Alphabetic Order-Malayalam

ALPHABETIC ORDER
Order is the most fundamental requirement for anything to be intelligible, basic in any intellectual activity or function. Alphabetic order is inevitable in any list of written material, the importance of which does not need explanation.

Now how well does it work in Malayalam?

We are well aware that there is no such thing as alphabetic order in Malayalam. Guess that this may be the reason for the unending chaos, or want of ordered progress in our social or political life. The reason for failure of early development of this ordering system in our language is naturally the unsuitability of out alphabet itself. This is painfully evident in our dictionaries: Often you are not very sure of ‘where’, that is, immediately after which letter you are to look for a particular word.

For example, can every one of us recall, in a fraction of a second, and open up a fast, the word t{] m »w, if that word is in a Malayalam dictionary?*********

The problem here is great because basically, as they say, ours is a syllabic system of writing- we write, sort of, syllables (also called atsharams) and their number is so vast we cannot get at them in a quick order. The total number of possible syllables is unmanageable when you intend to order them ‘alphabetically’. We do not have an alphabet in the true sense; that is what it means. All the same, we perfectly recognize the great importance of alphabetic ordering, so we resort to the English alphabet. This is happening ever since Malayalees learned English, and we are indebted.
How about it if we now have an alphabet, with 42 characters (letters) that behave like an alphabet? Try comparing the resulting situation with the now prevalent one.

ORDER AND RECALL
We have not studied much about the ‘recall mechanism’ of mind; at least, the average people do not have much knowledge about any such mechanism, even though they all have it functioning within them. We as ordinary persons can do with some inklings about it; some tips, perhaps.
Suppose we know to recite the English alphabet without any mistake, and we know the total number of letters in the alphabet is twenty-six. Now, look at three questions; they must all be answered the moment each one is read:
1. Which is the first letter of English alphabet?
2. Which is the nineteenth letter?
3. Which is the last letter?
[Assess for yourself, the success percentage]

Now answer another set of three questions:
1. Which is the letter before M?
2. Which is the letter after M?
3. Which are the letters before and after P?

The statistics of success in this test is likely to tell the greatest success rate. Why?
The mechanism of recall works like a torch flashed, focused on a point in the past. If it is a point on a list or a series or sequence, the torch does light up a point behind and a point ‘after’ the focal point. In other situations, the torch throws light on any one circle or another, of points around the focus; if not it shows up a sequence or series (starting) ahead from the focal point.

This discussion could be stretched to any length in order to establish that in Malayalam there is neither an ordered alphabet nor an alphabetic order!! However, there seems to be no such need for over-exertion.

WE ARE GOING TO ACHIEVE THESE WITH OUR MILLENNIUM ALPHABET!!!

ATSHARAM – ATSHARAJNANAM

In fact, there is no English synonym for this word. Yet, it is a word, which English people would not borrow because of its ambiguity of meaning. Every Malayalee begins school education learning atsharams. He rises in learning heights, becomes pundits, linguists and yet he confesses he cannot answer the question: “how many atsharams are there in Malayalam?” Why after all? He is counting something different, under the heading ‘atsharam’. The same ‘guru’ at the same time he teaches little students that there are 56 atsharams in Malayalam. Look into any primary level Malayalam grammar book to see that this is true. Look at a Malayalam dictionary “iÐXmcmhen‘ stating: A is the first atsharam in the atsharamala. Mark well the citations below, from the same book:

1. AþA£camebnse BZys¯ A£cw

2. BþA£camebnse c­­mas¯ A£cw

3. Eþ A£camebnse Ggmas¯ A£cw

4. -A£camebnse F«mas¯ A£cw

5. -A£camebnse H³]Xmas¯ A£cw

6. þA£camebnse ]¯mas¯ A£cw

7. HuþA£camebnse ]Xn\mdmas¯ A£cw

8. Iþ A£camebnse H¶mas¯ hyRvP\w

9. Jþ A£camebnse c­­mas¯ A£cw

10. Kþ A£camebnse aq¶mas¯ A£cw

11. £þA£camebnse ap¸¯©mas¯ A£cw Whereas it is the 35^th atsharam why are the words beginning with it given beneath other words under I?

12. d þ A£camebnse ap¸t¯gmas¯ A£cw.

13. Aw, Ax At the times when I learned the alphabet’, there were these two entities in the ‘alphabet’. Where and when did they disappear? I did not study that part of history. Was the alphabet ‘re-created’ at some time later? NO problem, it still has room, for being ‘re-created’ again.

14 A£cwþ1. AImcmZnhÀ®§fnÂHmcm¶pw,

alphabet,

hyRP\t¯mSpIqSntbm IqSmsXtbm DÅkzcw

2. Fgp¯p,

en]n

Comments: These selections from a high standard reference book of our language ought to be strongly criticized. Together, they demonstrate unpardonable negligence and persistence in error.

AþA£camebnse BZys¯ A£cw . O.K. We agree No arguments to start with.

BþA£camebnse c­mas¯ A£cw. This is what you find in the second place on the list.

