86-613: [REDACTED] Look up dravidian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Dravidian , Dravidan , or Dravida may refer to: Language and culture [ edit ] Dravidian languages , a family of languages spoken mainly in South India and northeastern Sri Lanka Proto-Dravidian language , a model of the common ancestor of the Dravidian languages Dravidian University ,
172-896: A family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in South India , north-east Sri Lanka , and south-west Pakistan , with pockets elsewhere in South Asia . Dravidian is first attested in the 2nd century BCE, as inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi script on cave walls in the Madurai and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu . 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 . Together with several smaller languages such as Gondi , these languages cover
258-462: A "linguistic cohesiveness well before 5th–4th century BCE". According to Falk these supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters, but misinterpreted non-linguistic Megalithic graffiti symbols , which were used in South India during the pre-literate era. The origins and chronology of Tamil Brahmi are unclear. Several hypotheses have been proposed, with the views of epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan being generally accepted. According to Mahadevan,
344-501: A common, non- Indo-European ancestor. He supported his argument with a detailed comparison of non-Sanskrit vocabulary in Telugu, Kannada and Tamil, and also demonstrated that they shared grammatical structures. In 1844, Christian Lassen discovered that Brahui was related to these languages. In 1856, Robert Caldwell published his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages , which considerably expanded
430-631: A connection between the Dravidian languages with other language families, including Indo-European , 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 several areal features with
516-614: A few loan words of north Indian languages written in northern Brahmi with those in Tamil Brahmi is neither abnormal nor exception in the epigraphical evidence discovered in Tamil Nadu. This trend continued in centuries that followed where Tamils inscribed Sanskrit words in the Grantha script . According to Vimala Begley, the recent sherds graffiti discoveries in archaeological sites along the coast of Tamil Nadu such as Arikamedu are
602-639: 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. The origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa is the Tamil word Tamiḻ . Kamil Zvelebil cites the forms such as dramila (in Daṇḍin 's Sanskrit work Avantisundarīkathā ) and damiḷa (found in
688-466: A historically defined race, propagated also by Devaneya Pavanar Adi Dravida , natives of Southern India Religion [ edit ] Dravidian folk religion Others [ edit ] Dravidan (1989 film) , a 1989 Tamil film Dravida Sangha See also [ edit ] Dravid (surname) Davidian (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
774-462: A mix of Tamil Brahmi, northern Brahmi and Ceylon-Brahmi scripts, and they inscribe both Tamil and Prakrit languages of India. This likely suggests that ancient Tamil Nadu served as one of the important trade staging regions for the Indian subcontinent and beyond. A. C. Burnell (1874), attempted the earliest work on South Indian paleography, but it was due to the efforts of K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar (1924), H. Krishna Sastri and K. K. Pillay that it
860-523: A mix of ancient Indian languages – mostly in early Tamil in Tamil Brahmi, and some in Prakrit languages in Brahmi. These are dated to about 300 to 200 BCE by archaeo-magnetic analysis. They suggest an economic vibrancy, trade and cultural exchange between ancient Tamil region and other parts of India. A similar mix of Tamil Brahmi and Brahmi script is found in shards, potsherds and rock inscriptions all along
946-449: A particular individual or dynasty." According to Harry Falk, Rajan's claims are "particularly ill-informed". Some of the earliest supposed inscriptions are not Brahmi letters at all, but merely misinterpreted Megalithic graffiti symbols , which were used in South India for several centuries during the pre-literate era. The stirrups reportedly found with the shreds are suspicious. Falk considers these reports as "regional chauvinism" just like
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#17327578703551032-462: 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
1118-475: 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, Bangladesh and Nepal. The Kurukh and Malto are pockets of Dravidian languages in central India, spoken by people who may have migrated from south India. They do have myths about external origins. The Kurukh have traditionally claimed to be from
