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Pronounciation Affair

Topic started by raycas (@ 212.186.40.21) on Sat Nov 17 11:42:39 EST 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

let me ask u people, how important is the correct pronounciation in now for example tamil songs to u? i just thought of this as i for example read that the singers of the song 'nadhirdhina' from PP had a terrible pronounciation of tamil words (and that this fact made the song unenjoyable), also other messages that hariharan has a bad pronounciation and so on.
and also, which of the non-tamilian singers do u think can pronounce tamil best? would especially like to what u think of the tamil pronounciation of the malayalee singers (KJY, chithra, sujatha, MG Sreekumar....)

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: hihi:-) (@ 128.111.113.201) on: Tue Nov 20 16:57:36 EST 2001
  
  whynot: no worries mate :-). just wanted to add my contrib to the digressions.
  
  (^!^): :-))))
  
  
• From: Neel D (@ 24.98.41.87) on: Tue Nov 20 23:22:19 EST 2001
  
  raycas,
  
  This is what dictionary.com says about "accent".
  
  1. The relative prominence of a particular syllable of a word by greater intensity or by variation or modulation of pitch or tone.
  2. Vocal prominence or emphasis given to a particular syllable, word, or phrase.
  
  And you should know what "bad pronunciation" means.
  
  The occassional slip of Chitra, Yesudas and Jency is 'accent'. Has zero effect on me. Unni Menon has a Malayalam flavor but good pronunciation. Does not bother me at all. Kavitha sings Tamil with a Hindi flavor. That is accent too. Bothers me, especially because she is a Tamil. What Sadhana, Udit, Sukwinder and Subha have with every word and sound is 'bad pronunciation'. I know you don't understand Tamil and so you will never realize what I am saying. If you listen to Lata or Asha singing in Tamil you can see that they put some effort in getting the pronunciation right. Sadhana does try a little, very little. Udit, Sukvinder and Subha are hopeless.
  
  If music directors, singers and most of all listeners aimed for perfection we would not be having this discussion at all, would we?
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.4.55) on: Wed Nov 21 03:50:51 EST 2001
  
  GV - do you pronounce the `ka' in `makan' the same way you pronounce `ka' in `kaLLan'? No one does in Kerala or TN:-) raycas is quite closer to the actual sound than mine (maghan is closer than mahan)..
  
  The difference that I was trying to point out is that Malayalam has official letters / scripts for gha, ha, kha etc. which are different from ka. Thamizh does not have them but have a set of grammatical rules as to how much the vali has to be stressed at each occurence. This, Malayalam has adopted -thanks again to its `ancient Thamizh':-) origin- and does not bother about the special letters it took from `ancient Sanskrit'. This is my logical conclusion (with reasonably good Thamizh knowledge and a decade's experience in reading/lecturing/teaching/translating in Malayalam). I respect the lady whom WhyNot referred for her acclaim but not for her conclusive opinion. I feel such opinion could have been influenced by the BIAS of her biological origin (that most of us often do which is the very basic cause for all arguements & even civil wars):-))
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.4.55) on: Wed Nov 21 03:54:19 EST 2001
  
  Sorry, I forgot add my main experience: `listening to nalla /allAtha Thamizh for 36yrs & listening to varied Malayalam accents (including lectures from some great language critics) from kOttayam to kaNNur for 15 yrs:-)
  
  
• From: WhyNot (@ 203.24.100.132) on: Wed Nov 21 05:17:13 EST 2001
  
  eden: I don't really know wat u mean by "BIAS of her biological origin " and I'm abit lost at this stage, but she did make it clear during the speech tat she is not a Malayalee, but a true-blue Tamil lady.
  
  
• From: pardhu (@ 202.54.26.125) on: Wed Nov 21 06:39:14 EST 2001
  
  SPB being a Telugu singer has achieved unparallelled success
  in Tamil. He has such a great command over the
  language Tamil, that there are so many Tamilians
  who still think SPB is a Tamilian. Hats Off to SPB.
  
