Yes, you are right about Zeus & Hera. They were siblings that got married. Cleopatra was a queen of Egypt & not a mythological figure. The custom of the royals in Egypt at that time was to marry within the family.

An important reason I mentioned that Kannada is close to Tamil is because, both are South Dravidian languages. Whereas, Telugu split a lot earlier from the Tamil branch & it is classified as a Central Dravidian language. So, Kannada is closer to Tamil than to Telugu, since both belong to the same branch of the Dravidian family – Proto-South Dravidian.

It is an interesting point you make about Kannada in Hassan. Many speakers of Tamil will find Nagercoil Tamil very difficult to grasp. Malayalam speakers may have better luck in understanding it. Such is the problem in comparing dialects. Perhaps I should just state that “standard” Kannada – as opposed to classical Kannada – is closer to Tamil than standard Telugu.

With respect to incest the greek and egyptian mythology are filled with stories….I think Zeus and Hera are siblings as well as spouses….Cleoptra married 2 of her brothers i guess Ptolmey 13 and 14.

I dont agree on the Telugu and Kannada part Priya.These languages split between 9 CE and 14 CE.

Nanyya is supposed to the pioneed in Telugu literature,we have separate literature only post him,

The reason why street Kannada of Bangalore is similar to Tamil is due to fact that Bangalore has a Tamil population of 30 %.As you rightly said a native tamil speaker can pick up terms…but when I went to Hassan I could not understand a word they spoke but my Telugu friends were able to communicate.

Thanks for sharing Captain Percival’s account. Europeans of that day & age discounted liberally most of the recorded history of Asians. It is not surprising that Percival chose to believe a fellow European.

Having said that, “The Mahavamsa” was put together by the Buddhist monks. There’s a distinct possibility that their perceptions & biases colored the narratives.

I’ll be writing about the Veddahs in a separate post. Mughals were from Persia. Arabs have been trading with South India & Srilanka for a long time. Their descendants are called “Moors” in Srilanka & “Moplahs” in Kerala.

The British created a new caste in Srilanka – Mudaliars. The quoted lines are about that. In a separate post, I plan to write some more about the Castes in Srilanka.

I’m glad you liked the post & learning a lot about Srilanka now.

Excellent edification on the history of srilanka…very good narrative. Your article on the history of srilanka really enthused me to dig further.Here is what I got…thought you would be really interested to read this -

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon one of the earliest edition ( circa 1797 AD ) of a journal written by Capt Robert Percival [ Thanks to Google’s thirst to digitize the world ] http://books.google.com/books?id=aRIPAAAAYAAJ

I believe Capt. Robert Percival was leading an embassy ,tasked to serve/wait upon the then king of candy [ possibly Rajadhi Rajasinha/ Vikrama Rajasinha ??– Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandy_Nayakar ]

The journal is an elaborate account on Srilanka in 1797 AD. Talks about the people, the society, their customs and also alludes some references to its history( mainly Portugese & Dutch colonial times )

He talks about 2 distinct races of inhabitants – Bedas/Vaddahs –who occupied the northern parts of Ceylon , I believe they are the aboriginal natives of srilanka & the cinglese( aka Sinhalese ) occupied the rest of the island.

In the journal, his authentic account of history- as he claims it , dates back only from 1505 AD ,with the arrival of portugese –under Almyeda. Apparently he befriended the king of Ceylon on the pretext of helping him defend against the Arabs – [Not sure if the Arab referred are indeed the Mughals from India ].

He has a chapter dedicated on the divisions of the society..just like you have mentioned , the top guns during the british rule were Tamils – moodeliers ( mudaliars ?? ) , who were the district magistrates governing the Sinhalese and are the “loyal & affable” servants of the british. They were mainly responsible for tax collection.

However, I couldn’t understand the following quote from the journal -
”
The nobles or Mahondrews, from among whom the Moodeliers are chosen,form a particular cast completely distinct from the others..Not sure who else come under the Mahondrews.
”

He has dedicated one whole chapter on how pearl fishing(Muthu Kuzhiyal ) was done alongside the bay of condatchy( west-bay of srilanka). Couldn’t complete the entire book , but thought I would share this first.

I learnt a lot on Srilanka in the last few days than I ever did in the past !! .Thanks for generating my interest