Dravidian languages: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox language family |
{{Infobox language family |
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| name = Dravidian |
| name = Dravidian |
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| region = [[South Asia]] and [[Southeast Asia]], mainly [[South India]] |
| region = [[South Asia]] and [[Southeast Asia]], mainly [[South India]], north-east [[Sri Lanka]] and [[Pakistan]] |
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| familycolor = Dravidian |
| familycolor = Dravidian |
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| family = One of the world's primary [[language families]] |
| family = One of the world's primary [[language families]] |
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{{Dravidian}} |
{{Dravidian}} |
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'''Dravidian languages''' (or sometimes Dravidic<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of Dravidic {{!}} Dictionary.com |url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dravidic |website=www.dictionary.com |language=en}}</ref> languages) are a [[language family|family of languages]] spoken by 250 million people, mainly in [[South India|southern India]] |
'''Dravidian languages''' (or sometimes Dravidic<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of Dravidic {{!}} Dictionary.com |url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dravidic |website=www.dictionary.com |language=en}}</ref> languages) are a [[language family|family of languages]] spoken by 250 million people, mainly in [[South India|southern India]], north-east [[Sri Lanka]], south-west [[Pakistan]].{{sfnp|Steever|2020|p=1}}<ref name=EB>{{cite encyclopedia|title= Overview of Dravidian languages |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dravidian-languages|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=4 July 2018}}</ref> Since the [[colonial era]], there have been small but significant immigrant communities in [[Mauritius]], [[Myanmar]], [[Singapore]], [[Malaysia]], [[Indonesia]], [[Philippines]], [[United Kingdom]], [[Australia]], [[France]], [[Canada]], [[Germany]], [[South Africa]], and the [[United States]]. |
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The Dravidian languages are first attested in the 2nd century BCE as [[Tamil-Brahmi]] script inscribed on the cave walls in the [[Madurai]] and [[Tirunelveli]] districts of [[Tamil Nadu]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|p=22}}{{efn|Earlier fragmentary finds have been claimed, e.g. at [[Keeladi|Keezhadi]] near [[Madurai]], [[Tamil Nadu]], but have not been conclusively established (see {{section link||Literature}}).}} The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are (in descending order of number of speakers) [[Telugu language|Telugu]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Kannada]] and [[Malayalam]], all of which have long literary traditions. Smaller literary languages are [[Tulu language|Tulu]] and [[Kodava language|Kodava]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|pp=20–21}} There are also a number of Dravidian-speaking [[List of Scheduled Tribes in India|scheduled tribes]], such as the [[Kurukh people|Kurukh]] in Eastern India and [[Gondi people|Gondi]] in Central India.<ref name="West2009">{{cite book|last=West|first=Barbara A.|title=Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pCiNqFj3MQsC&pg=PA713|date=1 January 2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1913-7|page=713}}</ref> |
The Dravidian languages are first attested in the 2nd century BCE as [[Tamil-Brahmi]] script inscribed on the cave walls in the [[Madurai]] and [[Tirunelveli]] districts of [[Tamil Nadu]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|p=22}}{{efn|Earlier fragmentary finds have been claimed, e.g. at [[Keeladi|Keezhadi]] near [[Madurai]], [[Tamil Nadu]], but have not been conclusively established (see {{section link||Literature}}).}} The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are (in descending order of number of speakers) [[Telugu language|Telugu]], [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Kannada]] and [[Malayalam]], all of which have long literary traditions. Smaller literary languages are [[Tulu language|Tulu]] and [[Kodava language|Kodava]].{{sfnp|Krishnamurti|2003|pp=20–21}} There are also a number of Dravidian-speaking [[List of Scheduled Tribes in India|scheduled tribes]], such as the [[Kurukh people|Kurukh]] in Eastern India and [[Gondi people|Gondi]] in Central India.<ref name="West2009">{{cite book|last=West|first=Barbara A.|title=Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pCiNqFj3MQsC&pg=PA713|date=1 January 2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1913-7|page=713}}</ref> |
Revision as of 22:58, 3 April 2022
Dravidian | |
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Geographic distribution | language families |
Proto-language | Proto-Dravidian |
Subdivisions |
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ISO 639-2 / 5 | dra |
Linguasphere | 49= (phylozone) |
Glottolog | drav1251 |
Distribution of the Dravidian languages |
Part of a series on |
Dravidian culture and history |
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Portal:Dravidian civilizations |
Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic[1] languages) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, south-west Pakistan.[2][3] Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant immigrant communities in Mauritius, Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Canada, Germany, South Africa, and the United States.
