Is tamil derived from Sanskrit

[bis_mala]

Western researchers (linguists or philologists) classify Sanskrit as Indo-European and to find out whether a word is Sanskrit or not (disregarding for the moment the differences between Rigkrit, Pali, other related languages and the latter- day Sanskrit ) they look for equivalents in Old Iranian (Avestan etc ) and other Germanic tongues. If there is no equivalent, then it is a Dravidian word. The early Aryan had a limited vocabulary. If you adopt this method, Sivan, Vishnu etc are Dravidian.

If you do not believe in the Aryan Migration Theory of the Western researchers, then Sanskrit is not Indo-Euro. Then you must say that it grew up in India and the west-related words in it were then "borrowed" by Sanskrit. But all other words which have no relatives in the West may or may not have common orgin with Tamil words or were borrowed from Tamil and other South/Middle/Northern Dravidian languages now living as well as those extinct. Tamil is primitive and older; if roots show a word to be Tamil, then the word is Tamil.

A word may be said to be Sanskrit because of early documentation and usage and not necesssarily by origin. Some authors prefer this method. In this method, colloquial Tamil usage may become ignored and this is the risk. A colloquial word in one area may have found its way into literary usage in another area of a different language but then the roots of the word will betray its origin. I therefore sometimes think it did not matter whether a word is Tamil or Sanskrit or of other language. The roots are looked for usually with the view to better understanding of history and culture; also for definition of its meaning and proper usage.. This is academic and not for people to boast.

Note: The above was moved from: Evolution of Saivaism and it's development in Tamil Nadu from the Indian History & Culture Section.