1204-430: A radiometric date of about 520–490 BCE, which state Rajan and Yatheeskumar implies that the inscriptions too are from the same period. Based on Carbon-14 dating by an American laboratory, Rajan suggests Tamil Brahmi had been invented by 490 BCE, and states, "it is almost clear now that Ashoka did not developed (sic) the Brahmi script. The origin or evolution of a script is a social process and it could not be associated with
1290-599: A scholar of Brahmi and other ancient Indian scripts. First, states Falk, the Coningham team has admitted later that they did not use the carbon dating correction necessary for the Southern hemisphere and used the calibration curves for north Pakistan. Second, the Sri Lankan teams also erred when they deployed a "mathematical trick" whereby they conflated the contested date of lower strata that lacked inscribed shreds with
1376-568: A scholarly paper published in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics ), the Sanskrit word draviḍa itself appeared 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.). The Dravidian languages form a close-knit family. Most scholars agree on four groups: There are different proposals regarding
1462-627: A script for writing the Tamil language is found in the Jaina work Samavayanga Sutta and Pannavana Sutta where a script called Damili is mentioned as the seventeenth of eighteen Lipi (scripts) in use in India. Similarly, the tenth chapter of the Lalitavistara , named Lipisala samdarshana parivarta , lists Dravida-lipi and Dakshinya-lipi as two of sixty four scripts that Siddhartha (later
1548-587: A strong correlation between Dravidian and the Ancestral South Indian (ASI) component of South Asian genetic makeup . Narasimhan et al. (2019) argue that the ASI component itself formed in the early 2nd millennium BCE from a mixture of a population associated with the Indus Valley civilization and a population resident in peninsular India. They conclude that one of these two groups may have been
1634-670: A university situated in Andhra Pradesh South Indian culture , modern Dravidian culture Dravidian architecture , Hindu temple architecture Geography [ edit ] Dravida Nadu , a proposed country for the southern Dravidian languages South India , the region which is called Dravida in the Indian anthem Dravida kingdom , an ancient region mentioned in the Mahabharata Ethnicity [ edit ] Dravidian peoples , ethnic groups primarily in South India. Homo Dravida ,
1720-438: A valid subgroup, splitting it into Northeast (Kurukh–Malto) and Northwest (Brahui). Their affiliation has been proposed based primarily on a small number of common phonetic developments, including: McAlpin (2003) 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
1806-572: A wider area, perhaps into Central India or the western Deccan which may have had other forms of early Dravidian/pre-Proto-Dravidian or other branches of Dravidian which are currently unknown. 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. In the 2001 census , they included 214 million people, about 21% of India's total population of 1.02 billion. In addition,
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#17327578703551892-411: 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
1978-450: Is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian phonology". Bhadriraju Krishnamurti states in his reference book The Dravidian languages : 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
2064-639: Is dated from the 3rd or 2nd century BCE to 1st century BCE. The later stage is dated from the 1st to 2nd century CE. The third stage is dated from the 2nd century CE to the 3rd or 4th century CE. According to Gift Siromony, the types of Tamil Brahmi writings do not follow a very clear chronology and can lead to confusion in dating. According to K. Rajan, the Ashokan Brahmi corresponds with the Stage II of Tamil Brahmi per Mahadevan’s classification. Hence according to him, Stage I may have to be reassessed from
2150-569: Is given in his book Deciphering the Indus Script . 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 c. 1500 BCE , and the establishment of the Kuru kingdom c. 1100 BCE ,
2236-488: Is indigenous to India. 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. According to Krishnamurti , Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in
2322-865: Is more ancient and gave rise to Tamil Brahmi and Ashokan Brahmi, rather it is "regional chauvinism", states Falk. The graffiti and Brahmi found at sites in Sri Lanka are related, but not considered to be examples of Tamil-Brahmi. Archaeological teams sponsored by the government of Tamil Nadu have also been actively unearthing sites and reporting their results in local media that they have found shreds and items with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. Between 2011 and 2013, for example, Rajan and Yatheeskumar published their findings from excavations at Porunthal and Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, where numerous graffiti and inscription fragments on archaeological pieces have been unearthed. The radiocarbon dates of paddy grains and charcoal samples found along with potsherds with inscriptions provided
