razlem wrote:As far as transcription, we've been having difficulty pinning down the exact quality. Sometimes it's as low as /ə/, as back as /ɯ/ and as front as /ɨ/.
Oh, then it's probably what I always transcribe as [ɯ] in Malayalam.
Her family is from Chennai, so I don't think there would be too much interference from Telugu or other languages.
Chennai is just south of Andhra Pradesh and has so many Telugu-speakers that when the Indian states were formed, whether it should be the capital of Tamil Nadu or of Andhra Pradesh was a serious political issue. I'm pretty sure the variety of Tamil spoken in Chennai has lots of influence from Telugu, but I'm not sure any of this is at all relevant to what you're finding.