1.1. Hypothesis proposed in the
present paper is built on the following basic assumptions:
i)
Language is a
social phenomenon and symbolizes the unification, separateness and prestige of
the people that uses it.
ii)
Among the
dominance configurations which determine the fortunes of a language in a
multilingual situation, the more crucial ones are administrative authority and
social superiority, definable in terms of institutional contexts.
iii)
Intrinsic
reconstruction alone will ensure the continuous history of any language.
1.2. The origin and development of
Malayalam, the language spoken by a population of more than three crores in the
South-West
Coast
of the South Indian peninsula has long
shrouded in mystery. Literary
historians and grammarians approached this question rather subjectively and
consequently failed in arriving at an acceptable consensus.
Traditional scholars traced it from Sanskrit1.
Those with a chauvinistic bent considered at as of independent origin.
Scholars who preferred to be more objective noticed its close affinity
with Tamil. The interpretations
given to this affinity, however, varied as evinced in the eulogical
relationships assigned by them to these two languages; mother-daughter, sister,
once daughter but later sister and so on.
The possibility of Malayalam emerging out of a mixing of Tamil and
Sanskrit also has been suggested, but it could not find much
approval, the popular impressions being that no two languages can produce a
third one. While it has
to be admitted that the contribution of these scholars to the history of
Malayalam is significant it should not be left unnoticed that their approaches
were methodologically defective. Concentration
on isocities as the basis to arrive at conclusions and lack of efforts to find
rules to change have vitiated their statements.
2.1 Though our ancestors had
conceived the idea of India as a single unit as far back as the age of Puranas,
there have been geographical barriers within India; the Vidhya mountains, the
Satpura hills, the dense forests called Mahaakaantaara, the Narmada and the
Tapti rivers separating South India from the North with a distinct culture of
its own though never fully cut off from that of North India7.
2.2. The separate entity of
South India
is evinced in Tolkappiar's attribute
to Tamilakam "VaNpukaL muuvar taNpolil varaippu"8 i.e. the
area of the three famed ones bordered by cool vegetation.
The three rulers, viz., Chera, Chola and Pandya, were in all possible
constituents of a unitary system of Government on most occasions as attested by
their flag signs as well as the co-occurrence of those signs in inscriptions
like the Tiruvilangod copper plate of 10th Century A.D. Sangam
literature provides clues to the cultural unit of
South India
. Members
of Sangam, the
academy
of
Scholar
poets in Tamil were drawn from
different parts of Tamilagam and their writings are reflections of a uniform
social and cultural life.
2.3.
2.3.
As is possible in any vast area, within this unity there were diversities
arising mainly out of geographical differences.
In the language domain they manifested in the form of dialects of
varieties of speech within the language without deliberate intent on the part of
the speakers. Tolkappium refers to
such varieties in the lines:
centamil
ceerna pantriunilattum
tamkuRippinave
disai col kilavi9
The
twelve areas referred to have been identified by later scholars as TenpaaNTI
Kuttam, KuTam, Karka, VeeN, Puul, PanRi, Aruva, Aruva-VaTakkalai, SiitanaaTu,
MalaaTu and PunalnaaTu of which the first five are supposed to have constituted
the present day Kerala,10 the dialects of these areas together
constituted Malanaattu Tamil, the primary source language of Malayalam.
3.
A relevant question arising in this connection is how MalanTTu Tamil
developed into Malayalam. Duly
considering the fact that the major difference between Malayalam and Tamil, the
language of their neighbouring State, is in the content of Sanskrit elements in
different levels the question has to be approached in the context of
Aryanisation in
South India
.
3.1.
There was a section of Aryan in the Tamil Society even before Christian
era as discernible from the Sangam literature.
However, there are sufficient indications to the effect that they lived a
seclude life never bothering to interfere with the affairs of the natives.
