The linguistic reluctance of karnatik music: From tamil to madras tamil

Abstract

The paper analyzes the linguistic dynamics of Karnatik music by tracing the development and acceptance of high-prestige dialect varieties of Tamil as a major compositional language of Karnatik music and contrasts it with the recent effort to use Madras Tamil to compose in the Karnatik style in Chennai Poromboke Paadal, a music video. The paper using Juri Lotman’s semiotic theories discusses the general reluctance of the cultural framework of this musical tradition to accept languages or their varieties other than its four major compositional languages into its system. This, the paper would demonstrate through analysis of online discussions and the general audience response to the use of Madras Tamil dialect in Poromboke paadal.