2408-491: Is not consistent. It appears to have existed in three different versions between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE. The third version, assumed to be the basis for early Tolkāppiyam , evolved into the modern Tamil script. The Bhattiprolu script is related to the Tamil-Brahmi, and is found in nine early inscriptions on stupa relic caskets discovered at Bhattiprolu ( Andhra Pradesh ). According to Richard Salomon,
2494-534: 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. The Dravidian family is a serious candidate since it is rich in retroflex phonemes reconstructible back to the Proto-Dravidian stage . 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
2580-617: Is that there was an indigenous common source (proto-Vatteluttu) script from which both northern and southern Brahmi script emerged, which he respectively terms as Brahmi and Damili scripts. Richard Salomon favors the Mahadevan theory. According to Kamil Zvelebil's chronology proposal of 1973, the earliest Tamil Brahmi inscriptions such as the Netunceliyan rock inscriptions at the Mangulam site were derived from Ashokan Brahmi that
2666-594: 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 India appear here in boldface . Researchers have tried but have been unable to prove
Dravidian - Misplaced Pages Continue
2752-460: Is used for both ā and short a in Tamil-Brahmi. This is unique to Tamil-Brahmi and Bhattiprolu among the early Indian scripts. Tamil-Brahmi does not, however, share the odd forms of letters such as gh in Bhattiprolu. This appears to be an adaptation to Dravidian phonotactics, where words commonly end in consonants, as opposed to Prakrit, where this never occurs. According to Mahadevan, in
2838-620: The Deccan Peninsula , more specifically Karnataka . The same tradition has existed of the Brahui, who call themselves immigrants. Holding this same view of the Brahui are many scholars such as L. H. Horace Perera and M. Ratnasabapathy. The Brahui population of Pakistan's Balochistan province has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict population, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by
2924-710: The Indo-Aryan languages , which have been attributed to the influence of a Dravidian substratum on Indo-Aryan. Dravidian languages display typological similarities with the Uralic language group, and there have been several attempts to establish a genetic relationship in the past. This idea has been popular amongst Dravidian linguists, including Robert Caldwell , Thomas Burrow , Kamil Zvelebil , and Mikhail Andronov. The hypothesis is, however, rejected by most specialists in Uralic languages, and also in recent times by Dravidian linguists such as Bhadriraju Krishnamurti . In
3010-553: The colonial period in India , Dravidian speakers were exploited by the colonial empires and sent as indentured servants to Southeast Asia , Mauritius , South Africa , Fiji and the Caribbean to work on plantations, and to East Africa to work on British railroads. There are more-recent Dravidian-speaking diaspora communities in the Middle East , Europe , North America and Oceania . The reconstructed proto-language of
3096-499: The gerund , which has the same function as in Dravidian. Some linguists explain this asymmetrical borrowing by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan languages were built on a Dravidian substratum. 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 . Although each of
3182-548: The 1990s, pre-Ashokan dates have been proposed based on excavations and discoveries of graphite covered ancient remains in Sri Lanka. These include those found in Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, some of which have been dated to the 4th century BCE. The findings of Coningham et al based on the carbon dating of excavated potsherds led to the proposal that the Sri Lankan Brahmi developed before Ashokan era, at least by
3268-435: The 5th to 4th century BCE, from where it came to Tamil region evolving into the Tamil Brahmi, and thereafter spread across South Asia due to trade networks. Sri Lankan nationalists have used this and other fragments of Black-and-Red Ware and Red Ware with Brahmi characters to state that Brahmi was invented on the island and from there it migrated north into the Indian subcontinent. This theory has been criticized by Harry Falk –