The Dravidian languages are first attested in the 2nd century BCE as Tamil-Brahmi script inscribed on the cave walls in the Madurai and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu.[4][a] The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are (in descending order of number of speakers) Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam, all of which have long literary traditions. Smaller literary languages are Tulu and Kodava.[5] There are also a number of Dravidian-speaking scheduled tribes, such as the Kurukh in Eastern India and Gondi in Central India.[6]
Only two Dravidian languages are spoken exclusively outside the post-1947 state of India: Brahui in the Balochistan region of Pakistan and Afghanistan; and Dhangar, a dialect of Kurukh, in parts of Nepal and Bhutan.[7] Dravidian place names along the Arabian Sea coasts and Dravidian grammatical influence such as clusivity in the Indo-Aryan languages, namely, Marathi, Gujarati, Marwari, and Sindhi, suggest that Dravidian languages were once spoken more widely across the Indian subcontinent.[8][9]
It is thought that the Dravidian languages were the most widespread indigenous languages in the Indian subcontinent before the advance of the Indo-Aryan languages.
Etymology
The origin of the
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti states in his reference book The Dravidian languages:[20]
Joseph (1989: IJDL 18.2:134-42) gives extensive references to the use of the term draviḍa, dramila first as the name of a people, then of a country. Sinhala BCE inscriptions cite dameḍa-, damela- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used damiḷa- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil); damilaraṭṭha- was a southern non-Aryan country; dramiḷa-, dramiḍa, and draviḍa- were used as variants to designate a country in the south (Bṛhatsamhita-, Kādambarī, Daśakumāracarita-, fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134–138). It appears that damiḷa- was older than draviḍa- which could be its Sanskritization.
Based on what Krishnamurti states (referring to a scholarly paper published in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics), the Sanskrit word draviḍa itself is later than damiḷa since the dates for the forms with -r- are centuries later than the dates for the forms without -r- (damiḷa, dameḍa-, damela- etc.).
Discovery
The 14th century Sanskrit text Lilatilakam, which is a grammar of Manipravalam, states that the spoken languages of present-day Kerala and Tamil Nadu were similar, terming them as "Dramiḍa". The author doesn't consider the "Karṇṇāṭa" (Kannada) and the "Andhra" (Telugu) languages as "Dramiḍa", because they were very different from the language of the "Tamil Veda" (Tiruvaymoli), but states that some people would include them in the "Dramiḍa" category.[21]
In 1816, Alexander D. Campbell suggested the existence of a Dravidian language family in his Grammar of the Teloogoo Language,
The word I have chosen is 'Dravidian', from Drāviḍa, the adjectival form of Draviḍa. This term, it is true, has sometimes been used, and is still sometimes used, in almost as restricted a sense as that of Tamil itself, so that though on the whole it is the best term I can find, I admit it is not perfectly free from ambiguity. It is a term which has already been used more or less distinctively by Sanskrit philologists, as a generic appellation for the South Indian people and their languages, and it is the only single term they ever seem to have used in this manner. I have, therefore, no doubt of the propriety of adopting it.
M. B. Emeneau proved a notable event in the study of Dravidian linguistics.[27]Classification
The Dravidian languages form a close-knit family. Most scholars agree on four groups: South (or South Dravidian I), South-Central (or South Dravidian II), Central, and North Dravidian, but there are different proposals regarding the relationship between these groups. Earlier classifications grouped Central and South-Central Dravidian in a single branch. On the other hand, Krishnamurti groups South-Central and South Dravidian together.[28]
Some authors deny that North Dravidian forms a valid subgroup, splitting it into Northeast (Kurukh–Malto) and Northwest (Brahui).[32] Their affiliation has been proposed based primarily on a small number of common phonetic developments, including:
- In some words, *k is retracted or spirantized, shifting to /x/ in Kurukh and Brahui, /q/ in Malto.
- In some words, *c is retracted to /k/.
- Word-initial *v develops to /b/. This development is, however, also found in several other Dravidian languages, including Kannada, Kodagu and Tulu.
McAlpin (2003)[33] notes that no exact conditioning can be established for the first two changes, and proposes that distinct Proto-Dravidian *q and *kʲ should be reconstructed behind these correspondences, and that Brahui, Kurukh-Malto, and the rest of Dravidian may be three coordinate branches, possibly with Brahui being the earliest language to split off. A few morphological parallels between Brahui and Kurukh-Malto are also known, but according to McAlpin they are analyzable as shared archaisms rather than shared innovations.