Eþ A£camebnse Ggmas¯ A£cw. I have not seen this letter in action but for two words in Malayalam. Why? Possibly because there is something wrong with it? Its serial number is approved, however. We shall study its properties in a later section

A£camebnse F«mas¯ A£cw. Most of Malayalees may not have had the good fortune to see a couple of words using this letter. Why does it exist then?

A£camebnse H³]Xmas¯ A£cw. How many words do we have using this letter? Its eligibility to stand as letter is examined later on.

þA£camebnse ]¯mas¯ A£cw Has any one seen a word using this letter?. Moreover, some pundits do not include this letter in the alphabet! Is that a correct practice? That omission leads them to get a different number of letters in the alphabet. Is that permissible?

Iþ A£camebnse H¶mas¯ hyRvP\w

There is some amount of doubt as to the propriety of this statement, even though tit it is apparently true. As per the ‘current’ habit the word A£cw should have come in place of hyRvP\w. Then, the term H¶mas¯ would not apply. The term hyRvP\w does not appear later in this list. Why forgot?

Jþ A£camebnse c­mas¯ A£cw. We have been chasing round to catch this ‘bug’. Read it with No.2 in the list. This is not a simple error, which is shown by what follow. Travel on the wrong track continues until the end of the ‘dictionary’. Read No 12 to see how. At this point, one is able to see the long array of errors.

d þ A£camebnse ap¸t¯gmas¯ A£cw It is the last any way as one sees no more A£cw after this one. That implies that the total number is 37. Does that stand hold?

My own view is that these are not simple errors to be corrected; the time for correction is long lost. Rather, these are sins, requiring ‘forgiveness’ through generations. Because, the book is already in the hands of innocent students, who cannot, and are not supposed to correct or proof read a currently popular dictionary. Now, the gravest sin of all appears in No.14 above. Let us look through it for details?

A£cwþ1. AImcmZnhÀ®§fnÂHmcm¶pw, ——————( a )

alphabet, ————————————————( b )

hyRP\t¯mSpIqSntbm IqSmsXtbm DÅkzcw ( c )

2. Fgp¯p, .——— ———————————–( d )

en]n —————————————————-( e )

The word A£cw, has been given two sets of meanings, a total of five meanings.(we bookmark them as (a) to (e), so we can deal with each one separately.

(a) AImcmZn hÀ®§fnÂHmcm¶pw contains two terms which has consistently defied definition and keep defeating the intellect. Ask any student what he understands by hÀ®§Ä. What he is likely to give out as an answer might at best say that hÀ®§Ä are atsharamgal. Of course, that is what the dictionary has said. That is playing with words, not science. The master and the student are just where they started: at zero definition.

(b)alphabet, This word has no Malayalam equivalent. Alphabet for English means that set of 26 letters, nothing more nothing less. It is not yet clear if the word can mean also our atsharamala consisting of all those swaraatsharams and vyanjanams. The problem remains that atsharam is not defined, and no final count has been available. Even if the student can ‘mug’ up this ‘meaning’ he would not have understood what it means.

(c)hyRP\t¯mSpIqSntbm IqSmsXtbm DÅkzcw This is most stupid. This means that atsharam is a swaram standing alone, or with a vyanam. A swaram it is any way. This is rather difficult to understand. What is a hyRP\t¯mSpIqSnb kzcw ? Is that an entity different from swaram?

. (d)Fgp¯p, This is most non- specific word and is no good where what you want is a definition of sorts

(e)en]n If the student is now asked what en]n is, he might answer-A£cw. This is confusing and the English people call it a ‘vicious cycle’. en]n does not state the meaning of atsharam. We shall need to define what ‘lipi’ means.

The overall argument is that the entries under A£cw do not help us understand what atsharam is or means.

The situation becomes more difficult if you now read foot- note No.18 of Keralapanineeyam (page 57, iXmÐn¸Xn¸v) There it says the noun is used in the sense- a syllable. I cannot adequately criticize that foot- note, in a few sentences. Perhaps no one is likely to understand the intricacies of the problem situation unless the solutions are on hand.

Look at one sentence: IrXyambn¸dªm Cw¥ojn 26 hÀ®hpw AhtcJs¸Sp¯m³ 26 en]nbpaméÅXv.

How ‘accurate’! There is no greater mistake possible. For one thing, the English do not recognize at all, which even we do not understand. They have simply 26 letters. That is all. Those do not represent 26 anything. They do not have 26 varnams. They have more than 26 phonemes. ‘Segmental phonemes’ as they call them. Some letters represent more than one phoneme, but one at a time. Conversely, certain phonemes are represented by more letters than one. That is, several letters do represent one phoneme. These phenomena are demonstrated in a section of this treatise. Thus, the statement above is fallacious, and demonstrates lack of understanding of the English alphabet

aebmf¯n F{XA£cap­v F¶ptNmZç¶hÀ F{XhÀ®a­p­v­v F¶dnbm\mWv vB{Knç¶Xv

. Does this not sound strange? The answerer interprets the meaning of a question, in terms that he himself does not understand. As if the questioner does not ‘know’, what he is asking? Of course it is true that the questioner does not understand what an atsharam is, to start with. However, he has no means of learning it because there is no one to teach him that. There is no one who knows. However, the answerer keeps on answering, hoping all the while that someone may detect all errors he is committing, of which

aebmf¯nse A£ckwJybw en]nkwJybpw IrXyambn Xn«s¸Sp¯nbn«nà Why not, yet? Even after centuries? Has it been impossible? Did nobody need it yet? Did nobody try? Don’t we actually need it right now?