3354-417: The Bhattiprolu script reflects innovations in a Dravidian language context, rather than Indo-Aryan languages. Both the Bhattiprolu and Tamil Brahmi share common modifications to represent Dravidian languages. The Bhattiprolu was likely a provincial offshoot of early southern Brahmi script, states Salomon. According to Iravatham Mahathevan there are three stages in the development of the script. The early stage
3440-634: The Brahmi inscriptions found elsewhere on the Indian subcontinent such as the Edicts of Ashoka found in Andhra Pradesh . It adds diacritics to several letters for sounds not found in Prakrit , producing ṉ ṟ ṛ ḷ . Secondly, in many of the inscriptions the inherent vowel has been discarded: A consonant written without diacritics represents the consonant alone, whereas the Ashokan diacritic for long ā
3526-411: The Brahmi script from North India arrived via the southern inscriptions of Ashoka, and evolved into the Tamil Brahmi. This theory presupposes that the Brahmi script itself was either originated within the imperial courts of Mauryan kingdom or evolved from a more ancient foreign script and it was dispersed to South India and Sri Lanka after the 3rd century BCE. The alternate theory proposed by Nagaswamy
Dravidian - Misplaced Pages Continue
3612-545: The Damili script in his publications. Artifacts such as inscribed potsherds , coins or others are found in Tamil Nadu archaeological sites have graffiti and inscriptions . The potsherds recovered from Kodumanal , for example, have markings that on the basis of stratigraphical analysis appear to be from the 4th century BCE. According to K. Rajan, the "large number of graffiti marks and subsequent Tamil Brahmi script" unearthed in Tamil Nadu and Kerala suggest that this region had
3698-437: The Dravidian identification. Yuri Knorozov surmised that the symbols represent a logosyllabic script and suggested, based on computer analysis, an underlying agglutinative Dravidian language as the most likely candidate for the underlying language. Knorozov's suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption. Linguist Asko Parpola writes that
3784-467: The Dravidian language family was undertaken by Kolipakam, et al. (2018). They support 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. Speakers of Dravidian languages, by language Dravidian languages are mostly located in
3870-482: The Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE, or even earlier, the reconstructed vocabulary of proto-Dravidian suggests that the family is indigenous to India. Despite many attempts, the family has not been shown to be related to any other. The 14th-century Sanskrit text Lilatilakam , a grammar of Manipravalam , states that
3956-570: The Dravidian languages were the most widespread indigenous languages in the Indian subcontinent before the advance of the Indo-Aryan languages. 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 or even earlier, reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family
4042-519: The Dravidian umbrella and established Dravidian as one of the major language groups of the world. In 1961, T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau published the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary , with a major revision in 1984. Caldwell coined the term "Dravidian" for this family of languages, based on the usage of the Sanskrit word Draviḍa in the work Tantravārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa : The word I have chosen
4128-697: The Gautam Buddha) learnt as a child from his gurus in Vedic schools, a list that is found in both Indian Buddhist texts and its ancient Chinese translations. These relationship of early Tamil scripts to these lipi mentioned in Jaina and Buddhist literature relationship is unclear. The pre-1974 work of Mahadevan had established 76 rock inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi from about 21 sites in Tamil Nadu, which states Kamil Zvelebil "establish obvious correlations" with what has been found in early Tamil bardic poems. Nagaswamy treats Tamil-Brahmi script to be synonymous with
4214-694: The Indus Valley Civilisation, John Marshall stated that (one of) the language(s) may have been Dravidic. 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. 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
4300-570: The Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium." Krishnamurti further states that South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including Pre-Telugu) split around the 11th century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time. Kolipakam et al. (2018) give a similar estimate of 2,500 BCE for Proto-Dravidian. Historically Maharashtra, Gujarat and Sindh also had Dravidian speaking populations from
4386-501: The Indus script and Harappan language are "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family". 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
