Page:Tamil studies.djvu/188

Rh வினைத்தொகை alone remains to be accounted for and that is peculiar only to Tamil.

The peculiarities of structure and formation of words in Sanskrit have compelled the Tamils to modify them, when borrowed, so as to suit the morphological features of the Tamil tongue. The words thus borrowed are of two classes--the tatsamas and the tatbhavas. It is only the second class that undergoes change in Tamil. At the time of Tolkapyar the Sanskrit words in Tamil were very few, and he felt no necessity to frame rules for their adoption. He tvas content by saying,—சிதைந்தன வரினு மியைந்தன வரையார். The later Tamil grammarians, however, observing the large influx of Sanskrit words and their use in a variety of forms, were constrained to give fixity to them; by providing authoritative rules ; and they are to be found explained in the தத்தி தப்படலம் of Virasoliyam and in the பதவியல் of Nannul. Their main object was to evade or soften difficulties in pronouncing two consecutive consonants in a word, or a word beginning with a consonant not allowed by the Tamil usage, by introducing vowels. Thus, Sanskrit ratna is changed into aratanam or irattinam, sakshi into sakki or satchi ; yaksha into iyakkan, lakshana into ilakkana, &c. This is evidently a stage more advanced than the monosyllabic Chinese which converts ‘Christ' into ‘Ki-li-su-tu' and ‘Maharashtra' into ‘Mo-la-cha,' but far below the infectional Sanskrit, which evinces 'the strength and directness of character and scorn of difficulties' in the Indo-Aryan race. 11