08-05-2006, 06:03 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Many people are so stupid in Tamil Nadu that they don't even know their Gotram or cannot even pronounce it correctly.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Not stupid <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I don't know about the Gotrams for all Tamil communities, but Iyer and Iyengar know theirs very well and they are very good at pronouncing it. (South Indian brahmanas also perform Vedic rites perfectly, and their pronunciation, intonation and chanting is impeccable, which is why many Indians from the north are coming to study at Gurukulas in the south. That's a good thing: they'll take the knowledge back to Kashmir and other parts and teach the Hindus in their regions.)
Tamils of all communities are very good at Samskritam if they get a chance to learn it at a young age - same as all Indians.
Telugu- and Kannada-speaking Indians are excellent at Samskritam too, seen as how Telugu for instance is among the closest to Samskritam because of the latter's massive influences (yes, I know Telugu is not considered an 'Indo-Aryan' language). In Telugu, words have not been truncated to drop Samskritam endings. Same with Kannada. They're simply beautiful languages. I'd trade in all the non-Indian languages I've picked up, to be fluent and literate in Sentamizh (there's no 'z' in Tamil; what's transliterated as 'zh' corresponds to a sound between an 'l' and a 'y'), Kannada, Telugu and, of course, Samskritam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Next, sons can be given the first name of their Grandfathers so these names also get rotated in the family.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->In my family, children of both genders are given 3 first-names, one (or two) of which is their grandparents' or great-grandparents'. Sometimes the remaining first names are those of our Kuladevam and/or the name of a regional Deity. At least one Lingayat family from Karnataka also does the same, so perhaps this is a common occurrence all over India. (I am still talking about the giving of firstnames; the surname amongst many of us Tamils is still the father's first name.)
I don't know about the Gotrams for all Tamil communities, but Iyer and Iyengar know theirs very well and they are very good at pronouncing it. (South Indian brahmanas also perform Vedic rites perfectly, and their pronunciation, intonation and chanting is impeccable, which is why many Indians from the north are coming to study at Gurukulas in the south. That's a good thing: they'll take the knowledge back to Kashmir and other parts and teach the Hindus in their regions.)
Tamils of all communities are very good at Samskritam if they get a chance to learn it at a young age - same as all Indians.
Telugu- and Kannada-speaking Indians are excellent at Samskritam too, seen as how Telugu for instance is among the closest to Samskritam because of the latter's massive influences (yes, I know Telugu is not considered an 'Indo-Aryan' language). In Telugu, words have not been truncated to drop Samskritam endings. Same with Kannada. They're simply beautiful languages. I'd trade in all the non-Indian languages I've picked up, to be fluent and literate in Sentamizh (there's no 'z' in Tamil; what's transliterated as 'zh' corresponds to a sound between an 'l' and a 'y'), Kannada, Telugu and, of course, Samskritam.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Next, sons can be given the first name of their Grandfathers so these names also get rotated in the family.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->In my family, children of both genders are given 3 first-names, one (or two) of which is their grandparents' or great-grandparents'. Sometimes the remaining first names are those of our Kuladevam and/or the name of a regional Deity. At least one Lingayat family from Karnataka also does the same, so perhaps this is a common occurrence all over India. (I am still talking about the giving of firstnames; the surname amongst many of us Tamils is still the father's first name.)