In Malayalam, tampuran, tampran, tamprakkal, tampan, empran, and the related, but not quite, koyi-tampran appear to be similar enough to be derived from the same root. Yet, apart from the common vein of “overlord” that seems to apply in some capacity to all these titles, they are, in fact, quite different from each other in everyday usage.
tampuran is used for “god” and “king,” as a title for the head of an aristocratic family, and also as a community name of certain royal families. tampran seems to be a shortened version of tampuran, but is it really so? What about tamprakkal? It is used in the priestly title of Azhvancheri tamprakkal. He is an overlord in a spiritual capacity over all temple priests in Kerala. Tamprakkal is also a shortened version of tampurakkal, which is the respected form of tampuran. What about koyi-tampran? It is the title of certain royal families that are different from the tamprans.
tampan differs from tampran by a single syllable. Herman Gundert refers to this word as a general title for “prince” in his Malayalam-English dictionary published in 1872.¹ Yet, a tampran prince would be surprised were he to be called a tampan; the two words are not synonymous even though they are so similar, for they actually refer to entirely different communities. Indeed, a tampan may be called a tampuran but not vice versa!
empran seems to be a shortened version of tampuran, but a god or a king would never be called empran; instead, a lesser overlord may be called so; indeed, a simple overseer may be called empran.
So, from where did these confusingly similar words come from and why are they used so differently?
Let me begin with the easiest one, tampuran. It derives from ancient Egyptian hre-tap. Over the course of centuries, prefixes and suffixes switched between Egyptian and Malayalam so that hre-tap became tap-hre and then likely tampere by nasalization of p and loss of h. tampere finally clarified into tampuran with Sanskritization. During the Old Kingdom (ca. 2400–2200 BCE), Egyptian hre-tap was the title for a ruler of a large province (akin to Kerala’s ancient swaroopam).² It was also an epithet of gods,³ and it was a common noun meaning “chief.”⁴ These three meanings match exactly with the three Malayalam meanings of tampuran.
Malayalam tampan derives from Egyptian tap “chief,” by nasalization of p to mp. The Egyptian title was used for a lesser chief than the hre-tap.⁹ The Egyptian tap was also a hereditary job title. In Kerala, as elsewhere in the ancient world, hereditary job titles put down roots as last names or names of communities. Thus, we have the director kurup, which is now a last name; noble nambi, which is now a last name; soldier nayar, which is now a last name; and so on. Likewise, tampan likely evolved into a community name from a hereditary job title.
Malayalam tamprakkal has two meanings: as a respected form of tampuran and as a priestly title. Egyptian hre-tap-kkal was a respected form of hre-tap, referring to a higher lord, just as in Malayalam.⁵ The priestly version in Malayalam is derived from a different Egyptian root: samre-kkal, which was an aristocratic title commonly used by the highest nobles who were also priests. The fricative s in Egyptian became t in Malayalam so that samre-kkal became tamre-kkal, and finally tamprakkal, by addition of a p.
Egyptian samre was a common title of low-level nobles in the pharaoh’s court.⁶ It likely evolved into Malayalam tampran, which became a community name, most likely because it was a hereditary job title. Thus, tampran which was once a title of nobility, is now a community name.
Egyptian samre also has a variant: samre-koi, which was the title of certain close family members of the pharaoh who were sent as envoys to foreign lands.⁷ Some scholars suggest that the title was the rank of pharaonic envoys, of “agents of the crown.”⁸ All through Egypt’s pharaonic history, those who held the title of samre-koi were few and highly esteemed. This title morphed to koyi-tampuran in Malayalam. In Kerala too, those who belonged to this community were highly esteemed, for these were the families that birthed the kings of some of Kerala’s kingdoms.
Unlike these greater overlords, the lesser empran derived from the Egyptian word for “overseer” emere, by addition of p to m.¹⁰ According to Gundert, a variation of empran is piran in Malayalam, which also could have derived from the same Egyptian root by evolution of m to p where the first vowel is silent. Even though emere started out as a job title in Egypt, it did not evolve into a community name in Kerala, possibly because the titleholders were so commonplace that the word became a common noun instead. Even in Egypt, it was one of the most common titles across all sections of society and types of jobs from before 2600 BCE to the end of the pharaonic period, around 30 BCE.
Thus, the many words for “overlord” in Malayalam evolved from different words but united together over centuries to seem like variations of a single root. Underneath their unassuming, common syllables runs a deep river of linguistic and cultural history spanning millennia.
Notes
[1] Gundert, Hermann. 1872. A Malayalam and English Dictionary. Mangalore: C. Stolz.
[2] Willems, Harco. 2013. “Nomarchs and Local Potentates: Provincial Administration in the Middle Kingdom.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration. Edited by Juan Moreno García, 341–92. Leiden: Brill.
[3] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/855522.
[4] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/108890.
[5] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/600412.
[6] Willems, Harco. 2013. “Nomarchs and Local Potentates: Provincial Administration in the Middle Kingdom.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration. Edited by Juan Moreno García, 341–92. Leiden: Brill.
[7] Espinel, Andrés Diego. 2015. “Bringing Treasures and Placing Fears: Old Kingdom Epithets and Titles related to Activities Abroad.” Isimu, vol. 18–19: 103–146.
[8] Moreno García, Juan. 2013. “The Territorial Administration of the Kingdom in the 3rd Millennium.” In Ancient Egyptian Administration. Edited by Juan Moreno García, 85–154. Leiden: Brill.