What, however, is the relation between A£cw and hÀ®w ? Draw a correspondence? May some body write /draw hÀ®§Ä on one side and lipis (en]nIÄ) on the other side of a line to show how they correspond?

hÀ®kwJybmWv Gsdçsd IrXymbntcJs¸Sp¯nI­n«pÅXv

Some meaning of Gsdçsd can be visualized in the table give below (extracted from page 57 of K.P.)[Dr.1] [Dr.1]

Authority	Year	Number
slÀa³ Kp­À«v	1851	49
tPmÀPv am¯³	1863	48
dh.]oddv	1841	56
BÀ.cmPcmPhÀ½	1917	53
tijKncn{]`p	1904	53

How was this possible? How, ‘only partially’, or ‘approximately’ (Gsdçsd), possible? Why could not any body just complete the counting? What does Gsdçsd mean? It is used to speak of a quantity, which can be now more now less. The number of hÀ®§Ä cannot thus vary in time; if it does, the count got at one time may not be true at other times, and is not to be taught as “the number of varnams”. You still lack ‘the number’. Moreover, Gsdçsd IrXyw cannot be a valid usage where the IrXyw is not known at all. Gsdçsd IrXyw= Not IrXyw. Nearly correct is judged only on comparison with the correct, or the fully correct. You cannot know or say that Y is part of X unless you know the whole of X, and the whole of Y. Can you? The truth of “hÀ®kwJybmWv IrXymbntcJs¸Sp¯nI­n«pÅXv” is that “the correct account is not known”.

The net result is that we do not know the correct number of ‘varnams’ or atsharams or lipies. Is that not a pity? We have to stop beating about the bush and come to face facts as they are. Nobody has done it so long because the difficulties encountered while attempting are unfathomable and dangerous. Precision is a habit we need to learn yet.

Our present treatise is for the ever-eluding solutions to be materialized.

Nothing in the treatise has been said simply to satisfy the desire for saying something. It is deep diving, only.

[Every sentence in it must be seriously taken, as if it is a small thesis.]

Authority	Year	Number
slÀa³ Kp­À«v	1851	49
tPmÀPv am¯³	1863	48
dh.]oddv	1841	56
BÀ.cmPcmPhÀ½	1917	53
tijKncn{]`p	1904	53

Comments:

Let us take two people at a time-

tPmÀPv am¯³		48	Disapproved: 8 48 – 56= -8
dh. ]oddv		56	56 – 48= +8

The difference is plus or minus 8

tijKncn {]`p		53	Disapproved: 3 53-56 = -3
dh. ]oddv		56	56-53 = +3

The difference is plus or minus 3.

.

Authority	Number	Disapproved
slÀa³ Kp­À«v	49	7
tPmÀPv am¯³	48	8
dh.]oddv	56	0
BÀ.cmPcmPhÀ½	53	3
tijKncn{]`p	53	3

We Malayalees are bound by birth to agree that these ‘five’ most eminent persons form a bench of judges who gave their verdict on one issue; only their timings are different points in history. There was not any agreement among the judges whatsoever. That leaves the situation quite pathetic, for Malayalam and for Malayalees.

If tPmÀPv am¯³ disapproved 8 swarams which dh. ]oddv counted as swarams, there were 8 different instances of disagreement on what a swaram is. With eight points of disagreement, there were sixteen ‘sides’; sixteen acts of disagreement; sixteen minds in two persons. If that is so, what should be the picture like, if there are five persons in the ‘disagreement competition’? That is sufficient to argue/ pass judgment that there is no definition of swaram acceptable to all experts or even to two experts of a most diversified panel of five.

To top it all, we now have the greatest number of disapprovals in this treatise: It is difficult to work it out without getting the ‘largest and smallest’ tables of swarams as well as the largest and smallest tables of vyanams. The sources ought to be different persons.

Here for practical purposes, I presume the largest count[Dr.2] [Dr.2] of swarams is 18 (the table which

I learned before entering school and was taught thereafter-A B C Cu D Du E F G sF H Hm Hu Aw Ax). Out those 18 only 5 (five) are now found to stand all the new tests devised to check swarams.

The smallest list I saw is one with 14. (A B C Cu D Du E F G sF H Hm Hu)

However, the list we now have has only six [6] swarams.

Please see Simplifying Swaratsharams

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Page: 3
[Dr.1]K.P.= Kerala Panineeyam, centenary edition, D.C. Books, Kottayam.

Page: 1
[Dr.2]Can also call it ‘font’

Swarams and Upaswarams

Swarams & upaswarams 

How Diphthongs are Generated

Diphthongs in formation 

Diphthongs

Counting Possibility of diphthongs

Genesis of Diphthongs 

Shortcut Lessons 

New Swarams and New Vyanams 

THe New Swarams 

The New Letters