Music and Linguistics are both concerned with the arrangement of sounds and the probable as well as possible communicative characteristics of such arrangements. Hence the possibility of applying the rigorous principles of linguistic analysis for unraveling the structural particularities of music should be possible. This paper is an attempt at analyzing the language of "mridangam" and trying to reach some tentative conclusions about language use in rhythm instruments.

The theoretical justification for the paper is as follows. Linguistics, at a most basic level, can be defined as the scientific study of how man makes use of sounds to communicate. If so, music can be said to be a specialized kind of language. What are the possible areas where the science of linguistics crosses paths with the systems and practices of music?