In addition,
Bharia, Malankuravan (possibly a dialect of Malayalam), and Vishavan. Ethnologue also lists several unclassified Southern Dravidian languages: Mala Malasar, Malasar, Thachanadan, Ullatan, Kalanadi, Kumbaran, Kunduvadi, Kurichiya, Attapady Kurumba, Muduga, Pathiya, and Wayanad Chetti. Pattapu may also be Southern.A computational phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family was undertaken by Kolipakam, et al. (2018).[34] Kolipakam, et al. (2018) supports the internal coherence of the four Dravidian branches South (or South Dravidian I), South-Central (or South Dravidian II), Central, and North, but is uncertain about the precise relationships of these four branches to each other. The date of Dravidian is estimated to be 4,500 years old.[34]
Distribution
Since 1981, the Census of India has reported only languages with more than 10,000 speakers, including 17 Dravidian languages. In 1981, these accounted for approximately 24% of India's population.[35][36]
In the
2001 census, they included 214 million people, about 21% of India's total population of 1.02 billion.[37]In addition, the largest Dravidian-speaking group outside India, Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka, number around 4.7 million. The total number of speakers of Dravidian languages is around 227 million people, around 13% of the population of the Indian subcontinent.The largest group of the Dravidian languages is South Dravidian, with almost 150 million speakers.
Kannada and Malayalammake up around 98% of the speakers, with 75 million, 44 million and 37 million native speakers, respectively.The next-largest is the South-Central branch, which has 78 million native speakers, the vast majority of whom speak Telugu. The total number of speakers of Telugu, including those whose first language is not Telugu, is around 84 million people. This branch also includes the tribal language Gondi spoken in central India.
The second-smallest branch is the Northern branch, with around 6.3 million speakers. This is the only sub-group to have a language spoken in Pakistan — Brahui.
The smallest branch is the Central branch, which has only around 200,000 speakers. These languages are mostly tribal, and spoken in central India.
Languages recognized as
official languages of Indiaappear here in boldface.
North Dravidian languages Language Number of speakers Location Brahui 2,430,000 ) Kurukh 2,280,000 Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar (India) Malto 234,000 Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal (India) Kurambhag Paharia 12,500 Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha
Central Dravidian languages Language Number of speakers Location Kolami122,000 Maharashtra, Telangana Duruwa 51,000 Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh Ollari 15,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh Naiki 10,000 Maharashtra
South-Central Dravidian languages Language Number of speakers Location Telugu 81,100,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, United States, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Mauritius, Australia, South Africa, Canada, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Myanmar, France, Singapore and Réunion. Gondi 2,980,000 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh Kui 942,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh Koya 360,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh Madiya 360,000 Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra Kuvi 155,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh Pengo 350,000 Odisha Pardhan 135,000 Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh Khirwar 36,400 Chhattisgarh (Surguja district) Chenchu 26,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana Konda 20,000 Andhra Pradesh, Odisha Muria 15,000 Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha Manda 4,040 Odisha
Unclassified Dravidian languages Language Number of speakers Location Pattapu 200,000+ Andhra Pradesh Bharia197,000 Chhattisgarh (Bilaspur district, Durg district, Surguja district), Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar Allar 350 Kerala (Palakkad district, Malappuram district) Vishavan 150 Kerala (Ernakulam district, Kottayam district, Thrissur district) Proposed relations with other families
The Dravidian family has defied all of the attempts to show a connection with other languages, including
Hurrian, Basque, Sumerian, Korean and Japanese. Comparisons have been made not just with the other language families of the Indian subcontinent (Indo-European, Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, and Nihali), but with all typologically similar language families of the Old World. Nonetheless, although there are no readily detectable genealogical connections, Dravidian shares strong areal features with the Indo-Aryan languages, which have been attributed to a substratum influence from Dravidian.[46]Dravidian languages display typological similarities with the Uralic language group, and there have been several attempts to establish a genetic relationship in the past.[47] This idea has been popular amongst Dravidian linguists, including Robert Caldwell,[48] Thomas Burrow,[49] Kamil Zvelebil,[50] and Mikhail Andronov,[51] The hypothesis is, however, rejected by most specialists in Uralic languages,[52] and also in recent times by Dravidian linguists such as Bhadriraju Krishnamurti.[53]
In the early 1970s, the linguist David McAlpin produced a detailed proposal of a genetic relationship between Dravidian and the extinct
Elamite, Brahui and Dravidian as its three branches.[62]Dravidian is one of the primary language families in the Nostratic proposal, which would link most languages in North Africa, Europe and Western Asia into a family with its origins in the Fertile Crescent sometime between the Last Glacial Period and the emergence of Proto-Indo-European 4,000–6,000 BCE. However, the general consensus is that such deep connections are not, or not yet, demonstrable.[63]
Prehistory
