One and a half years ago, in this blog (post No. 123), we discussed about some of the strange words existing in Tulu language whose meaning is difficult to comprehend at present. Two of the words enlisted in the post were: Mijar and Miyar.
Miyar, Miyapadavu.
There are atleast two Tulu place names that contain the prefix ‘miya’.(There may be more,readers, kindly enlighten me!).Therefore the analysis of these words would be:
Miyar=Miya+ar.
Miyapadavu=Miya+padavu.
In these words above, ‘ar’ means an open ground and ‘padavu’ means an elevated area.Miyar is a sylvan and rocky rural area close to the Karkal town. Miyapadavu happens to be a sylvan plateau area in the interior of Kasargodu district, Kerala.
Mijar
The other word in the group is Mij ār, a village located between Mangalore and Mudabidri on NH13. If we analyse this word independently,we may feel that it is: Mi+jar, wherein j ār represents a sloping ground(ja+ar).
However, the analogy of words Miy ār and Miyapadavu suggest that Mij ār was originally, miy+j ār which became Mijar in pronunciation in the due course.
However, the analogy of words Miy
Miya
Many of the green, sylvan Tulu rural areas are similar to forests even now. It can be visualized that these rain-fed Tulu regions were dense forests some four six millennia ago. Miya is a word of African origin, existing even now in Somali and other areas of Africa. It means forest.
Miya (Somali) =forest.
Therefore, the word ‘miya’ (=forest) appears to have been brought to Tulunadu by African immigrants in the antiquity. With the passage of time, the original meaning of the word ‘miya’ has been forgotten and lost in Tulu language, even though some of the ancient Tulu place names have preserved these heritage words, as invaluable trophies of history and heritage!
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