Tamil, like French, relies on fairly strict contextual rules for when the same symbol (example, க in Tamil, c in French or g in Italian) should be pronounced as k or g. So, there may not be a one-to-one symbol to sound mapping, but mapping within the prescribed context is always consistent. For example, the க (k) that appears after the nasal ங (ng), will always be pronounced as g.
Many languages also adapted, rather than developed their own scripts. Brahmi, the precursor of almost all Indian scripts, was most likely adapted from an aramaic-like script. If you've ever, like me, wondered why k kh g gh/ c ch j jh are not similarish symbols, that's why. Different languages also use symbols differently. For example, the Malayalam script has a full repertoire of voiced, aspirate and unvoiced variants found in the Sanskrit varnamala. However, written Malayalam still tends to "prefer" Tamil-style contextual sound changes, especially for Dravidian words. Example, Pongal is written as, പൊങ്കൽ (not പൊംഗൽ), which strictly pronounced by symbol only, would be ponkal. Kannada also exhibits this same tendency to a lesser extent - I've come across a few examples, but nothing comes to mind immediately. Kingsley Joseph On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 5:47 PM, Charles Haynes <charles.hay...@gmail.com> wrote: > You're welcome - and to fix a bad sentence above "one of my favorite > examples of why trying to represent Chinese phonetically is nearly > impossible is the poem..." > > which means it's also a great example of the disconnect between written and > spoken Chinese languages. Famously in the past sometimes Northern and > Southern Chinese would have to write notes in order to communicate - their > spoken dialects were not mutually intelligible, but the written language > was. > > -- Charles > > > On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 10:08 PM, Rajesh Mehar <rajeshme...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Thanks for the corrections Charles. Anybody knows enough about Arabic to > > explain? > > > > And maybe Meera can clarify the meaning of her original question? > > >