The origins of the Dravidian languages, as well as their subsequent development and the period of their differentiation are unclear, partially due to the lack of comparative linguistic research into the Dravidian languages. It is thought that the Dravidian languages were the most widespread indigenous languages in the Indian subcontinent before the advance of the Indo-Aryan languages.[10] Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE[11][12] or even earlier,[13][14] the Dravidian languages cannot easily be connected to any other language, and they could well be indigenous to India.[15][b]
Proto-Dravidian and onset of diversification
As a proto-language, the Proto-Dravidian language is not itself attested in the historical record. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction. It was suggested in the 1980s that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium BCE, and started disintegrating into various branches around the 3rd millennium BCE.[64] According to Krishnamurti, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium."[65] Krishnamurti further states that South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including Pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.[66] Kolipakam et al. (2018) estimate the Dravidian language family to be approximately 4,500 years old.[67]
Several geneticists have noted a strong correlation between Dravidian and the Ancestral South Indian (ASI) component of
Indus Valley Civilization (early 2nd millennium BCE), and hunter-gatherers native to southern India. They conclude that one of these two groups may have been the source of proto-Dravidian.[68]Introduction from the northwest would be consistent with the location of Brahui and with attempts to interpret the Indus script as Dravidian.[69] On the other hand, reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna provide some support for an Indian origin.[70]Indus Valley Civilisation
The
Indus Valley civilisation (3,300–1,900 BCE), located in Northwestern Indian subcontinent, is sometimes suggested to have been Dravidian.[71] Already in 1924, when announcing the discovery of the IVC, John Marshall stated that (one of) the language(s) may have been Dravidic.[72] Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers Henry Heras, Kamil Zvelebil, Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation.[73][74] The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late Neolithic (early 2nd millennium BCE, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone celt allegedly marked with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant for the Dravidian identification.[75][76]logosyllabic script and suggested, based on computer analysis, an underlying agglutinative Dravidian language as the most likely candidate for the underlying language.[77] Knorozov's suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption.[78]Linguist Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language are "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family".[79] Parpola led a Finnish team in investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis. Based on a proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some agreeing with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the "fish" sign with the Dravidian word for fish, "min") but disagreeing on several other readings. A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his book Deciphering the Indus Script.[80]
Northern Dravidian pockets
Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, in earlier times they probably were spoken in a larger area. After the Indo-Aryan migrations into north-western India, starting ca. 1500 BCE, and the establishment of the Kuru kingdom ca. 1100 BCE, a process of Sanskritisation of the masses started, which resulted in a language shift in northern India. Southern India has remained majority Dravidian, but pockets of Dravidian can be found in central India, Pakistan and Nepal.
The
Deccan Peninsula,[82] more specifically Karnataka. The same tradition has existed of the Brahui,[83][84] who call themselves immigrants.[85] Holding this same view of the Brahui are many scholars[86] such as L. H. Horace Perera and M. Ratnasabapathy.[87]The
Kurdish, and arrived in the area from the west only around 1000 CE.[91] Sound changes shared with Kurukh and Malto also suggest that Brahui was originally spoken near them in central India.[92]Dravidian influence on Sanskrit
Dravidian languages show extensive lexical (vocabulary) borrowing, but only a few traits of structural (either
Indo-Aryan language, the language of the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian.[94]Vedic Sanskrit has retroflex consonants (ṭ/ḍ, ṇ) with about 88 words in the Rigveda having unconditioned retroflexes.[95][96] Some sample words are Iṭanta, Kaṇva, śakaṭī, kevaṭa, puṇya and maṇḍūka. Since other Indo-European languages, including other Indo-Iranian languages, lack retroflex consonants, their presence in Indo-Aryan is often cited as evidence of substrate influence from close contact of the Vedic speakers with speakers of a foreign language family rich in retroflex consonants.[95][96] The Dravidian family is a serious candidate since it is rich in retroflex phonemes reconstructible back to the Proto-Dravidian stage.[97][98][99]
In addition, a number of grammatical features of Vedic Sanskrit not found in its sister
Avestan language appear to have been borrowed from Dravidian languages. These include the gerund, which has the same function as in Dravidian.[100] Some linguists explain this asymmetrical borrowing by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan languages were built on a Dravidian substratum.[101] These scholars argue that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Indic is language shift, that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages due to elite dominance.[102] Although each of the innovative traits in Indic could be accounted for by internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once; moreover, it accounts for several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed.[103]Grammar
The most characteristic grammatical features of Dravidian languages are:[50]
- Dravidian languages are agglutinative.