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#17327578703554472-480: The Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent . (In his 2000 book, Cavalli-Sforza suggested western India, northern India and northern Iran as alternative starting points. ) However, linguists have found McAlpin's cognates unconvincing and criticized his proposed phonological rules as ad hoc . Elamite is generally believed by scholars to be a language isolate , and the theory has had no effect on studies of
4558-440: The Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) chronicle Mahavamsa ) and then goes on to say, "The forms damiḷa / damila almost certainly provide a connection of dr(a/ā)viḍa " with the indigenous name of the Tamil language, the likely derivation being "* tamiḻ > * damiḷ > damiḷa - / damila - and further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) - r -, into dr(a/ā)viḍa . The - m -/- v - alternation
4644-513: The Sri Lankan claims of their island being the origin of a Brahmi script from which the Tamil-Brahmi developed. Linguist David Shulman concurs that there are reasons to be skeptical of pre-Ashokan dates for Tamil-Brahmi, but recommends that one should keep an open mind. Tamil-Brahmi had notable peculiarities when compared to the Standard Brahmi. It had four different characters to represent Dravidian language phonemes not represented in
4730-522: The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found in rock caves of Tamil Nadu are related to Jainism . The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are also found in secular context such as coins, potsherds and others. According to Zvelebil, its origins likely were with the Jains and the Buddhists, but it was soon understood and used by kings, chiefs, potters and other common people from a variety of backgrounds. This is evidenced by
4816-550: The coast of the Bay of Bengal, from Salihundam in northeast Andhra Pradesh to ancient near-coast settlements of Tamil Nadu such as those near Vaddamanu, Amaravati, Arikamedu, Kanchipuram, Vallam, Alagankulam and Korkai. Discoveries at Kodumanal near Coimbatore have unearthed potsherds with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions dated 300 to 200 BCE. These include names mostly in Tamil language (Kannan Atan, Pannan), as well as some in Sanskrit (Varuni, Visaki). According to Mahadevan, this admixture of
4902-433: The earliest stages of the script the inherent vowel was either abandoned, as above, or the bare consonant was ambiguous as to whether it implied a short a or not. Later stages of Tamil Brahmi returned to the inherent vowel that was the norm in ancient India. According to Kamil Zvelebil , Tamil-Brahmi script was the parent script that ultimately evolved into the later Vatteluttu and Tamil scripts . An early mention of
4988-486: The early 1970s, the linguist David McAlpin produced a detailed proposal of a genetic relationship between Dravidian and the extinct Elamite language of ancient Elam (present-day southwestern Iran ). The Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis was supported in the late 1980s by the archaeologist Colin Renfrew and the geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza , who suggested that Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from
5074-399: 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. 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
5160-529: The evidence of place names (like -v(a)li, -koṭ from Dravidian paḷḷi, kōṭṭai ), grammatical features in Marathi, Gujarati, and Sindhi and Dravidian like kinship systems in southern Indo–Aryan languages. Proto-Dravidian could have been spoken in a wider area, perhaps into Central India or the western Deccan which may have had other forms of early Dravidian/pre-Proto-Dravidian or other branches of Dravidian which are currently unknown. Several geneticists have noted
5246-476: The family is known as proto-Dravidian . Dravidian place names along the Arabian Sea coast and clear signs of Dravidian phonological and grammatical influence (e.g. retroflex consonants and clusivity ) in the Indo-Aryan languages suggest that Dravidian languages were spoken more widely across the Indian subcontinent before the spread of the Indo-Aryan languages. Though some scholars have argued that
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#17327578703555332-461: The formal varieties of the so-called "literary" Dravidian languages (except Tamil) today, but may be rare or entirely absent in less formal registers, as well as in the many "non-literary" Dravidian languages. At one extreme, Tamil , like Proto-Dravidian, does not phonemically distinguish between voiced and voiceless or unaspirated and aspirated sounds, even in formal speech; in fact, the Tamil alphabet lacks symbols for voiced and aspirated stops. At