During the period following the Sangam age there was large scale
migration of the Aryans to
South India
. They
preferred to settle down in areas best suited to them physically and the
South-West coastal region was such as one. Tradition
speaks of their settlements in this area in a group of thirty two villages, the
graamams, and the construction of temples in each of them which later developed
into townships. The disintegration
of Buddhism and Jainism in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D.,
the arrival of Sankaracharya heralding a new era in Hinduism and the efforts of
the Kula Sekhra emperors in promoting the Aryan cult gave extra strength to the
Aryans to entrench themselves in this part of South India.
Fair in complexion and sharp in intellect, they easily established their
superiority over the natives. They
became spiritual leaders of the masses in their capacity as priests in temples
which rose into eminence, and as political advisers to those in power.
There were even sovereign rulers among them like the Rajas of Idappally,
Porakkad and Parur with the authority for capital punishment over their subjects
and patronage of all officers within their territories12.
When the Kulasekhara empire had its fall they inherited much landed
properties and administrative authority and established themselves as masters of
the land 13.
3.2. Along with this rising into
eminence in political and social spheres the Aryans established their separate
culture too. Attached to their
temples, they started `saalas' or institutions for learning and expounding the
Vedas, some of which were of a very high order as the one in Parthivapuram14.
Several notable work were produced by them in Sanskrit, literary as well
as non-literary. Performance of
visual arts like Kuutiyaattam, enactment of Sanskrit Dramas, also was part of
their cultural activities centred around the temples15.
3.3. The two cultures that of the
migrant Aryans and native Tamilians could not remain isolated for long.
Consequently their languages also had to converge.
Communications between the two people might have started at a very early
period by pidginization in the form of free mixing of Tamil and Sanskrit lexical
items, with its function restricted to oral communication.
When the contacts between Aryans and those who had free access with them
became more intimate, it developed into a few variety of speech.
The group which made use of this variety, the traivarnikas, was a
privileged group. As natural with
any such groups they set special value on their group identity and developed and
fostered their mixed language to the extent of evolving an effective literary
style, the MaNipravaala. Gradually
it acquired clearly definable and describable grammatical structures markedly
different from those of the source languages.
As a result of the continuous settlement of this group and their
intermixture with other sections of the society its functional sphere got
enlarged. Subjecting itself to the
natural course of change and developing its own complexities as a language it
became inherited as mother tongue of the later generations with increasing
autonomy and democratization of the region of the region it attained the status
of a standard language.
4. Synchronic
descriptions of some of the major writings in Malayalam assigned to different
period commencing from 9th Century A.D. and the analysis of many a
social and regional dialect of present day Malayalam attest this process of
creolisation and subsequent standardization.
4.1. The early inscriptions of Kerala,
like the Vaalappalli inscription (A.D. 830), are written in a language which
cannot be easily assigned to Tamil or Malayalam.
According to Tamil Scholars the language found in them is corrupt Tamil.
In all possibilities they represent a transition stage.
They show a mixing of Tamil and Sanskrit, but the mixing is confined to
lexical items, with occasional changes in the phonemic shapes of the Sanskrit
vocabulary. A few lines from the
Vaalappalli inscription is quoted for illustration:
"namssivaaya
sriiraajaraajaadhi raja
parameesvara
bhattaaraka raajaseekhara
deevaRku
cellaaninrayaaNTu panniraNTu
avvaaNTu
tiruvaaRRuvaay patineTTu
naaTTaarum
vaalappaLLi uuraarun KuuTi
raajaseekhara
deevar tirukkaikkiil
vaittu
ceyta kaccam. TiruvaaRRuvaay
muTTaapaLLi
vailakkuvaar perumaanaTiketku
nuurutiinaaram
taNTappaTuvatu . . . . . . .
taNTam
taippuuyattinaaL uccappaliyinmun
kuTuppatu
kuTaatuviTil iraTTi kaTaviya
raavatu
. . . . . "16
In these inscriptions the
Tamil Phonemes are written in VaTTeluttu and Sanskrit phonemes in GrandhaakSara.
The writing system employed is under distinct with R and r (trill and
alveolar fricatives) represented by the same symbol in clusters, and n and n
(dental and alveolar nasals) with graphs of the same shape the phonetic values
of which are recoverable on the basis of distribution and pattern.
