On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Mahesh T. Pai <[email protected]> wrote:
> Since I have clarified this with some native speakers of Tamil (no > literary qualifications), and they both confirmed that this difference > (in pronounciation) is becasue Tamil does not have a character for > /zha/, > Sadly there are many Tamilians (i.e. people who speak Tamil) today who cannot read the Tamil script (even in my own extended family). But if at all they should have honestly said "we don't know" and not made a statement like "Tamil script doesn't distinguish ழ and ள" which is silly to say the least. > I was thinking that speakers of Tamil resorted to contextual > rules (like "phone" in English, or the silent "r" appearing in middle > of some English words). > > Is this a class / <errr... > caste thing? > Well it is true that a greater percentage of the members of a certain community pronounce this correctly but any properly educated Tamilian should be able to pronounce it I guess. I think *all* Malayalis pronounce it correctly but I'm not sure. -- Shriramana Sharma