5418-470: The incoming Indo-Aryan languages . However, it has been argued that the absence of any Old Iranian ( Avestan ) loanwords in Brahui suggests that the Brahui migrated to Balochistan from central India less than 1,000 years ago. The main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi , is a western Iranian language like Kurdish , and arrived in the area from the west only around 1000 CE. Sound changes shared with Kurukh and Malto also suggest that Brahui
5504-731: 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. Proto-Dravidian, unlike Sanskrit and other Indo-Iranian languages languages of South Asia, lacked both an aspiration and voicing contrast. The situation varies considerably amongst its daughter languages and often also between registers of any single language. The vast majority of modern Dravidian languages generally have some voicing distinctions amongst stops; as for aspiration, it appears in at least
5590-619: The language of the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. Vedic Sanskrit has retroflex consonants ( ṭ / ḍ , ṇ ) with about 88 words in the Rigveda having unconditioned retroflexes. 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
5676-602: The language. In 2012, Southworth suggested a "Zagrosian family" of West Asian origin including Elamite , Brahui and Dravidian as its three branches. 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
5762-416: The large numbers of loanwords from Sanskrit and other Indo-Iranian languages , though some are found in etymologically native words as well, often as the result of plosive + laryngeal clusters being reanalysed as aspirates (e.g. Telugu నలభై nalabhai , Kannada ಎಂಬತ್ತು / ಎಂಭತ್ತು emb(h)attu , Adilabad Gondi phōṛd ). Tamil-Brahmi Tamil-Brahmi , also known as Tamili or Damili ,
5848-404: 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. Tamil , Kannada and Malayalam make up around 98% of
5934-581: The names of ancient kings, heroes, and places. This has served as an important and a more reliable means to date Tamil literature and history from about the 3rd century BCE and thereafter. A significant archaeological source of Tamil Brahmi inscriptions has been the region between Palghat gap and Coimbatore along the Kaveri river and to its delta. The excavations here revealed nearly two hundred inscribed potsherds along with items relating to iron-smelting and jewelry manufacturing. These inscribed potsherds contain
6020-531: The other end, Brahui is exceptional among the Dravidian languages in possessing and commonly employing the entire inventory of aspirates employed in neighboring Sindhi . While aspirates are particularly concentrated in the Indo-Aryan element of the lexicon, some Brahui words with Dravidian roots have developed aspiration as well. Most languages lie in between. Voicing contrasts are quite common in all registers of speech in most Dravidian languages. Aspiration contrasts are less common, but relatively well-established in
6106-410: The phonologies of the higher or more formal registers, as well as in the standard orthographies , of the "literary" languages (other than Tamil): Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. However, in colloquial or non-standard speech, aspiration often appears inconsistently or not at all, even if it occurs in the standard spelling of the word. In the languages in which aspirates are found, they primarily occur in
6192-770: The proposed time line. From the 5th century CE onwards Tamil is written in Vatteluttu in the Chera and Pandya country and Grantha or Tamil script in the Chola and Pallava country. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in cave beds and coins have provided historians with identifying some kings and chiefs mentioned in the Sangam Tamil corpus as well as related Ashokan pillar inscriptions. The Tamil Brahmi script inscriptions are predominantly found with ancient Tamil Jaina and Buddhist sites, states Zvelebil. According to Ranjan, all
6278-409: 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. There are other disagreements, including whether there is a Toda-Kota branch or whether Kota diverged first and later Toda (claimed by Krishnamurti). Some authors deny that North Dravidian forms
6364-474: 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 analysable as shared archaisms rather than shared innovations. In addition, Glottolog lists several unclassified Dravidian languages: Kumbaran , Kakkala (both of Tamil-Malayalam) and Khirwar . A computational phylogenetic study of
6450-517: The source of proto-Dravidian. An Indus valley origin would be consistent with the location of Brahui and with attempts to interpret the Indus script as Dravidian. On the other hand, reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna provide support for a peninsular Indian origin. The Indus Valley civilisation (3300–1900 BCE), located in the Indus Valley region, is sometimes suggested to have been Dravidian. Already in 1924, after discovering