Later
inscriptions show further changes in the language used.
Conspicuous changes are found in the phonemic shapes of the Sanskrit
vocabulary used, inconsistency in new grammatical features like nasalization and
palatalisation, constructions with noun attribute concord are found in them.
The lines quoted below are from the Thiruvalla copper plate assigned to
14th Century.
"YaakamaNTapattil
vaccu uuraaLar
tiruvaTimaar
avirootattaal kuuTi
irunaaruLiyatattu
vaccu veNpolinaaTu
vaalkinra
iravi cirikaNTan tannuTaiya
muttaaRaakinra
puumi muuvaayirattainnuurru-
kkala
nilamum maavarakkontu mutalamaiya
aTTikkoTuttaan
--------------"17
Raamacaritam,
one of the early literary works in Malayalam assigned to 12th Century
A.D. grouped by Scholars under the Dravidian paTTu school of literature contain
several Sanskrit words incorporated in it though without disturbing the
Dravidian phonemic pattern.
4.2.
Liilatilakam, the 14th Century Sanskrit treatise on
ManipravaaLa, which extensively quote from the literary works of its period most
of which have not yet been traced, speaks of two varieties of language in Kerala,
namely the UtkRSTa and apakRSTa, i.e. superior and inferior18.
The former is assigned to the traivarnikas and the latter to those of the
lower strata referred to as `paamaras'. Manipravaala
is the literary variety of the utkRSTa and based mainly on the extent of
Tamil-Sanskrit elements it is grouped under different categories19.
He also mentioned about the non-literary variety of this mixture, the
less prestigious bhaasaa mis'ram, in which style also books have been written20.
4.3. Works of Niranam poets (late 14th
Century) represent the next phrase. Their
works contain heavy borrowings from Sanskrit in all levels.
All the Sanskrit phonemes, voiced stops, voiceless and voiced aspirated
stops and fricatives, and consonant clusters of the patterns C1C2,
C1C2C3 and C1C2C3C4
have been absorbed to accommodate Sanskritic lexical items.
The Nasal + stop clusters which is regular feature in earlier works are
found in these texts in free variation with Nasal+Nasal.
Other linguistic features which demarcate the language of these texts
include phrase patterning that has relative participles and negative participle
forms as constituents and mixed compound formations with as many as four to five
noun constitutents drawn from Sanskrit and Tamil21.
These features are maintained in texts like KRSNagaatha with minor
variations22.
4.4. Addhyatmaramayana of the 16th
Century A.D.23 represents a more or less final stage of this process
of creolisation. The inconsistencies
and irregularities of the earlier texts in features like nasalisation and
palatalisation are reduced to the maximum and excessive dominence of Sanskrit
eschewed. Everything best from the
languages of the erstwhile samples which he deemed fit to continue in a living
language find a place in Ezhuttachan's works.
It thus acts as the starting point of a standard variety of Malayalam.
4.5 The extensive shifts in
meaning manifested by the vocabulary of Malayalam, the problems connected with
the establishment of a standard variety of this language taking into account the
characteristics of regional and social dialects24, and the
difficulties encountered in setting up an ideal orthography also are conducive
to the conclusion that Malayalam is a Creole.
For, though such problems arise in any language they are more complicated
in creoles25.
5. Whether the above
hypothesis regarding the origin and development of Malayalam can be extended to
other South Indian languages remains to be checked.
NOTES
AND REFERENCES
1.
`Samakrta himagirigalita
draavidavaanii kalindajaa militaa
Keeralabhaasaagamgaa
Viharatu mee hrtsarasvadaasamgaa
-
Korunni,
Nedungai: Kerala Kaumudi
(Invocatroy
Song)
2.
George K.M.
Sahitya caritam prastaanangaliluute,
S.P.C.S., Kottayam, 1975 P. 50-53.
3.
(a) Robert Caldwell:
The Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages,
1875 P.24
(b)
Rajaraja Varma
A.R. :
Keralapaaniniiyam,
N.B.S., Kottayam, 1968 P.13-14.
