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Rh except such as we find between the refined Tamil and its vulgar form. This proves the lateness of its separation from Tamil. We give below a table to show some of the striking changes which the words undergo in Tamil, Malayalam, Kanarese, and Telugu.

The degree of relationship between Tamil and Sanskrit, which are the only two important language known to the Tamils, has been variously estimated. During the early centuries of the Christian era, the Tamils, who were not much acquainted with Sanskrit, seem to have always held that Tamil was an independent language and that it had nothing to do with Sanskrit. They did not attribute its origin to Siva, Subramanya or Agastya, as the imaginative and sectarian scholars of a later date have done. But when they came under the influence of Sanskrit culture, that was subsequent to the seventh