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RE: Re: what does 'adiyEn' mean?

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R. Srikanth • July 16, 1999 


Hi,

On Thu, 15 Jul 1999, Sankaran Panchapagesan wrote:

> >Or, as another member privately expressed, sometimes it
> >seems that people say 'adiyEn' (Your servant) so vociferously
> >that it actually seems like they mean 'adippEn' (I will hit >you). :-)
> 
> Is it "adiyEn" or "aDiyEn" (with a retroflex D)? Because "I will	
> hit you" is
> "aDippEn", and you don't seem to distinguish between "d" and "D".

I think "D", the retroflex/cerebral, was meant.
 
> Does "adiyEn" have anything to do with "aDi" one of whose meanings is
> "bottom" (maybe at the feet of the Lord?) in Tamizh?

Yes, I think it does, tho here the meaning "feet" is used figuratively to 
mean "servant". Tamil is one of the few (?) languages that allow the
somewhat exotic feature of polysynthesis, whereby a single word
accomodates more than one part of speech so that it can actually represent
a whole sentence or a word qualified by a relative clause. For example,
Sri ANDAL in Tiruppavai: 

"aRiyAta piLLaykaL-OM"  - we [who] are innocent/ignorant children

Thus, "aDiyEn" means "I am (your) servant" or "I who am (your) servant" 

Namo Narayana,
Srikanth