- Word order is
subject–object–verb(SOV).- Most Dravidian languages have a clusivity distinction.
- The major word classes are nouns (substantives, numerals, pronouns), adjectives, verbs, and indeclinables (particles, enclitics, adverbs, interjections, onomatopoetic words, echo words).
- Proto-Dravidian used only suffixes, never prefixes or infixes, in the construction of inflected forms. Hence, the roots of words always occurred at the beginning. Nouns, verbs, and indeclinable words constituted the original word classes.
- There are two numbers and four different gender systems, the ancestral system probably having "male:non-male" in the singular and "person:non-person" in the plural.
- In a sentence, however complex, only one finite verb occurs, normally at the end, preceded if necessary by a number of gerunds.
- Word order follows certain basic rules but is relatively free.
- The main (and probably original) dichotomy in tense is past:non-past. Present tense developed later and independently in each language or subgroup.
- Verbs are intransitive, transitive, and causative; there are also active and passive forms.
- All of the positive verb forms have their corresponding negative counterparts,
negative verbs.Phonology
Dravidian languages are noted for the lack of distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops. While some Dravidian languages have accepted large numbers of
retroflex places of articulation as well as large numbers of liquids.Proto-Dravidian
Proto-Dravidian had five short and long vowels: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, *ū, *e, *ē, *o, *ō. There were no diphthongs; ai and au are treated as *ay and *av (or *aw).[104][98][105] The five-vowel system is largely preserved in the descendent subgroups.[106]
The following consonantal phonemes are reconstructed:[97][98][107]
Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal Plosives*p *t *ṯ *ṭ *c *k Nasals *m *n *ṉ (??) *ṇ *ñ Fricatives(*H) Flap/rhotic *r *ẓ (ḻ, r̤) Lateral *l *ḷ Glides *w [v] *y Numerals
The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages (here exemplified by Indo Aryan language Sanskrit and Iranian language Persian).[108]
Number Southern South-Central Central Northern Proto-Dravidian Indo-Aryan Iranian Tamil KannadaMalayalam Kodava Tulu BearyTelugu Gondi KolamiKurukh Brahui Sanskrit Persian 1 oṉṟu ondu onnu ond onji onnu okaṭi undi okkod oṇṭa asiṭ *onṯu 1 éka yek 2 iraṇṭu eraḍu raṇḍu danḍ raḍḍ jend renḍu raṇḍ irāṭ indiŋ irāṭ *iraṇṭu 2 dvi do 3 mūṉṟu mūṟu mūnnu mūṉd mūji mūnnu mūḍu muṇḍ mūndiŋ mūnd musiṭ *mūnt̠u tri seh 4 nāṉku nālku nālu nāl nāl nāl nālugu nāluṇg nāliŋ nāx čār (II) *nāl, *nālku catúr cahār 5 aintu aidu añcu añji ayN añji ayidu saiyuṇg ayd 3 pancē (II) panč (II) *caymtu pañca panj 6 āṟu āru āṟu ār āji ār āṟu sāruṇg ār 3 soyyē (II) šaš (II) *cāṯu ṣáṣ śeś 7 ēẓu ēḷu ēẓu ēḷ yēl ēl ēḍu yeḍuṇg ēḍ 3 sattē (II) haft (II) *ēẓ saptá haft 8 eṭṭu eṇṭu eṭṭu eṭṭ enma ett enimidi armur enumadī 3 aṭṭhē (II) hašt (II) *eṇṭṭu aṣṭá haśt 9 oṉpatu 4 5 ombattu onpatu 5 oiymbad ormba olimbō tommidi unmāk tomdī 3 naiṃyē (II) nōh (II) *toḷ, *toṇ náva noh 10 pattu hattu patthu patt patt patt padi pad padī 3 dassē (II) dah (II) *paHtu dáśa dah
- This is the same as the word for another form of the number one in
indefinite article ("a") and when the number is an attributepreceding a noun (as in "one person"), as opposed to when it is a noun (as in "How many are there?" "One").- The stem *īr is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning of "double" in
Kannada and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20, literally meaning "double-ten"), iravai (20 in Telugu), "iraṭṭi" ("double") or iruvar ("two people", in Tamil) and "ippatthu" (ipp-hatthu, double ten", in Kannada).- The Kolami numbers 5 to 10 are borrowed from Telugu.
