Happy Onam

As you know, ഓണം is the mallu festival. The word ഓണം, interestingly, is of Sanskrit origin. It comes from ശ്രാവണം, the month. ഓണം is celebrated on the full-moon day in the month of ശ്രാവണം. Apparently, the derivation is ശ്രാവണ -> ശ്രോണ -> ഓണം





 

Happy New Year

Today is the mallu New Year. The first of ചിങ്ങം. 

Most people may know this, but still sometimes reviews can refresh things :-)

ചിങ്ങം is the തത്ഭവം of സിംഹം, lion, or leo according to zodiac. The സ in Sanskrit gets converted into ച. (It seems to be the case that all the words with ശ, ഷ, സ and ഹ came from Sanskrit and are not Tamil origin, though I am not quite sure.)

The names of the other months closely follow the names of the western counterparts:
Leo - സിംഹം - ചിങ്ങം 
Virgo - കന്യ - കന്നി
Libra - തുലാം 
Scorpio - വൃശ്ചികം 
Sagittarius - ധനു 
Capricon - മകരം 
Aquarius - കുംഭം 
Pisces - മീനം 
Aries - മേഷം - മേടം 
Taurus -ഋഷഭം -  ഇടവം 
Gemini - മിഥുനം 
Cancer - കര്‍ക്കടകം 


Of these the, word for Taurus is a bit complex in etymology. There seems to be a series of letter transformations, ഋ -> ഇ, ഷ -> ട and ഭ -> വ, but these are kind of not atypical.


Thus, it is obvious that the mallu calendar we now follow came with the Sanskrit sub-culture. 

It will be interesting to see what kind of calendar we had when malayalam was in its infancy - as a branch of Tamil.  Even the Tamil calendar was based on the Hindu solar calendar. 

Does any one know if there were any other calendars in use in ancient times?

Indus Script and Tamil

(Sorry for the long hiatus.)

The other day I came across this interesting work by Dr. Asko Parpola linking the Indus Script to ancient Tamil. The details can be accessed here.

He makes some interesting connections with old tamil - how the fish shaped symbol in ancient inscriptions read as 'meen' and how that symbol with various combinations read different things.

There is a cute 'dictionary' too.

ഹാരം words

ഹാരം by itself means garland. But when you add differernt prefixes to it, you get words with wildly different meanings.

For example,
ആഹാരം = food
ഉപഹാരം = gift
അപഹാരം = theft

Can you think of other such words?

Solution to the Riddle

Umesh is right. The correct answer is വാരണം.

Interestingly വാരണം comes from വാരണ which means obstruction. Elephants were used in war as obstructions.

വാണം is the തത്ഭവം of ബാണം, arrow.

രണം is from Sanskrit. It means "that which makes noise", of course, a war does make some noise.

Not sure about വാര. My dictionary says it is of Portuguese origin. Anybody has the details?

A riddle

For a change, here is a riddle:

The answer is a three letter word. Say ABC with the following properties:

ABC means elephant
AB is a unit of measurement
BC means war
AC means rocket

What is the word?

Days of the week

The etymology of the days of the week is quite interesting.

• ഞായര്‍ comes from നേരം (time) which in turn comes from നേര്‍ (straight)
• തിങ്കള്‍ = തിണ്‍് + കള്‍ The root തിണ്‍് means firm. I don't quite know how it relates to the moon.
• ചൊവ്വ is the variant of ചെവ്വ which in turn comes from ചെം meaning 'red
• ബുധന്‍ is from Sanskrit and it means intelligent
• വ്യാഴം No idea. Could it be related to വ്യാളം meaning 'vengeful'?
• വെള്ളി is from വെള്‍്, white
• ശനി is from Sanskrit ശനൈഃ <- ശം that which ameliorates

Thus we have the seven days of the week.

aaab words

With generous from Sanskrit, it is possible to coin (reasonably long) words which contain only one or two alphabets.

Some example
കാകാകാരം = കാക + ആകാരം (in the shape of a crow)
പാപാപാരം = പാപ + അപാരം (sea of sin)

(These words explain the title - aaab words :-)

Can you think of some more?

By the way, you can also use mallu roots for such words. e.g.

നാനാനനന്‍് = നാന്‍ + ആനനന്‍ (four faced) = Brahma

Proverbs?

There is this interesting concept of various ന്യായം in malayalam.

Apparently, these are Sanskrit proverbs.

A couple of interesting ones:

ലൂതാതന്തുന്യായം - (ലൂത = spider, തന്തു = thread). Just as a spider weaves its own thread, makes the web and then destroys it, one person destroying what he himself made.

കൈമുതികന്ന്യായം (കിം ഉത) A rhetoric question that assumes knowledge without saying clearly what is known. E.g. "പിന്നെപ്പറയണമോ?"

കാകതാലീയന്യായം (കാക = crow, താലീയം = fruit of palm) "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" - after this therefore because of this. For example, the crow sat on the palm tree and coincidentally the fruit fell down does not imply that the sitting of the crow caused the fruit to fall down.

Do you know of others?

Fear

Just as നെയ്യ് comes from the Sanskrit സ്നേഹം, the word for fear, പേടി comes from the Sanskrit ഭീഷ് (meaning fearsome). (Such words are called തത്ഭവം )

That might sound like a far cry. But it is not that difficult to see. It is conceivable that ഭീ was transformed to പീ. What about the ഷ? There is this etymological rule that in some words the ഷ gets transformed into a ട. Thus, ഭീഷ് -> പീട് -> പേടി.

Land and Sea

Sometimes, even simple everyday words have very interesting etymology.

The other day I came across these two.

The common word for sea is കടല്‍. It comes from കട + അല്‍. We see കട in കടക്കുക, to cross. The അല്‍ is the same one what we see in അല്ല no. Thus കടല്‍ means "that which cannot be crossed".

On the other hand, land is കര. Originally, it means shore. It comes from the root കര that we see in കരന്നു പോവുക which means to gnaw, to dissolve, to decay. Of course, the water gnaws at the shore.

Isn't it interesting?

P.S. I finally have a copy of ശബ്ദതാരാവലി - the giant mallu dictionary! The above two tidbits are from that. Keep tuned for more :-)