solution to the "kuyava' etymology

[Bh. Krishnamurti]

At 01:41 19/01/98 EST, you wrote:
 >Let us consider some words in Classical Tamil texts with first vowel "u" as in
>our present problem. Consider the following words:
>"uvaRu" (kalittokai 136.2)
>"URu" (akanAn2URu 178.7) . Both mean "to spring, flow (as water in a well),
>etc.
>
>There are more pairs like this. If Krisnamurthys rule II (b) were to be
>valid, we should have ORu instead of URu. So, this example shows that the
>model of Krishnamurthy is not valid for all cases. This means at least in some
>dialects, PDr phonemes must have continued to exist right through proto-SDr to
>Classical Tamil stage as seen here. I am surprised that in 40 years Dravidian
>linguists have not realized this. (This underscores the importance of
>Classical Tamil for an accurate historical analysis of Dravidian.)
>
>Coming to the present case, I am attempting to explore only the etymology of
>kuyava" in RV and VS. I  leave the ku/UyavAc" to others. Among these two (RV
>and VS occurrences), I do not know if Krishnamurthy has any disagreements with
>the VS occurrence in light of the discussion above. As for the RV occurrence,
>Krishnamurthy says <<The Tamil word for potter is reconstructable to*kucawa in
>Proto-South Dravidian. Old Tamil had both kucavan and kuyavan.See DEDR (1984)
>entry 1762 The -c- form was older as in the case of PD*picar, PSD *pecar, Old
>Kannada pesaru 'name', Ta. peyar, pe:r, Telugu pe:ru; Pkt. sa:siram (< Skt.
>sahasra-), Ta. a:yiram, etc. Assuming that all non-SD languages have lost the
>potter form, at the time of borrowing from Dravidian during the Vedic period,
>the form should have been *kucawa[kusawa].. and not *kuyawa.>>
>
>As far as I know, "kucava" does not occur in Old Tamil texts. What we do find
>is "kuyava". I would be interested to know when "kucava" is first attested. Be
>that as it may, even if the reconstructed form is *kucava, there is a
>possibility that the variant "kuyava" might have existed even during the Vedic
>period. According to P. S. Subrahmanyam, "*-c- is weakened to -y- in many
>cases even in Proto-Dravidian". So, one cannot rule out the possibility of
>Vedic borrowing "kuyava" from a dialect where such a weakening has takenplace.
>In a later posting, I shall address the cultural factors which make me think
>that RV "kuyava" might refer to the potter/chieftain. I welcome comments.
>
>Regards
>S. Palaniappan
>
>Old Ta. uvaRu has no cognate in any other Drav. language. But u:Ru (<PD
*u:_tu) occurs in South, South Central and Central Drav. languages. So there
is no relation between OTa. uwaRu and u:Ru, the latter is NOT derived from
the former (cf. DEDR 761). DEDR does not put these as related. Coming to
kuyawa~kucawa, an intervocalic consonant is weakened and not strengthened by
a natural phonetic process. -c- [-s-] thus gets weakened to -y- and not the
other way round. The non-attestation of a form in old texts does not
invalidate its antiquity if it based on comparative reconstruction. Please
note that Ma. and Tu. also have the
-s- forms. The Vedic forms could not have been borrowed from SD in which -s-
> -y-/-0- is found. You have correctly summarized my stand on the
alternation of high and mid vowels and my position is widely accepted by
Comp Drav scholars. What PSS says matters little except where he has strong
arguments in favour of his stand. Also notice that the contracted form of
kuyawa occurs as ko: within Ta.Kota, Toda and Kannada. Emeneau derives the
name Kota from the potter word, ko:v 'a Kota man'.Regards, Bh.K.
Bh. Krishnamurti
H.No. 12-13-1233, "Bhaarati"
Street No.9, Tarnaka
Hyderabad 500 017, A.P.
India
Telephone (R)(40)701 9665
E-mail: <bhk at hd1.vsnl.net.in>

Note:Please note what follows hd is digit 1 and not letter l.
In vsnl the final character is letter l and not digit 1.