  
• From: suresh (@ 202.88.155.34) on: Wed Nov 21 11:55:22 EST 2001
  
  raycas, the malayali condescension is spared only for the 'arabi' for it's the hand that feeds them and keeps their smugness alive!
  
  
• From: raycas (@ 212.186.40.21) on: Wed Nov 21 12:17:57 EST 2001
  
  suresh,
  i didn't quite get u, sorry, my english doesn't seem to be the best...but was ur statement an answer to a message of mine regarding the malayalee look down on tamilians?
  
  raycas
  
  
• From: musick (@ 24.178.147.172) on: Wed Nov 21 14:08:45 EST 2001
  
  s.janaki is the bets for pronouniations...
  if u have any malyalam friends ask them...
  she tried hard to learn that language before sing...
  chitra itself told one interview about s.janki...
  "although s.jankiamma is from andra her malayalm pronounciation is as good as mine...."
  
  in tamil we know that no need to explain...
  
  so s.janaki is the best
  
  
• From: GV (@ 65.93.233.124) on: Thu Nov 22 00:00:27 EST 2001
  
  eden:
  
  Yes, I do pronounce k in "makan" the same way I pronounce k in "kaLLan", and a lot of people I know also do. BTW, "makan" is rarely used in conversations in Malayalam, but "mOn" is the common slang for it in most parts of Kerala. "makan" is the correct word, which is written and pronounced "makan". Depending on which part of Kerala one is from, there may the variations in the pronunciation, but most people say "makan", not "mahan", "magan" or "maghan".
  
  Then, what do I know about these things? You are the expert. When you say that "No one does in Kerala or TN:-)", how can I argue with you?
  
  With your "reasonably good Thamizh knowledge and a decade's experience in reading/lecturing/ teaching/translating in Malayalam", you have to be the expert in this field:-)). I am of course "influenced by the BIAS of my biological origin"!!
  
  I concede! I give up!
  
  Bye!!!!
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.4.88) on: Thu Nov 22 00:37:45 EST 2001
  
  GV,
  If you choose to disagree with me on your pronunciation of same K in makan & kaLLan, that's fine. But please don't generalise for `most' people. I have a couple of persons of Keralite origin (one from Palakkad dist & another from Kottayam dist.) who vouch with me on makan & kallan pronounced differently. I'm not trying to publish my Thamizh bias here but only calling a spade a spade. (Thamizh is my mother tongue, but as a language, I like English much better for it's power / simplicity / developed status / reach etc. Still, it I say English came from heaven and not evolved from greek/latin/french, I'll be cheating myself. No doubt, a number of languages originated at the tower of Babel, but English & Malayalam were definitely not there according to history:-))
  
  
• From: e (@ 210.214.4.88) on: Thu Nov 22 00:39:15 EST 2001
  
  Typo: `if I say' to replace `it I say'. Sorry about that:-(
  
  
• From: raycas (@ 212.186.40.21) on: Thu Nov 22 12:13:56 EST 2001
  
  eden, GV,
  
  in 'makan' and 'kallan' there are indeed two different 'k's, i mean not in writing, but in pronouncing. in kallan u pronounce 'k' rather sharply, while in makan it's more softly...just like i wrote before 'gh'...
  eden, u said "I have a couple of persons of Keralite origin (one from Palakkad dist & another from Kottayam dist.) who vouch with me on makan & kallan pronounced differently" .... do these persons also vouch with u on 'makan' being pronounced 'mahan'? i think this is where the discussion between u two started...
  
  raycas
  
  
• From: eden (@ 210.214.5.207) on: Thu Nov 22 23:33:48 EST 2001
  
  raycas, I've already agreed it's not exactly h but your gh is closer; see my earlier post:-)
  
  
• From: Raj (@ 210.214.178.141) on: Sun Nov 25 09:57:33 EST 2001
  
  The nativity of tamil pronounciations has already gone with singers like C.S.Jayaraman, T.R.Mahalingam,Sirkazhi Govindarajan, Trichy Loganathan, V.N.Sundaram.
  