6536-683: The southern and central parts of south Asia with 2 main outliers, Brahui having speakers in Balochistan and as far north are Merv, Turkmenistan and Kurukh to the east in Jharkhand and as far northeast as Bhutan, Nepal and Assam. Historically Maharashtra, Gujarat and Sindh also had Dravidian speaking populations from the evidence of place names (like -v(a)li, -koṭ from Dravidian paḷḷi, kōṭṭai ), grammatical features in Marathi, Gujarati, and Sindhi and Dravidian like kinship systems in southern Indo–Aryan languages. Proto-Dravidian could have been spoken in
6622-609: The southern part of India and the northeast of Sri Lanka , and account for the overwhelming majority of speakers of Dravidian languages. Malto and Kurukh are spoken in isolated pockets in eastern India. Kurukh is also spoken in parts of Nepal , Bhutan and Bangladesh . Brahui is mostly spoken in the Balochistan region of Pakistan , Iranian Balochistan , Afghanistan and around the Marw oasis in Turkmenistan . During
6708-507: 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 85 million people. This branch also includes the tribal language Gondi spoken in central India. The second-smallest branch
6794-490: The spoken languages of present-day Kerala and Tamil Nadu were similar, terming them as "Dramiḍa". The author does not consider the "Karṇṇāṭa" (Kannada) and the "Āndhra" (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. In 1816, Francis Whyte Ellis argued that Tamil , Telugu , Kannada , Malayalam , Tulu and Kodava descended from
6880-490: The standard northern-based Brahmi used to write Prakrit languages . The closest resemblance to Tamil-Brahmi is to its neighboring Sinhala-Brahmi. Both seem to use similar letters to indicate phonemes that are unique to Dravidian languages although Sinhala-Brahmi was used to write an Indo-Aryan Prakrit used in the island of Sri Lanka possibly from ongoing maritime relationship with Gujarat and other parts of India. The Tamil Brahmi script found in ancient Tamil inscriptions
6966-568: The title Dravidian . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dravidian&oldid=1249103960 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Language and nationality disambiguation pages Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (sometimes called Dravidic ) are
7052-405: The upper strata where the shreds with Brahmi script were found. According to Falk, a critical study of the feature differences between Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Brahmi, Tamil Brahmi and Ashokan Brahmi suggest that "all the differences can only be explained once the Ashokan script is taken as primary and the two others as derivations". It is not scholarship that is behind the claims that Ceylonese Brahmi
7138-751: The use of a fused Tamil and Prakrit languages in the secular inscriptions. According to Rajan, certain graffiti marks may imply that the script was used for funerary and other purposes. The language used in most of the religious inscriptions show Prakrit elements and influence. Cave and rock bed Tamil Brahmi inscriptions, as well as those found near Madurai , are typically donatory and dedicated resting places and resources for monks. Other major usages of Tamil Brahmi inscriptions are similar to those found in Andhra Pradesh, such as in coins and those that mention merchants and traders of gold, sugar, iron, salt and textiles. Some Tamil Brahmi inscriptions mention
7224-684: Was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in Old Tamil . The Tamil-Brahmi script has been paleographically and stratigraphically dated between the third century BCE and the first century CE, and it constitutes the earliest known writing system evidenced in many parts of Tamil Nadu , Kerala , Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka . Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found on cave entrances, stone beds, potsherds , jar burials , coins , seals, and rings . Tamil Brahmi resembles but differs in several minor ways from
7310-431: Was introduced to the Tamil region around 250 BCE. It was adapted for the Tamil language by 220 BCE and led to the standardization of the Tamil language and literary norms of Maturai between 200 and 50 BCE. These developments transformed the oral bardic Tamil literary culture to the written Sangam literature in the centuries that followed. The use of Tamil Brahmi continued through the 6th century CE, states Zvelebil. Since
7396-403: Was originally spoken near them in central India. Dravidian languages show extensive lexical (vocabulary) borrowing, but only a few traits of structural (either phonological or grammatical) borrowing from Indo-Aryan, whereas Indo-Aryan shows more structural than lexical borrowings from the Dravidian languages. Many of these features are already present in the oldest known Indo-Aryan language ,
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