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Dravidian languages

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Dravidian
Geographic
distribution		South Asia
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's major language families
Subdivisions
  • Northern
  • Central
  • South Central
  • Southern
ISO 639-2 / 5dra

The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages[1] that are mainly spoken in southern India and northeastern Sri Lanka, as well as certain areas in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and eastern and central India, as well as in parts of Afghanistan, and overseas in other countries such as the UK, US, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore.

Origins of the word Dravidian

The English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert Caldwell in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa in the work Tantravārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa(Zvelebil 1990:xx). As for the origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa itself there have been various theories proposed. Basically the theories are about the direction of derivation between tamiẓ and drāviḍa. That is to say, while linguists such as Zvelebil assert that the direction is tamiẓ >drāviḍa (ibid. page xxi), others state that the name Dravida also forms the root of the word Tamil (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil).

There is no definite philological and linguistic basis for asserting unilaterally that the name Dravida also forms the origin of the word Tamil (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil). Zvelebil cites the forms such as dramila (in Daṇḍin's Sanskrit work Avanisundarīkathā) damiḷa (found in Ceylonese chronicle Mahavamsa) and then goes on to say (ibid. page xxi): "The forms damiḷa/damila almost certainly provide a connection of dr(a/ā)viḍa " and "... tamiḷ < tamiẓ ...whereby the further development might have been *tamiẓ > *damiḷ > damiḷa- / damila- and further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) -r-, into dr(a/ā)viḍa. The -m-/-v- alternation is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian phonology" (Zvelebil 1990:xxi) Zvelebil in his earlier treatise (Zvelebil 1975: p53) states: "It is obvious that the Sanskrit dr(a/ā)viḍa, Pali damila, damiḷo and Prakrit d(a/ā)viḍa are all etymologically connected with tamiẓ" and further remarks "The r in tamiẓ > dr(a/ā)viḍa is a hypercorrect insertion, cf. an analogical case of DED 1033 Ta. kamuku, Tu.kangu "areca nut": Skt. kramu(ka).".

Further another eminent Dravidian linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti in his book Dravidian Languages (Krishnamurti 2003:p2, footnote 2) states: "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 inscriptions of BCE [Before Christian Era] cite dameḍa-, damela- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used damiḷa- to refer to a people of in 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: 134-8). 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.). So it is clear that it is difficult to maintain Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil.

The Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary[2] lists for the Sanskrit word draviḍa a meaning of "collective Name for 5 peoples, viz. the Āndhras, Karṇāṭakas, Gurjaras, Tailaṅgas, and Mahārāṣṭras".

Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people. They appear to be unrelated to languages of other known families like Indo-European, specifically Indo-Aryan, which is the other common language family on the Indian subcontinent. Some linguistic scholars incorporate the Dravidian languages into a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family, which includes the ancient Elamite language (Haltami) of what is now south-western Iran. Dravidian is one of the primary linguistic groups in the proposed Nostratic language system, linking almost all languages in North Africa, Europe and Western Asia into a common family with its origins in the Fertile Crescent sometime between the last Ice Age and the emergence of proto-Indo-European 4-6 thousand years BC.

Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian substratum.[3]

History

Main article: Proto-Dravidian

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. In addition to Elamite, unsuccessful attempts have also been made to link the family with the Japonic languages, Basque, Korean, Sumerian, the Australian Aboriginal languages and the unknown language of the Indus Valley civilisation. The theory that the Dravidian languages display similarities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past,[4] is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of scholars, including Robert Caldwell,[5] Thomas Burrow,[6] Kamil Zvelebil,[7] and Mikhail Andronov[8] This theory has, however, been rejected by specialists in Uralic languages,[9] and has in recent times also been criticised by other Dravidian linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti.[10]

Many linguists, however, tend to favour the theory that speakers of Dravidian languages spread southwards and eastwards through the Indian subcontinent, based on the fact that the southern Dravidian languages show some signs of contact with linguistic groups which the northern Dravidian languages do not[citation needed]. Proto-Dravidian is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, Proto South-Central Dravidian and Proto-South Dravidian around 500 BC, although some linguists have argued that the degree of differentiation between the sub-families points to an earlier split.

