ODISHA, TAMILNADU AND THEIR ANCIENT BONDING !!!

ODISHA, TAMILNADU AND THEIR ANCIENT BONDING
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The interaction between Odisha and south India is a very ancient one, given their proximity and similiar peninsular history from shared history of Sanskritisation and maritime activities to extensive contribution to Hindu way of life including patronisation of Buddhism,Ajivika and Jainism for a very long time.

The Sanskrit factor makes a lot of vocabulary similar as derived from same root word. Same goes for Odia too. Not to mention, much of the scripts of Indian subcontinent are all derived from the same root which linguists called Bramhi.

When Northern india was Islamised, huge cultural exchange between the Hindu Vijayanagara empire and Hindu Gajapati dynasty of Odisha, led to great many exchange of ideas and people. Odia script evolved partially in the patronage of Brahmins from South who were invited by kings (The Gajapathis) of Puri. Therefore there are marked Dravidian influences that is usually associated with South Indian languages.
Some of Letters in Odia language and Tamil language are seeming same typed font.

Secondly, there are many forest tribes in Odisha like Khonds who are classified as of Dravidian origin. Their contribution to Odia colloquial vocabulary can be counted as a Dravidian influence.

Thirdly, in many ways Telugu and Odia share a sisterly relation, just like Kannada and Marathi, as over the ages the regions of influence have overlapped back and forth and with the shared heritage of Kalingan empire. Though both languages have departed a long way with Telugu evolving under Kannada and Tamil influences, and Odia under North Indian influences, some similarities in the languages can still be obvious to a keen eye.
One main similarity is the rounded scripts of both languages which was because of use palm leaf during medieval times.

Daabu is used colloquially in Odia as a reference to money while Dabulu is the popular word for money in Telugu. Other regional odia words include
Nanaa (father)
Jaagarta (diligent)
Kaakurti (hurry)
Chaaru (rasam) and so on.
Also similarities in numerals too.

In Tamil, the suffix 'paa' is used for men and maa for women folks( friendly da and di)
Similarly in Odia, 're' is used for men and 'lo' for women.
Fourthly both Tamil and Odia have some similarities that is not observed in many North Indian languages..
for example

the numeral ‘1’ is used in three different forms in Odia.
eka , when it denotes a number in counting
"jone", when denoting the singularity in humans
gotiye , when denoting the singularity of an object

In Tamil too 'unne,' is used for numeric counting while 'oru' is used for objects.
In both Tamil and Odia, the sentence could be constructed in multiple ways and they still make perfect sense.

Some similar words in Tamil and Odia (non-sanskritic) languages :
English/Odia/Tamil
Green/Paccha/Pacchai
Small/sano/chinna
Rice/Chaaula/Sooru
Side/Paakhe/pakka
Go/pola/po
Time/Bela/Velai
Come/Aasantu/Vaantu
Butterfly/Prajaapati/Pattampucci
Fish/Mina/Meen
Small settlement/ Palli/Palli
palm sap/Taadi/Toddy
Pepper/Maricha/Milaku
Male/Andira/An

In various Rituals also the Way of worshiping the God/ Goddess and putting rangoli culture is also having many similarities between Odisha and Tamilnadu culture.

Hence I love Tamilnadu and odisha both.

© Uma Sankar Sahu