- The word tondu was also used to refer to the number nine in ancient Sangam texts but was later completely replaced by the word onpadu.
- These forms are derived from "one (less than) ten". Proto-Dravidian *toḷ is still used in Tamil and Malayalam as the basis of numbers such as 90, thonnooru as well as the Kannada tombattu.
- Words indicated (II) are borrowings from Indo-Iranian languages (in Brahui's case, from Balochi).
Literature
Four Dravidian languages, viz. Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, have lengthy literary traditions.[110] Literature in Tulu and Kodava is more recent.[110] Recently old literature in Gondi has been discovered as well.[111]
The earliest known Dravidian inscriptions are 76 Old Tamil inscriptions on cave walls in Madurai and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu, dating from the 2nd century BCE.[4] These inscriptions are written in a variant of the
Tamil Brahmi.[112]In 2019, theTamil Nadu Archaeology Department released a report on excavations at Keeladi, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, including a description of potsherds dated to the 6th century BCE inscribed with personal names in the Tamil-Brahmi script.[113]However, the report lacks the detail of a full archaeological study, and other archaeologists have disputed whether the oldest dates obtained for the site can be assigned to these potsherds.[114] The earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on Tamil grammar and poetics preserved in a 5th-century CE redaction, whose oldest layers could date from the late 2nd century or 1st century BCE.[115]Kannada is first known from the Halmidi inscription (450 CE). A 9th-century treatise on poetics, the Kavirajamarga, is the first literary work.[116] The earliest Telugu inscription, from Erragudipadu in
Mahābhārata.[116]The earliest Malayalam text is the Vazhappally copper plate (9th century). The first literary work is Rāmacaritam (12th century).[4]See also
- Dravidian Linguistics Association
- Dravidian peoples
- Dravidian studies
Dravidianism- Elamo-Dravidian languages
- Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew
- Dreaming of Words
Notes
References
- ^ "Definition of Dravidic | Dictionary.com". www.dictionary.com.
- ^ Steever (2020), p. 1.
- ^ "Overview of Dravidian languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 4 July 2018.
- ^ a b c Krishnamurti (2003), p. 22.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 20–21.
ISBN 978-1-4381-1913-7. ISBN 9788184004113– via Google Books.- ^ Erdosy (1995), p. 271.
- ^ Edwin Bryant, Laurie L. Patton (2005), The Indo-Aryan controversy: evidence and inference in Indian history, p. 254
- ^
ISBN 9781861895943.It is generally accepted that Dravidian - with no identifiable cognates among the world's languages - was India's most widely distributed, indigenous language family when Indo-European speakers first intruded from the north-west 3,000 years ago- ^ a b Tamil Literature Society (1963), Tamil Culture, vol. 10, Academy of Tamil Culture, retrieved 25 November 2008,
... together with the evidence of archaeology would seem to suggest that the original Dravidian-speakers entered India from Iran in the fourth millennium BC ...- ^ a b Andronov (2003), p. 299.
- ^
S2CID 13267463,... More recently, about 15,000–10,000 years before present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp ...- ^
ISBN 1-4020-1215-2, retrieved 25 November 2008,... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ...- ^ a b Avari (2007).
ISBN 9788126011940. ISBN 9781107647756 ISBN 978-0-19-563021-3.- ^ Zvelebil (1990), p. xxi.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 2, footnote 2.
- ^ Shulman 2016, p. 6.
OCLC 416559272- ^ Sreekumar (2009).
OCLC 20216805- ^ Zvelebil (1990), p. xx.
- ^ Caldwell (1856), p. 4.
- ^ Burrow, T. (Thomas); Emeneau, M. B. ; 1904-; (Murray Barnson) (7 February 1984). "A Dravidian etymological dictionary". dsal.uchicago.edu.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)- ^ a b c d e Krishnamurti (2003), p. 21.
- ^ Zvelebil (1990), p. 56.
- ^ a b Zvelebil (1990), p. 57.
- ^ Zvelebil (1990), p. 58.
- ^ Ruhlen (1991), pp. 138–141.
JSTOR 3217749.- ^
PMID 29657761.- ^ Steever (2020), p. 3.
