Linguistic convergence of kattunayakans Telugu in Madurai District Dr.K.Umaraj and R.Rekha Department of Linguistics Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai-21 9487223316 Kattunayakans are the primitive tribes of the South India and they are settled mainly in the state of Kerala, Tamilnadu , Karnataka and Andra Pradesh. The word ‘Kattunayakan’ of of the kattunayakans are engaged in the collection and means ‘the king Jungle’ . Most gathering of forest produces. Some of the Scholars name this community as follows Sholannayakas, Jenu Kuruman, Jenu-Kurba, Kadu kaurumban , Kathnnayakkan, Kathnnayakkan, Kathunaickan, Kattu Naicken, Naicken, Ten Kurmba, Ten Kuruman, Ten and means in English. So their main traditional occupation Kurumban. ‘Jenu’ ‘thenu’ ‘honey’ is gathering honey. However they are good in Hunting, Astrology and Black magic. The kattunayakans who are living in Madurai district speak their mother tongue Telugu in their home situations and with their relatives. Whenever they are coming out from their native place they will use Tamil language. Due to the over usage of Tamil language by the Kattunayakans , The Tamil language will convergence with the minority language kattunayakan Telugu and become more and more similar to Tamil language. The present paper aims to study the how far the majority language Tamil convergences with the minority language kattunayakans Telugu in Madurai district. For this study the researcher collected data from Telugu speaking kattunayakans who are residing in the Cinna muppanpatti village near Madurai district and The data was collected at lexical level only. Lexical Level Noun Eng. Tamil Kattunaiyakan Andra Telugu Telugu Months January tai tai pusyamu February maaci maaci maagamu March pankuni pankuni palganamu April cittirai cittirai jayojasTamu May vaikaaci vaikaaci vaicaakamu June aani aani jayojaTamu July aaTi aaTi aacaataamu
Linguistic convergence of kattunayakans Telugu in Madurai District Dr.K.Umaraj and R.Rekha Department of Linguistics Madurai Kamaraj University Madurai-21 9487223316 Kattunayakans are the primitive tribes of the South India and they are settled mainly in the state of Kerala, Tamilnadu , Karnataka and Andra Pradesh. The word ‘Kattunayakan’ means ‘the king of Jungle’ . Most of the kattunayakans are engaged in the collection and gathering of forest produces. Some of the Scholars name this community as follows Sholannayakas, Jenu Kuruman, Jenu-Kurba, Kadu kaurumban , Kathnnayakkan, Kathnnayakkan, Kathunaickan, Kattu Naicken, Naicken, Ten Kurmba, Ten Kuruman, Ten Kurumban. ‘Jenu’ and ‘thenu’ means ‘honey’ in English. So their main traditional occupation is gathering honey. However they are good in Hunting, Astrology and Black magic. The kattunayakans who are living in Madurai district speak their mother tongue Telugu in their home situations and with their relatives. Whenever they are coming out from their native place they will use Tamil language. Due to the over usage of Tamil language by the Kattunayakans , The Tamil language will convergence with the minority language kattunayakan Telugu and become more and more similar to Tamil language. The present paper aims to study the how far the majority language Tamil convergences with the minority language kattunayakans Telugu in Madurai district. For this study the researcher collected data from Telugu speaking kattunayakans who are residing in the Cinna muppanpatti village near Madurai district and The data was collected at lexical level only. Lexical Level Noun Eng. Tamil Kattunaiyakan Andra Telugu Telugu Months January tai tai pusyamu February maaci maaci maagamu March pankuni pankuni palganamu April cittirai cittirai jayojasTamu May vaikaaci vaikaaci vaicaakamu June aani aani jayojaTamu July aaTi aaTi aacaataamu