Sumerian Dravidian Studies: The Problems
Dr K. Loganthan, 3-9-12
Recent spade of views expressed by forum members like Arul Tilak Amala Singh Dr Clyde Winters and so forth disclose quite clearly aspects of some new developments which point the way for further Dravidian studies of the future. In this I believe we should not lose sight of what has been reasonably well established and what are yet to be investigated and affirmed. I shall be describing these issues as briefly as possible so that it doesn’t demand too much time to read and ponder.
1.
Sumerian is Archaic Tamil
The first point is that Sumerian is Archaic Tamil and this fact follows purely on linguistic grounds. Any one can examine the Sumerian texts and affirm this fact using aspects of Evolutionary Linguistics that avoids seeking out Protoforms as is the case in the Constructive Historical Linguistics of the West. Here we need not worry about how the cuneiform script is related to some African scripts and so forth, a fact that has its own historical implications. The Sumerian language will remain Archaic Tamil as it stands even if it was written in some other script like Egyptian hieroglyphs and so forth. This implies that the Sumerians were Dravidian speakers and hence Dravidians. Note that this is not a racial classification but something linguistically derived. Now this fact remains quite irrefutable even if we have problems in explaining how these Sumerians as Dravidians are related to the Dravidians in India. In order to dismiss the notion that Sumerians are Dravidians, it has to be shown solely by linguistic means that Sumerian is NOT Archaic Tamil or is not a Dravidian language of a kind. Problems in relating them to the Dravidians in India does not discredit the identification of Sumerian language as Dravidian and hence the Sumerians as Dravidian speakers.
2.
SaGkam and Kumari
Now over and above these I have also claimed that Sumerian is also the Tamil of First SaGkam where I have given some evidences in this direction. Close to this is also the name of Kumari for Sumeria as available In the Sumerian literature. Now this allows me to suggest a historical connection with the SaGkam culture of Tamils in South India where a continuity of language and culture is postulated and demonstrated
Now this claim has encountered many problems in terms of lack of archeological evidences to substantiate this continuity which presupposes a migration of Sumerians into South India after their dispersal in Sumeria around 2000 BC or so. Here there is a valid problem for we do not have as yet any archaeological evidences in terms of the presence of cuneiform scripts clay tablets and so forth that will substantiate the migration.
Perhaps the solution lies in locating the Kapadapuram, the place of the Second Academy. Now these first and Second academies so sophisticated in concept may not be simply empty legends. For the account about the Third Academy held in Ten Madurai is TRUE and almost all great treatises approved by this Academy are available even now and are known as the SaGkam literature. It includes the massive Tolkaappiyam, a culmination of a linguistic tradition that might have taken millenniums to evolve.
Perhaps in Kapadapuram there were cuneiform texts and where the script evolved also into Tamil Brahmi and so forth. Clearly these are matters for future Archaeology.
3
Sumerian the Base Language of Rigkrit
Now another claim I have made is that Rigkrit has SumeruTamil as its Base Language and hence it is as much Dravidian as SumeruTamil is. This has become quite controversial as it denies the European appropriation of Sk as belonging to the Indo-European or Indo-Aryan family of languages.
Here again the matter is purely linguistic and the way I have derived the base forms of many slokas need to be shown to be erroneous to discredit this claim. So far there has not been, as far as I know, intensive studies comparing Rigkritt with Sumerian and which is the only way to discredit my claims
4.
Aryans and Dravidians
Now this leads us to another issue that is being debated: who are the Aryans? Now my suggestion is if Rigkirit has SumeruTamil as its base language, it is also a species of Dravidian language and hence the Rig people Dravidian people even if they called themselves Aryans. Now in support of my claim that the Vedic people are actually Dravidian speakers but who called themselves as Aryans I pointed out Sulgi’s use of Ari-a as “lugal ari-a: the Aryan King. Sulgi as a Dravidian speaker is linguistically a Dravidian but in terms of description of himself as Lugal Ari-a as Aryan politically speaking here. In Sumerian times and perhaps even later the word ‘Aryan’ meaning ‘noble, great’ and so forth was appropriated by many tribes to describe themselves politically. But the Rig Vedic people were the only ones who were Dravidian speakers who called themselves Aryans paralleling Sulgi here.
I am not sure how my above claims can be discredited except by showing the above claims are invalid i.e Sumerian is the Base language of Rigkit and Aryan is a SumeruTamil word meaning ‘great, noble’ etc However there is a problem here: while the Sumerians are fond of writing down everything the Rig Vedic rishies were not- they developed or maintained the Vedas as oral literature. How is this? Was it a case where even though they knew writing and had scripts but for some reasons chose not to commit the Vedic slokas to writing?
5
Kumari and Lemuria
Me recent claim is that there were Three Kumaris , the Kumari 1 the sunken Island in the Arabo-Persian Gulf, Kumari 2, the Sumeria of Ur and Kumari 3 that in South India. In order to locate Kumari 1 I employed a kind of Linguistic Archaeology where I looked at the semantic structure of some selected ecologically fundamental Sumerian words like Pirig Anse.pirig tab.pirig.tur Kur-Kur Ma, ma.gur and so forth and claiming the place of origin of the Sumerians as a landmass where zebras and tigers roamed and where grew Mango trees and where there were many hills with each hill occupied by a tribe, I identified this Land Mass with Jeffrey Rose’s Sunken Island in the Persian Gulf where he also says these people were the ones who initiated the literary culture in Sumeria after migrating to that land.
Now thus thesis has to be compared with the Lemuria Thesis where the Kumarik KaNdam is identified with a huge continent linking Madagaskar South India and Australia and which was sunken millenniums ago. The question is : Can this Lemuria of some 19th Cent AD European anthropologists called also Kumarik KaNdam be the same as the Kumarik Koodu of Silambu and other Tamil literature?
Here one sure way to discredit my claim is to discredit the METHOD of Linguistic Archaeology I employed and how I agree with Jeffrey Rose.
Kumari and Sub Saharan Area
I must also mention that this claim also modifies somewhat Clyde’s thesis of Sub Saharan origins of the Dravidian folks. After moving out of Africa, I suggested that some of these Africans settled in the Kumari1, became the Dravidian in language , developed their linguistic and cultural identity there and which land mass was flooded in stages forcing them to move out and settled in Sumeria Egypt Nubia Sudan and so forth constituting the Kushites, the C-Grouo of People and so forth, the people who were unified in developing the Pyramidal cultures.
This modification of Clyde’s view can be rejected also by discrediting the method of Linguistic Archeology and such archaeological and anthropological studies such as that of Jeffrey Rose.