ISBN 978-81-208-1617-6. Retrieved 7 September 2012.- ^ "Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues –2001". Census 2001. Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
- ^ "Countries where Tamil is official language தமிழ் நாடுகள்". TᗩᗰIᒪᖴᑌᑎᗪᗩ. 1 February 2015.
- ^ "History of the Tamil Diaspora". murugan.org.
- ^ "Irish Census 2016".
- ^ "Vienna Malayalee Association".
- ^ "Väestö 31.12. Muuttujina Maakunta, Kieli, Ikä, Sukupuoli, Vuosi ja Tiedot".
- ^ "Welcome to Nionkairali.com - Indian Malayalees in Japan- Japan malayalees, Malayali, Keralite, Tokyo". nihonkairali.com.
- ^ "Where Malayalees once held sway". DNA India. 5 October 2005. Retrieved 11 August 2015.
- ^ "Dr Veerendra Heggade in Dubai to Unite Tuluvas for Tulu Sammelan". Retrieved 12 November 2017.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 38–42.
JSTOR 411899. JSTOR 592159.- .
- ^ a b Zvelebil, Kamil (2006). Dravidian Languages. In Encyclopædia Britannica (DVD edition).
- ^ Andronov, Mikhail S. (1971), "Comparative Studies on the Nature of Dravidian-Uralian Parallels: A Peep into the Prehistory of Language Families". Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Tamil Studies Madras. 267–277.
- ^ Zvelebil, Kamil (1970), Comparative Dravidian Phonology Mouton, The Hauge. at p. 22 contains a bibliography of articles supporting and opposing the theory
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 43.
- ^ Zvelebil (1990), p. 105.
JSTOR 24987446.- ^ Cavalli-Sforza (2000), pp. 157, 159.
- ^ Cavalli-Sforza (2000), pp. 157, 160.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 44–45.
- ^ Steever (2020), p. 39.
- ^ Campbell & Poser (2008), p. 286.
ISBN 978-0-521-68497-2. p. 48.- ^ Southworth (2011), p. 142.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 45–47.
- ^ History and Archaeology, Volume 1, Issues 1-2 p.234, Department of Ancient History, Culture, and Archaeology, University of Allahabad
- ^ Krishnamurti 2003, p. 501.
- ^ Krishnamurti 2003, pp. 501–502.
- ^ "Dravidian language family is approximately 4,500 years old, new linguistic analysis finds". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
PMID 31488661.- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 5.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 15.
- ^ Mahadevan, Iravatham (6 May 2006). "Stone celts in Harappa". Harappa. Archived from the original on 4 September 2006.
- ^ M.T. Saju (5 October 2018), Pot route could have linked Indus & Vaigai, Times of India
- ^ Rahman, Tariq. "Peoples and languages in pre-Islamic Indus valley". Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
most scholars have taken the 'Dravidian hypothesis' seriously- ^ Cole, Jennifer (2006). "The Sindhi language" (PDF). In Brown, K. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition. Vol. 11. Elsevier. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 January 2007.
Harappan language...prevailing theory indicates Dravidian origins- ^ Subramanium 2006; see also A Note on the Muruku Sign of the Indus Script in light of the Mayiladuthurai Stone Axe Discovery Archived 4 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine by I. Mahadevan (2006)
- ^ Subramanian, T.S. (1 May 2006). "Significance of Mayiladuthurai find". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 30 April 2008. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)- ^ Knorozov 1965, p. 117
- ^ Heras 1953, p. 138
ISBN 9780195169478.- ^ Parpola 1994
- ^ P. 83 The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate by Edwin Bryant
- ^ P. 18 The Orāons of Chōtā Nāgpur: their history, economic life, and social organization. by Sarat Chandra Roy, Rai Bahadur; Alfred C Haddon
- ^ P. 12 Origin and Spread of the Tamils By V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar
- ^ P. 32 Ideology and status of Sanskrit : contributions to the history of the Sanskrit language by Jan E M Houben
- ^ P. 45 The Brahui language, an old Dravidian language spoken in parts of Baluchistan and Sind by Sir Denys Bray
- ^ Ancient India; Culture and Thought By M. L. Bhagi
- ^ P. 23 Ceylon & Indian History from Early Times to 1505 A.D. By L. H. Horace Perera, M. Ratnasabapathy
- ^ Mallory (1989), p. 44.
- ^ Elst (1999), p. 146.
- ^ Trask (2000), p. 97"It is widely suspected that the extinct and undeciphered Indus Valley language was a Dravidian language, but no confirmation is available. The existence of the isolated northern outlier Brahui is consistent with the hypothesis that Dravidian formerly occupied much of North India but was displaced by the invading Indo-Aryan languages, and the presence in the Indo-Aryan languages of certain linguistic features, such as retroflex consonants, is often attributed to Dravidian substrate influence."
