Re: Root reversal in Dravidian

From: "Tim May" <butsuri@...>

> Danny Wier wrote at 2004-05-19 21:19:24 (-0500)
> [...]
>  >
>  > My question: is this an exclusive feature of Dravidian, or can this be
found
>  > in other languages (besides Shelta, obviously)? Maybe I should form
antonyms
>  > in Tech by reversing the word, so that _bwarg_ 'to make war' becomes
_grabw_
>  > 'to make peace'...
>
> Not exactly the same phenomenon (if the phenomenon is even real in
> Dravidian) but you might find this paper on root-inversion in Salishan
> interesting.  (It's more a matter of cognate terms being reversed
> versions of each other.)
>
> http://www.uwm.edu/~noonan/SALISH.type1.pdf
I looked at some of the document (it's too long for me to read in one day;
my brain wouldn't let me). Like Dravidian (from what little I know about
it), the Salishan instances of root reversal do not form antonyms like I
would've expected, but either derivations or simply alternative forms. If I
ever seriously study Tamil, I'll have a better idea.

About Tamil. I do happen to like Grantha script a lot; it's designed for
writing on palm leaves (like Burmese), thus its high number of curves. I do
recommend the Arial Unicode MS font instead of Latha (a plain sans
serif-type font); it looks much better, and Arial Unicode also has nicer
Devanagari than Mangal (again, plain sans serif).

My interest in the language is also related in my sudden interest in
Hinduism, since I've finally decided to try yoga as therapy for my
disability.

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