The existence of the Dravidian language family was first suggested in 1816 by Alexander D. Campbell in his Grammar of the Teloogoo Language, in which he and Francis W. Ellis argued that Tamil and Telugu were descended from a common, non-Indo-European ancestor. However, it was not until 1856 that Robert Caldwell published his Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages, which considerably expanded the Dravidian umbrella and established it as one of the major language groups of the world. Caldwell coined the term "Dravidian" from the Sanskrit drāvida, which was used in a 7th century text to refer to the Tamil language of the south of India. The publication of the Dravidian etymological dictionary by T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau was a landmark event in Dravidian linguistics.

List of Dravidian languages [11]

Those recognized as Official languages of India are in boldface:

Southern

South Central

Central

The languages formally enumerated by linguists (Zvelebil 1990:p xiv, Subrahmanyam 1983) as belonging to the Central Dravidian subfamily are:

Other possible enumerations are:

Northern

The languages formally enumerated by Dravidian linguists (Zvelebil 1990:p xiv, Subrahmanyam 1983) as belonging to the North Dravidian subfamily are the three below:

Scholar Franklin C. Southworth writes that the relationship between Brahui and the Dravidian langauges is "perhaps"[12] close enough to prove a relationship.

However, according to scholar Edwin Bryant, Brahui, Kurukh and Malto have their own myths about external origins (coming from outside.)[13] The Oraons (Kurukh) have traditionally claimed to be from the Deccan Peninsula.[14] The same tradition has existed of the Brahui.[15] Many scholars hold this same view of the Brahui [16] such as L. H. Horace Perera and M. Ratnasabapathy.[17]

Some other enumerations are:

Grammar

The most characteristic features of Dravidian languages are:[7]

  • Dravidian languages are agglutinative.
  • Dravidian languages exhibit the inclusive and exclusive we feature.
  • 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 “original” 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

Historical Phonology

Vowels: Proto-Dravidian had ten vowels: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, ē. There was contrast between short and long vowels. There were no diphthongs. ai and au are treated as *ay and *av (or *aw) (Subrahmanyam 1983, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003).

Consonants: Proto-Dravidian is reconstructible with the following consonantal phonemes (Subrahmanyam 1983:p40, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003) :

Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive p t ṯ ṭ c k
Nasal m n ṉ (??) ṇ ñ
Flap r
Fricative ḻ (ṛ, r̤)
Lateral l ḷ
Approximant v y

Alveolar stop ṯ in many daughter languages developed into an alveolar trill ṟ. It still retains the stop sound in Kota and Toda (Subrahmanyam 1983). Malyalam still retains the original (alveolar) stop sound in gemination. (ibid). In Old Tamil it takes the enunciative vowel like the other stops. In other words, ṯ (or ṟ) does not occur word-finally without the enunciative vowel (ibid).

Velar nasal ṅ occurs only before k in Proto-Dravidian as in many of its daughter languages. Therefore it is not considered a separate phoneme in Proto-Dravidian. However, it attained phonemic status in languages like Malayalam, Gondi, Konda and Pengo due to the simplification of the original sequence *ṅk to ṅ. (Subrahmanyam 1983)

The glottal fricative H has been proposed by Bhadriraju Krishnamurti to account for the Old Tamil Aytam (Āytam) and other Dravidian comparative phonological phenomena (Krishnamurti 2003).

Dravidian languages are noted for the lack of distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops. While some Dravidian languages (especially Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu) have accepted large numbers of loan words from Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages in addition to their already vast vocabulary, in which the orthography shows distinctions in voice and aspiration, the words are pronounced in Dravidian according to different rules of phonology and phonotactics: voicing is allophonic and aspiration of plosives is generally absent, regardless of the spelling of the word. This is not a universal phenomenon and is generally avoided in formal or careful speech, especially when reciting.

