As already mentioned, the letter w may occasionally occur as a variant of p or v, but it also occurs in words where it is never interchanged with either of these letters. The most frequent example of the occurrence of the letter is in the word wursol, and here the sound was so elusive that for a long time I hesitated whether to write the word as wursol or ursol. Breeks wrote this word varzhol, and we may take it that he distinctly recognised the initial letter as allied to v and p.
D, ḍ, t, th. I have used the sign d for two sounds in the text. One I could not distinguish from the English sound expressed by this letter. It is sometimes the representative of nd of Badaga, mand or village becoming mad in Toda,[8] while the Badaga form of Pidati is Benduti. The d of other Dravidian languages often becomes t in Toda; thus pandava becomes pateva, and the Teivaliol almost certainly derive their name from some form of the word deva.
More frequently, however, d is used for the lingual consonant ḍ, which is one of the commonest sounds in Toda. Very often this letter is immediately followed by the letter r, and the combination ḍr (which in the text of the book I have written dr) is an extremely frequent sound. Often to my ear it was quite indistinguishable from the simple r, and usually I had to refer to my interpreter to know whether a given sound was ḍr or r. Neither of my interpreters [[610]]seemed ever to be in any doubt, and they were so consistent on this point that wherever this spelling occurs it is probably correct. So far as I can tell the ḍr is the representative of ḍ in other Dravidian languages; thus, nâd of Canarese becomes nòḍr, and the kêdu of Badaga becomes kêḍr. On reference to the list of Badaga and Toda names of villages given in [Appendix III]. it will be seen that the ḍr of the Todas is usually the equivalent of the Badaga ḍ, Telkodu becoming Telkudr, and Kudimal becoming Kudrmas.
The sound which I express by dr has been very variously spelt by previous writers; thus, the Toda future world has been written Humanorr or Omnorr by Harkness, Amunàd by Breeks, Amnôr by Marshall and Pope, and Amnor by Thurston, and the sacred plant tudr has been written tûd, tûde, tiurr, tûre and tûr.
When the sound ḍ occurs before letters other than r, I am afraid I may have often omitted it. Thus till nearly the end of my visit I wrote the word teḍshk as teshk, and the name of the village Teḍshteiri as Teshteiri, and I have little doubt that this letter, the presence of which I had so much difficulty in recognising, may have been omitted in other cases.
There seems to be no doubt that ḍr and t might sometimes be interchangeable. Thus the termination of personal names, kûtan seemed to be the same word as kûḍr. A horn is kûḍr and imitation-horns are kûter. An assembly is kût, and the corresponding verb is kûḍriti (3rd person singular). Sometimes ḍr becomes rt; thus the word kêḍr becomes kêrt in the compound word kêrtnòdr, and the names of the clans Kuuḍr and Pieḍr often become Kuurt and Piert in the words Kuurtol and Piertol.
I failed to distinguish between t and ṭ, and it is probable that my t includes both letters. My interpreters used the sign th for ṭ, as is common in the transliteration of missionaries and others in India, and I am afraid that in a few cases my th should stand for the lingual ṭ. It is very unfortunate that th should be used for ṭ, for the true th not only occurs among the Todas but is a very frequent consonant. It is frequently inserted euphonically in words which are at other times pronounced [[611]]without it, and this is especially the case in connexion with the letter l. The consonant th also occurs frequently apart from any other consonant, in such words as pûthi, pathanmul, &c.
I think it probable that under the sign th I have included two sounds, that of the English word ‘though’ and that of ‘throw,’ but I could not make up my mind whether the two sounds were definitely distinguished. The softer sound is undoubtedly the more common, and often it seemed to me to be even softer than this sound is ever heard in English.
K, kw, g, kh, gh, h. Perhaps the commonest Toda consonant is k, which often becomes kw, and it seemed to me that the two were sometimes interchanged, kûḍr becoming kwûḍr, &c.
The consonant g is less frequently heard, but kûḍr, especially as the termination of the names of men and places, is often pronounced gûḍr, and it seemed to me that this pronunciation is somewhat more common among the Teivaliol than among the Tartharol. The sound g occurs very definitely, sometimes at the ends of words as in the names of villages, as in Kwirg and Perg, and in the word kug, and in these cases there is no doubt that it is a true Toda consonant.