they meet their enemies in the war field.  PuRaththiNai
	as said in TholkAppiyam will stand as evidence for what I said
	above.  That is how they fell so easily to the invasion of many races
	and religions. I have said to my people in speaches that
	"thamizan maRaththAl aziyavillai; aRaththAl aziwthAn.  
	aRaththinmIthu koNda aLavaTRa NampikkaiyAl aziNthAn". 
	That is why they needed sanskrit scholars to awaken them and
	tell them about the richness of tamil and also the danger it is 
	facing in the hands of Sanskrit lovers.

	It does not make sense that there is a community, that claims
	itself as tamil community, but is preserving sanskrit by using
	it in their every day life, - although no other community speaks,- 
	and fights for the survival of sanskrit.  It does not make sense why
	this sect of tamil community names themselves with sanskrit
	names and use slokans of sanskrit as mandras and call sanskrit as the
	language of God. As I learned those mandras, the translation
	does not say anything but the usual falttering of gods and requesting
	gods to help us.  This can be done in any language.  If at all there is
	a god, it should be language independent.
	

	I do not want to write more on this.  But this community tried 
	its best to sanskrtise tamil as their attempt of destroying tamil 
	failed.  These attempts are atleast went in full force during the last
	1000 years.  It reached its peak during the british period.  They did
	this so elegantly by learning English so quick and adjusting with
	the british.  Most of the govt jobs were in their hands during this
	period, and they tried to use their influence in british govt to
	block tamil from being taught in schools.  British would have 
	become a pray to the cunning tactices of this community had they
	not realized that they have to spread their religion and they 
	have to rule this part of the land and for that they have to stick 
	to the language that is spoken by the majority  That is when they
	set of printing press to print tamil scripts and printed bible
	and other materials in tamil and they employed tamil teachers
	in schools to teach tamil.  That is how even Bharathy got a tamil 
	teacher job at Ettaiyapuram School. Even in those days most of the 
	teachers are from this sect. Until then mostly it is this community
	that will learn to read and write and they will do it from their
	own gurus.  It is mostly a caste affair.  That is, moslty they will not 
	take a person from another sect as a student.  One may think that it
	is two hundred years back affair.  No, it is not.  On can ask the 
	experience of the present Vice chancellor of Madras University.  
	He was the first non-brahmin to get a Ph.D. in biophysics.  It does not 
	mean no one opted this subject.  In india untill recently, candiadtes 
	for Ph.D. were chosen according to willingness of the supervisor and 
	not based on any merit.  

	In those dark period of tamil,  few of other sects managed to become
	scholars first by learning sanskrit and then tamil.  There was a period 
	in tamilnadu that if you do not know sanskrit, you are considered 
	illiterate.

	These continuous onslaught on tamil gave rise to a situation
	that there is no tamil without sanskrit.  As I said it went to
	the peak during british period.  Many of you, I am sure,
	would not have even heard of all the works of 18/19 centuries.
	Most of the titles of those works are pure sanskrit.  You
	would not even understand the meaning of those words now.
	That is how Bharathy wrote his tingleskrit poems.  There is
	nothing so unsual or special in his writings that you would
	not have seen in our rich ancient tamil literature.  Not only Bharathy, 
	but all the latter poets couldn't do much of original works as so mcuh
	has been written in tholakApiyam, thirukuRaL, NatriNai,
	kUrunthokai.  I believe most of you know that we are not
	able to retrieve 90% of our works.  Even in less than 10%
	that we are able retrieve, if so much is there, just imagine,
	how much would be there in those that we lost for ever!

	Because Sanskrit has been picturized as the language of God,
	and only brahmins can talk to god, because they know this God's 
	language, eveen tamils started naming their children in Sanskrit.
	I am sorry, I am telling you a lie.  Many tamilans did not even
	name their child.  Whenever a newborn came to the earth,
	tamilan went to an Ayyar and requested him to name his
	child that would best suite to the brith chart of the child.
	Guess, what would be the name an Ayyar would choose.
	Naturally, a sanskrit. That is how many of us got sanskrit
	based names.  In the name of god, mandras, bestowing god's
	grace upon human beings these people so effectively handled
	their supremacy and Sanksrit's supremacy.

	Somehow or other tamil had survived all these attempts.
	Now, in the 21st century, it is going to enter into
	a new world "computer world".  Now, tamils can no longer
	claim that the brahmin community is affecting them.	
	By reservation policy, one of the weknesses of democracy, now
	the brahmin community is affected more than non-brahmin communities.
	I do not want to go into the aspect of whether it is justifiable or 
	not.  

