The Sumerian kal: stone and learning: Why?

"kal" in Sumerian

There are hundreds of words that have come down from the Sumerian past of the Tamils unchanged in phonetic, shape and meaning. What is more surprising is that  there are  overlaps in a range of semantic nuances of quite a number of these words. 

We can think of the field of Archaeological Semantics where the different layers of meanings of certain words in fact TELL the evolutionary history of man. Earlier we saw that the coincidence of meaning of Su. ma both as boat (tree) and large, great and so forth may NOT be accidental. It may be the experience of tall and huge trees that may in fact prompted the coining of the concept of HUGE, GREAT and so forth and transform the MEANING but keeping the same phonetic shape.  

While Tamil retains the traces all these different evolutionary developments ( maa: mango tree, maram: tree ; maa: huge great) Sanskrit seems to retain only ‘mah’ as ‘maha”

Now to this list we can add the word ‘kal’ which means both ‘stone, firm as stone’ and ‘to learn” . But why this overlap? It may be possible that ancient Sumerians/Tamils were READING rock-cut engravings where the activity of READING and learning was also something with stones or rocks.

Let us see the words:

From Suruppak’s NeRi (c. 3000 BC), 'Instuctions of Shuruppak' we have ‘kal’ unmistakably as ‘learning’ as follows:

246:

Sumerian : nig.nam kal-kal-en nig.e me-kal-kal  ( You appreciate something, it appreciates you.()

Tamil :  nikaznam kal.kal-in mikvee mey kal.kal ( If you learn about the happenings around you learn the truths)

நிகழ்.நம் கல்கல்லின் மிகவே மெய் கல்கல்

The presence of the conditional VP, kal.kal-in where the  conditional verbal suffix ‘in’ is still in use ( in addition to ‘aal” . Now the word kal.in would be expressed as kaRkin but which is only a transform of the base : kal.in

Now we have the  ‘stone’ sense in the line below:

Temple Hymn 9

2(120)

Sumerian : us-ku temen-gal-zu nam-kal-kal ( Your base (and) your great foundation are mighty)

Tamil :  ucci koo taamankaL-ju namkal.kal ( Your divine top and wide base are really strong and firm)

உச்சி கோ தாமான்கள்ஜு நம்கல்கல்

us (the top) Ta. ucci : the very top, peak etc)

nam-kal.kal ( really strong and firm)  Ta. nam.kal.kal Ta. nalam, nan : really, very truly etc. Ta. kal :stone, firm. The ‘nam’ serves here as an adjective for the metaphorical use of ‘kal’ (stone)

Here nam.kal.kal which will be expressed now as ‘kal.kal. nam’  where the nam (> nayam, nalam?) can also be taken as the abstract noun formant, makes it clear that the meaning is ‘strong and firm’, a meaning that comes from a metaphorical application of the primary meaning of ‘stone’

This overlap of both meanings and metaphorical applications cannot be accidental. Once the ancient Tamils must have READ and learned from stone cut inscriptions or rock-cut symbols before they changed the media to clay tablets and which comes along another range of terms for writing, reading, and so forth.( ri, gir, dub-sar etc)

Dr Loganathan @ Ullaganar

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

( photo courtesy of https://pixabay.com/en/mesopotamia-assyria-sumerian-1827242/ with thanks )