  The non native telugu and Malayalam singers managed some how to earn a living in our fertile Tamilnadu since their homelands did not have the resources then. Tamilians showed their integrity and national integration by patiently listening and praising.
  
  It is now that the scene is worsened and believe me in the days to come the next generation will listen only to English songs in tamil films rather than the half tamil songs given today.
  
  But still 'real' tamil lives with singers like Vani Jairam, T.L. Maharajan, Sirkazhis son Sivasidambaram, Deepan Chakravarthy, T.K.Kala and many more 'singers from the tamilnadu soil'.
  
  But let the 'sons of the soil' music directors born and brought up in Tamilnadu realise this fact and realise that they are from India and Tamilnadu, tuning for Tamil films.
  
  
• From: Indhu (@ 24.76.127.63) on: Fri Nov 30 11:53:33 EST 2001
  
  I recently read an interview with MSV where he had this to say: (with a chuckle)
  "If you mispronounce Tamil slightly the producers today will give you 10. If you mispronounce entirely they will give you 100!"
  
  Sad but True. That's indeed the state of tamil film music these days.
  
  
• From: mannaaru (@ 128.119.85.50) on: Fri Nov 30 12:41:31 EST 2001
  
  What do you say about this newtfmpage poll? It is you (the DFers) that voted for it.
  
  *
  Do you support AR Rahman using hindi singers for tamil songs?
  RESPONSE VOTES PERCENT
  Yes 335 48.98 %
  No 316 46.20 %
  Can't say 33 4.82 %
  TOTAL 684 100.00 %
  * Aug 3 - Aug 11
  
  
• From: Indhu (@ 24.76.127.63) on: Fri Nov 30 13:09:15 EST 2001
  
  Mannaaru,
  
  All I can say is MORONS come in large numbers. And it doesn't cost anything to be one.
  
  Indhu
  
  
• From: mc atavey (tavi) (@ ) on: Fri Feb 13 13:05:44 EST 2004
  
  mac an mahon is my clan name. it is pron. mak a mahan .mac, mc , (muk,mok) =mac an "son of". .......mahan.first name . altan ,ardel,keever, gregor,mulan ,etc are all names which begin with mak. could you tel me the history of this name in your country.
  
  
• From: C~P (@ 61.2.224.20) on: Fri Feb 13 13:08:44 EST 2004
  
  err...I'd rather prefer not to pronounce it!!
  
  
• From: BEWARE! (@ 61.11.76.80) on: Thu Feb 19 22:31:59 EST 2004
  
  Raj
  
  You are correct non-Tamil singers even with poor pronounciations dominated the Tamil film music scene for a while. Take that "Pottai" voiced
  Jesudas. In the film "Andaman Kathali" . He sang
  the famous "ThirukkOyilE vOdiva" song as
  "TherukkOyile vOdiva" . Later when someone asked him why he sang "Thiru" as "Theru" he said i am basically a Malayalee hence not proficient with Tamil words. However the interviewer asked him what is the capital of your state ? - he promptly
  said "Thiruvanandapuram" When he is able to pronounce his capital correctly as "Thiru" - it is just lethargy to pronounce Tamil names in whatever way they like. But good thing this "pottai" voiced Arab blooded imbecile was kicked away from tamil film music scenorio.
  
  (Do you know 50% of Malayalees have Arab DNA in their blood. For details ask me)
  
  
• From: * (@ 161.114.64.72) on: Fri Feb 20 09:24:00 EST 2004
  
  Velji (@ 61.11.76.80)
  BEWARE! (@ 61.11.76.80)
  
  I have never read bigger rubbish all my life!
  
  

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