This page needs to be proofread.
THE ORIGIN OF MALAYALAM
363
in the colloquial Tamil or a Tamil dialect of the Kerala country known as Malayalam. In this work verbs are mostly infected, while neuter verbs have invariably dropped their inflexional terminations. The clipping of personal endings in verbs must have already commenced during the early part of the 16th century. And the forms of Tamil words used here are mostly those that we find in the vulgar conversation of the uneducated Tanvilians. Fulco for செய்வித்து, பச்சோடம் for பச்சைப்படம், வேணுன்ன for Co o seu COLOCOT &c. He has largely used colloquial Tamil words like goes, WFF, LITL, Q5607 60 Ó, CFQ4, Sonu, &c. which have become obsolete in modern Malayalam. The dative case in boo or 155) has also come into usage along with other Tamil grammatical forms. The author is now gratefully remembered by all the non-Brahman classes of Kerala as the pioneer of liberal education ; he was the first Brahman who wrote for the benefit of the Sudra castes in their own tongue, the Malayalam, in spite of the fact that the Nambudris despised their dialect ; and he is justly called the Morning Star' of modern Malayalam literature.
The next author we have to consider is Tunjat Ezhuttachchan who flourished about A. D. 1650. All his works are translations from Sanskrit, and he has freely used Sanskrit words and expressions, more abundantly than any other writer who preceded him. He was the first to use the Sanskrit case endings as in orodisi, sthalopante, and adverbs like ittham, iti,
