K R Aadishthan, who is on a voyage of self-discovery in Bangalore, independently discovers the Law of conservation of H, which I had stumbled upon and written about in my old blog, and wonders what explains the fact.
The Law of conservation of H states that the total number of H’s in the universe will be conserved. So the extra H’s that are added when Southies have to write names like Sunitha and Savitha are taken from the words Sasi and Sri Sri Ravisankar, thus maintaining a balance in the language.
The reason as to why we Southies add the extra H’s is quite simple. How else would you distinguish between the hard and soft pronunciation of consonants, a problem which, I must point out exists as much in North Indian languages as in South Indian languages? For example, how would you distinguish the correct pronunciation of t in Sunita from the pronunciation of t in Sunlit? To tide over this very real problem, South Indians have come up with the very sensible technique of softening the consonants by adding an extra H. North Indians would do well to get over their uncalled-for chauvinism and their inexplicable preference for small names and adopt this practice too.
Of course, the question that arises is, why those sorely needed extra H’s have to be taken from other names in the language. I am afraid that there is no easy answer to the question, but it has to do with maintaining the natural balance between Prakriti and Purusha, or, as we Southies would put it, Prakrithi and Purusa.
I hope this explanation suffices for KRA and induces in him an urge to post an entry about the Jivhabot.
Ravikiran:
1. Thank you.
2. To avoid breaking the law of conservation of H, I am now KR Aadisthan.
3. The entry on the Jivhabot will have to wait its turn as it received less votes than the entry about my stats prof. I will not post that until I get my stats paper back.
But I dont know any South Indian who spells sunitha as shunitha, or savitha as shavitha….. So, where is the extraa ‘H’?
Ramnath, you are unclear on the concept. North Indians spell Sunitha as Sunita. South Indians spell it as Sunitha. But to maintain a balance of H’s in the universe, they have to take the H’s from somewhere. This they do from words like Shashikala and Shridevi.
The fortunate thing about the law is that H’s don’t have to be in local balance, only in global balance. So it is not necessary that the balance is conserved in individual words, only at a global level. Aadisht is an environment friendly name in that sense, because it can evolve into its South Indian form without upsetting the ecologically delicate balance of H’s in the universe, but most names are either H-generators or H-sinks and changes in fashion have a tendency to upset the balance I was talking of.
Hmm. I wonder if the “Saawan ka mahina, pawan kare Sor” attribute from Bihar/Jharkhand/Uttaranchal is related to this.
i would like to tell that my name is spelled as “vineet” and not as “vineeth”.am a malayalee and i find that northindians are spelling it correctly but the tamilians are spelling it as “vineeth”.
Hmm…interesting!
Just write these 4 things in english, and distinguish soft and hard ??????? ??????? ??????? ???????
Just write these 4 things in english, and distinguish soft and hard ??????? ??????? ??????? ???????
Interesting, but:
“For example, how would you distinguish the correct pronunciation of t in Sunita from the pronunciation of t in Sunlit?”…
…is a problem of English language and not of hindi or tamil (or any other south Indian language). And hence, presence of “h” remains unexplained. 🙂