(c)
Gundert, H:
Malayaala
bhaasaa vyaakaranam,
N.B.S.,
Kottayam, New Edition 1962 P.25
4.
Kunjan Pillai,
Elamkulam:
Kerala bhaasayute vikaasa Parinaamangal,
N.B.S. Kottayam, Reprint 1969
5.
George, K.M.
Valarunna Kairali, N.B.S., Kottayam 1958, P.149-154
6.
Subramoniam, V.I. Introducing Language of Middle Malayalam, Dravidian
Linguistic Association, 1973 P. 20-21.
7.
Venkata Ramanappa, M.N.
Outlines of South Indian History, Vikas Publishing House, Reprint 1979
P.1.
8.
Tolkoppiam, Collatikaaram, Cheyyuliyal, 75
9.
Ibid 6.
10.
Raja Raja Varma, A.R. :
Kerala Paaniniiyam, National Book Stall, 1965 Preface.
11.
Raghavan Nambiar, V.
Anals and Antiquities of Tiruvalla,
Kerala Society Papers Series2, 1928
12.
Padmanabha Menon, K.P.
History of Kerala, Vol. II, Ernakulam, 1929, P.417
13.
Kunjan Pillai, Elmkulam:
Janmisampradaayam Keralattil, N.B.S. Kottayam, 1959
14.
Ibid:
Cila Keralacaritra Prasnangal, N.B.S. Kottayam, 1963
15.
Rajaraja Varma Vadakkumkuur:
History of Sanskrit Literature in Kerala (1-6 Volumes)
16.
Kunjan Pillai, Elamkulam:
Keralabhaasayute Vikaasa Parinaamangal, N.B.S.
Kottayam Reprint 1969 P.66.
17.
Ibid: P.86
18.
Seeyam dvidhaa – apakrstoolkrstaa ca
(Leelatilakam, Silpa2 Suutra.6)
19.
Bhaasaa – Samskrtayoogoo Manapravaalam
Tadnttamam bhaasaa-rasa Praadhaanyee
Bhaasaa praadhaanyee rasa Saamaanyee uttamakalpam
Bhaasaa saamyee rasanyuunatxvee madhyama kalpam
(Liilaatilakam, Silpa I, Stras 1-10)
20.
The author of liilaatilaka begins his discussion on Manipravala quoting
the line "bhaasaamis" ram Polutu Kathayaami", identified by later
scholars as from the work Muthuurta
vidhi'. The line is quoted to show
that the bhaasaa referred to in "Bhaasa-Samskrtayoogo" means Kerala
bhaasa. Later, when he wants to
discard the argument that in Manipravaalam there can be words from other
Dravidian languages he mentions about `misram'.
If words from alien languages occur in constructions like `appam tuppam'
it will be a mixture. The difference
between misram and yoogam is that the former is just a mixing up of different
languages without following any rules, where as the latter is a sort of fusion
as found in a chemical combination.
21.
Ramachandran Puthusseri:
Language
of Middle Malayalam, Dravidian Linguistic Association,
Trivandrum
, 1973.
22.
Prabodhachandran, V.R.:
Malayalam
verbal Forms, Dravidian Linguistic Association,
Trivandrum
, 1973.
23.
Tuncatteluttacbhan: Sreemadadhyaatma raamaayanam,
Pub. Paluur Narayana Menon (with commentary),
Vijaya Press, Palghat, 1957.
24.
(a) Subramoniam, V.I:
Report
on the Small Scale Dialect Survey Project (Ezhava-Tiyyas), Department of
Linguistics,
University
of
Kerala
, 1975.
(b)
Panikkar, G.K.:
Ernad
Dialect of Malayalam, Dravidian Linguistic Associations,
Trivandrum
, 1973.
(c)
Roy C.J.
The
Tiyya Dialect,
Madurai
Kamaraj
University
, 1978.
25.
Hall, R.A. (Jr.):
`Pidgins
and Creoles as Standard Languages' – Sociolinguistics: Selected
Readings
Ed. J.B. Pride and Janet Holmes,
Penguin Books Reprint, 1979.