- .
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 27, 142.
- ^ "Dravidian languages." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 30 June 2008
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 6.
- ^ a b Kuiper (1991).
- ^ a b Witzel (1999).
- ^ a b Subrahmanyam (1983), p. 40.
- ^ a b c Zvelebil (1990).
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 36.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 36–37.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 40–41.
- ^ Erdosy (1995), p. 18.
- ^ Thomason & Kaufman (1988), pp. 141–144.
- ^ Subrahmanyam (1983).
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 90.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 48.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), p. 91.
- ^ Krishnamurti (2003), pp. 260–265.
- ^ Mahadevan (2003), pp. 5–7.
- ^ a b Krishnamurti (2003), p. 20.
ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 9 May 2020.- ^ Mahadevan (2003), pp. 90–95.
- ^ Sivanantham, R.; Seran, M., eds. (2019). Keeladi: an Urban Settlement of Sangam Age on the Banks of the River Vaigai (Report). Chennai: Department of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu. pp. 8–9, 14.
- ^ Charuchandra, Sukanya (17 October 2019). "Experts Question Dates of Script in Tamil Nadu's Keeladi Excavation Report". The Wire.
- ^ Zvelebil (1973), p. 147.
- ^ a b Krishnamurti (2003), p. 23.
Bibliography
- Andronov, Mikhail Sergeevich (2003), A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, Otto Harrassowitz,
ISBN 978-3-447-04455-4.- Avari, Burjor (2007), Ancient India: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from C. 7000 BC to AD 1200, Routledge,
ISBN 978-1-134-25162-9. ISBN 81-206-0117-3.- Campbell, A. D. (1849), A grammar of the Teloogoo language, commonly termed the Gentoo, peculiar to the Hindoos inhabiting the northeastern provinces of the Indian peninsula (3d ed.), Madras: Hindu Press.
ISBN 978-0-521-88005-3.- Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca; Menozzi, Paolo; Piazza, Alberto (1994), The History and Geography of Human Genes, Princeton University Press,
ISBN 978-0-691-18726-6.- Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca (2000), Genes, Peoples, and Languages, North Point Press,
ISBN 978-0-86547-529-8. ISBN 81-86471-77-4.- Erdosy, George, ed. (1995), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
ISBN 3-11-014447-6. ISBN 0-521-77111-0.- Kuiper, F.B.J. (1991), Aryans in the Rig Veda, Rodopi,
ISBN 90-5183-307-5. ISBN 978-0-674-01227-1. ISBN 978-0-500-05052-1.- Parpola, Asko (2010), A Dravidian solution to the Indus script problem (PDF), World Classical Tamil Conference.
ISBN 978-0-8047-1894-3. ISBN 978-0-674-05992-4.- Southworth, Franklin (2011), "Rice in Dravidian", Rice, 4 (3–4): 142–148, .
- Sreekumar, P. (2009), "Francis Whyte Ellis and the Beginning of Comparative Dravidian Linguistics", Historiographia Linguistica, 36 (1): 75–95, .
- Steever, Sanford B. (2020), "Introduction to the Dravidian Languages", in Steever, Sanford B. (ed.), The Dravidian Languages (2nd ed.), Routledge, pp. 1–44,
ISBN 978-1-138-85376-8.- Subrahmanyam, P. S. (1983), Dravidian Comparative Phonology, Annamalai University.
- Thomason, Sarah Grey; Kaufman, Terrence (1988), Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, University of California Press (published 1991),
ISBN 0-520-07893-4.- Trask, Robert Lawrence (2000), The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Routledge,
ISBN 1-57958-218-4.- Witzel, Michael (1999), "Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages" (PDF), Mother Tongue (extra number): 1–76.
- Zvelebil, Kamil (1973), The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India, BRILL,
ISBN 90-04-03591-5.- ——— (1975), Tamil Literature, Leiden: Brill,
ISBN 90-04-04190-7.- ——— (1990), Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture,
ISBN 978-81-8545-201-2.Further reading
- Vishnupriya Kolipakam et al. (2018), A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family, Royal Society Open Science.
External links
Wiktionary has word lists at Appendix:Dravidian word lists
- Dravidian Etymological Dictionary. Burrow and Emeneau's A Dravidian etymological dictionary (2nd ed., 1984) in a searchable online form.