Tamil And Sanskrit Grammar

Tamil and Sanskrit Grammar

Questions by Rajarshi:

Is Tamil grammar itself written in Sanskrit? 
Does Tamil have its own technical grammatical terms or does it rely on Sanskrit terms?
Is there any resemblance between the grammatical analysis in Sanskrit and the same in Tamil?

Your questions require a book length reply and which is impossible right now. But let me give some pointers towards a deeper study by scholars competent both in Sanskrit and Tamil grammars.

1, Now the first thing is that ALL grammatical treatises on Tamil are written in Tamil and this at least from the days of Tolkaappiyam( c. 3rd Cent BC) if not earlier. This continues to this day. Furthermore in Tamil scholarship there is a deliberate attempt to avoid using Sanskrit ( Sk ) words and which is in some cases quite ridiculous.

2, As far as I know almost all the technical terms in Tamil grammar are native though conceptually there may be some parallels.

3. While there exists identity of topics and themes in relation to Phonology(ezuttu) and Syntax(col) but the study of Ontology or existential meanings using the spoken language ( vazakku) the composed language (ceyyuL) and body languages (meyppaadu) I,e the vast PoruLatikaram is peculiarly Tamil. As far as I am aware the study of PoruL does not exist as part of Linguistics in Sk tradition.

4. Also in Tamil grammatical tradition Hermeneutic Logic was part of Linguistics. The Marabiyal , an independent text but which comes appended to Tol proper contains the worlds earliest account of Hermeneutic Logic and which became elaborated later by Gautama in his Nyaya Sutras.

5. Another interesting difference is that of Utti Science. While the study of Utti-s (Sk ukti) remains part of Tamil linguistics (almost to this day) in Sk it is found only the medical texts like Shisruta Samhita, political treatises like Artha Sastra and so forth Here there are overlaps in technical terms used to describe the utties.

6. Now Tol and some later texts record also a kind of Linguistic Survey of ancient India by way of studying what kinds of words are admissible in literary compositions. Such terms as IyaR Col, Tiri Col, Ticaic Col , Vadacol(Sk words) and their definitions provide this survey. Here there is an awareness of Sk words and how they should be transformed in order to assimilate them into Tamil.

7. An interesting area of convergence is in the study of Compound Words called Tokac Col in Tamil and Samajam in SK. That both Tamil and Sk abound in such compound words shows that both are agglutinative and hence Dravidian. At least in the opinion of Subramaniya Dikshitar(c, 17th Cent AD), the author of Pirayoka Viveekam(Tamil), the grammatical differences between Tamil and Sk are very little and they can be overlooked. 

This implies that he viewed both languages as belonging to the same family viz, Dravidian. At that time the notion of Linguistic Family was not known to the native linguists,

Answer by Dr K Loganathan Krishnan, @ Ullaganar 12-7-2012