In this thesis, we investigate several processes affecting coronals and velars in Tamil and Malayalam, two Dravidian languages spoken in southern India. We begin by discussing two assimilation processes which apply adjacent to front vowels, Palatalization, where anterior coronals become palatoalveolar, and Coronalization, where velars are fronted to palatoalveolar. We compare and contrast the feature geometries proposed by Sagey (1986) and Hume (1992) in their ability to adequately express these processes. In Sagey's model, front vowels are argued to be Dorsal. It is thus impossible to express either Palatalization or Coronalization as spreading. In Hume's model, where front vowels are Coronal, both processes involve spreading. However, the model does not formally distinguish between these two processes across languages; thus, it fails to capture the fact that Palatalization is widely attested but Coronalization seems to be restricted to diachronic alternations. In order to express this asymmetry, we adopt the model advanced by Goad & Narasimhan (1994), a revision of Goad (1993), where Palatalization involves spreading but Coronalization is a two-step process, spreading followed by reanalysis. In this model, a single feature (front), defined as "front of articulator", is doubly dependent on both Dorsal and Coronal nodes. Its interpretation is thus partly determined by the node to which it links; it marks apicality in coronals and front of tongue body in dorsals. In Chapter 3, we demonstrate how this model allows us to capture the fact that in Malayalam, only a subset of the anterior coronal consonants, the apicals, form a natural class with front vowels. In Chapter 4, we provide support for the model from languages other than Tamil and Malayalam, both Dravidian and non-Dravidian.

This dissertation contemplates the radical shifts and changes in language and education due to and during the Sri Lankan civil war (1983-2009), utilizing the detailed method of classroom ethnography in postwar Jaffna to comprehend macro-perspective problems about language and nationalism in postwar Sri Lanka. It attempts to answer some of the following questions: In a country trying to heal and recover from the trauma of war and violence based on ethnolinguistic difference, what does postwar education and schooling look like? In a region of the country that has a proud history and heritage of Tamil language and culture, yet a simultaneous colonial and postcolonial tradition of English language education and schooling, and now, a continued postwar Sinhalese military and police presence, how do people negotiate and navigate these three distinct linguistic spheres of practice? From the perspectives of research informants and interlocutors, what does life look like in contemporary postwar Jaffna? I find that almost three decades of war and outmigration have resulted in an ongoing transformation concerning learning, language, and life in the Jaffna peninsula. The decline in English language education combined with the predominantly monolingual Tamil-speaking environment that Jaffna provides for school children solidifies their ethnoreligious identities while limiting opportunity. However, we see a transformation in local economies due to war and emigration and the influx of remittance income, which has created new patterns and habits in consumption and even a shift in priority and work ethic. Therefore, we see the emergence of a new generation in northern Sri Lanka navigating this postwar space, embracing cultural changes that have been brought about by these processes of war, migration, and increased interconnectedness in what is still the most conservative and traditional region of the country.

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Ce travail prend appui sur une collecte des données inédites et difficiles, celles d’un corpus complexe du Mahabharata, les textes sacrés de l’Inde, et les corpus de la tradition orale du Barldon, chantés en société créole de La Réunion depuis les présences des migrants indiens dans l’île. Plusieurs corpus de nature différente ont été collectés pour être analysés en synchronie et en diachronie de manière dynamique. Durant les années de recherches, nous avons ouvert une étude dans trois champs disciplinaires conjoints. Nous avons effectué des recherches à Pondichéry et nous avons ramené des documents sur l’esclavage indien et un manuscrit tamoul chanté à La Réunion à l’occasion du rituel de la « marche sur le feu ». Nous avons mené des travaux sur l’histoire de la langue, des cultes, de la culture, et des migrations. Nous avons constitué un appareil critique composé de l’analyse des corpus, des index, des annexes dont l’outillage conceptuel est composé d’un centaine de documents : 8 cartes, 4 croquis, 36 graphiques, 32 tableaux, 5 textes dont une édition tamoule critique, deux textes tamouls et créoles inédits leur traduction, 25 images et une séquence filmique. Nous avons reconstitué des strates de langue et notre travail montre que le Réunionnais a conservé un état de langue bien particulier et exposé au processus de la créolisation linguistique et culturelle, la langue du Barldon, une langue ancestrale que nos prospections n’ont pas permis de retrouver en Inde du Sud. Peut-on parler d’une langue sacrée conservée à la Réunion mais exposée à la dynamique de la créolisation ? Notre questionnement reprend les interrogations formulées par Gillette Staudacher-Valliamee sur la difficulté qu’il y a à poser pour La Réunion une créolisation linguistique et culturelle sans pidginisation, en rappelant que la question de langue est centrale. Notre travail réexamine la place de l’Inde dans la formulation des hypothèses énoncées pour la genèse du créole de l’océan Indien (A.Bollée 2009, R.Chaudenson 2010). / This work is based on a collection of unpublished and difficult data, those of a complex corpus of Mahabharata, the sacred texts of India, and corpus of the oral tradition of Barldon, sung in Creole society of La Réunion ever since the Indian migrants settled in the island. Several corpuses of different types were collected for effective synchronic and diachronic analysis. During our research work, we introduced three new areas in the same research field. We carried out research at Pondichery and brought back documents on Indian slavery and a Tamil manuscript sung in Reunion at the time of the ritual of “walk on fire”. We also worked on the history of language, cults, culture and migration. We established a critical apparatus which includes the analysis of the corpuses, indices, appendices whose conceptual tool consists of over hundred documents: 8 maps, 4 sketches, 36 graphs, 32 paintings, 5 texts of which one is Tamil critical edition, two unpublished translated Tamil and Creole texts, 25 images and a cinematic sequence. We reconstructed layers of language and our work shows that the Réunionnais remained a very special language and exposed to the process of linguistic and cultural creolisation, the language of Barldon, an ancestral language that our surveys have failed to find a place in South India. Can one speak of a sacred language in Réunion but kept exposed to the dynamics of creolisation? Our inquiry shows the queries made by Gillette Staudacher-Valliamee the difficulty of asking for Reunion the linguistic and cultural creolisation without pidginisation, by reminding that the question of language is central. Our work re-examines the place of India in formulating assumptions for the genesis of Creole in the Indian Ocean (A. Bollée 2009, R. Chaudenson 2010).