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368 and modifications with reference to the approved literary Tamil of the learned section. The same process was certainly in operation among the early Tamils of the Kerala country who were mostly illiterates ; but since these grammatical and lexicographical forms were left unrestrained by any fixed rules, and since this process of phonetic decay was aided by the indifferent attitude of the Nambudri Brahmans who were quite ignorant of literary or classical Tamil, they had come to be eventually accepted as correct usages in their later corrupt Sanskritized Tamil or Malayalanı literature.

This was how the personal terminations of Tamil verbs were dropped in Malayalam. There are yet some traces of verbal inflexions in the second person plural as in @7 c and in the first person plural as in g010-ve will give, &c. It is not, therefore, correct to say, as some Malayalam scholars seein to assert, that there are no traces of inflexions in the colloquial Malayalam or that Malayalam verbs were never inflected.

We may explain the vagaries of Malayalam language, which is technically called the “levelling” of inflections, and its grammar by taking one or two specific instances :| (1) அஹிச்சத் ரத்திங்கல் இருந்து....இதி

ந்து வருத்தியெந்நு சொல்லுந்து ; (2) Imobo Forflwr sfiori,ker. In the first quotation the terinination is n' serves different purposes ; ந்நு in இருந்து is a modified form of