വെറുതേ...

I can't believe it is more than a year since I posted something here. I guess, life got so busy...


Anyhow, today's word is "വെറുതേ" a prototypical mallu response - epitomized in jokes as "simbly". (e.g. why did the mallu cross the road? simbly) 


Our friend Gundert says it came from the root വെറു which means "void of, empty", whereas ശബ്ദതാരാവലി says it is the തത്ഭവം of വൃഥാ. Gundert groups it under many other വെറു words like വെറുങ്കഥ  (fable). The തത്ഭവം argument is suspiciously simple.


Which do you think is more accurate?




Tail piece: Both dictionaries agree that ചുമ്മാ comes from Telugu ജുവ്വ. Does anybody know what that means?


  

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?