	Hellow, 8 crores of tamilans, living all wround the world!
	I am calling you,
	no more blaming of brahmins.  They are suppressed and they need
	help.  I am sorry to write these here.  I was restraining from
	entering into writing caste issues, although many showed their 
	real face here.
	The very names of these individuals and the concepts they
	write in support of will very well be seen in every script
	and words they used in this net.  They support imposition Hindi.
	They support singalese war against innocent tamil.  Or they
	keep silent on it. 
  
	Still I restrained myself.

	Now they are so united in sanskritising tamil.  So far not even single 
	brahmin, including Dr. Kannan, (yes, I do have a special regard for 
	him, because some of his views are excellent and also he tries to 
	his best of ability to write in pure tamil) wrote against 
	sankritising tamil.  Just because Bharathy or some body else made 
	mistakes by writing tingleskrit songs, why do we sanskritise tamil?
	Suppose I write "tamil is the best language in the world, and I love
	it more than my life" in Mandarine, would you recommend to include
	mandarine scripts along with tamil scripts.  There are many
	japanese who have written very high about tamil I witnessed japanese
	presentation at the world tamil conference held at madurai during
	MGR's period.  One japanes claimed that japenese originated from 
	tamil.  You know about Chatterjee and his excellent works on
	"Tamil origin and development" in bengali?  Do you want to
	present them in the web and hence do you want to iclude bengali 
	scripts also?
	
	If there are grantha scripts (of course there are a lot)
	use them if you are forced to write those words.  Using any other
	script is indiviual's choice and depend on the needs also.
	I am writing all these in English.  I have writen tamil poems
	here using englisg scripts.  Likewise we can use tamil scripts
	and Aytha ezuththu to produce non-tamil sounds.  In the worst
	case use grantha scripts.  But why do you want to include them
	in the tamil slots or why you bother to discuss in the first place.
	Our tamil word "ittaLi" if to be written properly, english
	would have inlcluded our "Li" in their script.  No they did not.
	They are writing "iddli" which is absurd and meaningless.
	After some years now tamilan also writes ittili.
	What happned to the pure tamil word "ottaikkal maNthu"
	in the hands of the english people. It became Ottacamod and the
	it has been furthe Englized as "Ootty".

	I have a muscle strain.  With so much back pain I am writing
	all this using one hand.  I had to to save my tamil.
	Had it been one of those days that I was an university professor
	in tamilnadu, by this time you would have witnessed a big war in
	tamilnadu.  All the students would have been in the street
	to save tamil.  I am sure it will not take many days to  tamil
	youths to realize what is happening to tamil.  

	Mr. Hart says I am emotional.  Yes, I am.  It is my language,
	life and blood and breath of my generations.  If you,
	professor Hart, like to discuss about including tamil scripts into 
	English slots and help transliterate all the rich tamil literature
	into English,  I will offer all my comments quite cool and calm.
	I suggested about this work.  You are not telling me when you are
	going to initiate that work.  Do not ignore this mail, please.
	Give a date and I will help you to raise some funds for that
	effort.

	But, when it comes to the death of tamil, no more I can hold the
	truth, and am forced to write all these.  I will write more if
	others enter into the caste war.  Now, my request to tamil youths
	is, "Are you going to let tamil die in the hands of sanskrit?
	Can you not write in tamil by tamilizing english and other 
	lnguage words?  Can you not use grantha or any othe language scripts
	only when needed?  Can you not understand that this is "Tamil
	Font Encoding and Not Grantha Font Encoding"?  Can you not
	understand by letting tamils use other language words and scripts
	tamil slowly become exitinct?  Can you not understand that
	grantha scripts are being thrusted into tamil just to keep 
	a sect of people's love for sanskrit?  can you not foresee
	that you are still going to see news magazines, TV radio
	shows and computer stuff in sanskritized tamil?  Can you
	not see that now you have the freedom of choice and also
	the brain and political power to save your tamil?
	Are you going to save tamil or not?

	With love to those millions of tamil youths
	in and around the world,

	Anu.

	P.S.  In the last one week writings you can see many spelling
	mistakes and grammatical mistakes.  I do not have time
	to edit.  Mostly I do not edit.  You know what I am writing.
	Is it not?
   

	
	

> At 10:14 PM 9/10/97 -0800, George Hart wrote:
> 
> >I agree with most of what Kumar has said.  I would, however, like to keep
> >kS and sri, as they tend to be useful.
> >
> >Obviously, there is no ideal solution.  Everyone has a slightly different
> >view.  I see the consensus as follows:
> >
> >1. Use an 8-bit set, like INaimathi.
> >2. Keep the grantha characters.
> >3. Do not keep the old-style ligatures (lai, etc.)
> >4. Keep the final consonants (with the puLLi).
> >
> >Note that this is just about exactly what Muthu's font already has.  Why
> >not just settle on it as a standard?  Anything we decide will go by the
> >boards, anyway, when unicode becomes universally implemented.
> 
> 
>