For instance, Tamil, like Finnish, Korean, Ainu, and most indigenous Australian languages, does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced stops. In fact, the Tamil alphabet lacks symbols for voiced and aspirated stops.

Dravidian languages are also characterized by a three-way distinction between dental, alveolar, and retroflex places of articulation as well as large numbers of liquids.

Words starting with vowels

A substantial number of words also begin and end with vowels, which helps the languages' agglutinative property.

karanu (cry), elumbu (bone), adu (that), awade (there), idu (this), illai (no, absent)

adu-idil-illai (adu = that, idu = this, il= suffix form of "in", so => that-this-in-absent => that-in this-absent => that is absent in this)

Numerals

The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian languages.

Number Tamil Telugu Kannada Tulu Malayalam Kurukh Kolami Brahui Proto-Dravidian
1 onru okaṭi ondu onji onnu oṇṭa okkod asiṭ *oru(1)
2 iraṇṭu renḍu eraḍu raḍḍu raṇṭu indiŋ irāṭ irāṭ *iru(2)
3 mūnru mūḍu mūru mūji mūnnu mūnd mūndiŋ musiṭ *muC
4 nālu, nālku, nānku nālugu nālku nālu nālu nākh nāliŋ čār (II) *nāl
5 aintu ayidu aidu ainu añcu pancē (II) ayd 3 panč (II) *cayN
6 āru āru āru āji āru soyyē (II) ār 3 šaš (II) *caru
7 ēẓu ēḍu ēlu ēlu ēẓu sattē (II) ēḍ 3 haft (II) *eẓu
8 eṭṭu enimidi eṇṭu ēṇma eṭṭu aṭṭhē (II) enumadī 3 hašt (II) *eṭṭu
9 onpatu tommidi ombattu ormba onpatu naiṃyē (II) tomdī 3 nōh (II) *toḷ
10 pattu padi hattu pattu pathu dassē (II) padī 3 dah (II) *pat(tu)
  1. This is the same as the word for another version of the number one in Tamil and Malayalam. This is used as an indefinite article meaning "a" and also when counting things as opposed to just counting.
  2. This is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning of "double" in Tamil and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20, literally meaning "double-ten") or "iraṭṭi" ("double") or Iruvar (meaning two people).
  3. Kolami numbers 5-10 are borrowed from Telugu

Stability and Continuity of Dravidian

The Dravidian language family has been considered remarkably stable. Some aspects of its stability are:

  • Relative stability of root vowels seems to have been the rule (Zvelebil) [1]
  • A tendency toward structural and systemic balance and stability is characteristic of the Dravidian group (Zvelebil, ibid)

Dravidian substratum influence on Sanskrit

Dravidian and Sanskrit have influenced each other in various ways. Some earlier views in this interrelationship tended to view it as one-way from Sanskrit to Dravidian as evidenced in the following statements: "While the origins and initial development of Dravidian languages was independent of Sanskrit,[18] during later centuries, however, Dravidian languages like Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu have been greatly influenced by Sanskrit in terms of vocabulary, grammar and literary styles.[19]"

The above views must be considered in the light of the well-known Indologist and linguist (Zvelebil 1975: pp50-51): "... the period of the high water mark of Tamil classical literature was one in which the two great Sanskrit epics were already completed, but the Sanskrit classical poetry was barely emerging with Aśvaghoṣa." More importantly he continues: "No stylistic feature or convention could have been borrowed by the Tamils (though of course there are borrowings of purāṇic stories" (emphasis added). Zvelebil remarks:"Though the dominance of Sanskrit was exaggerated in some Brahmanic circles of Tamilnadu, and Tamil was given unduly underestimated by a few Sanskrit-oriented scholars, the Tamil and Sanskrit cultures were not generally in rivalry".

However more recent research has shown that Sanskrit has been influenced in certain more fundamental ways than Dravidian languages have been by it: It is by way of phonology[20] and even more significantly here via grammatical constructs. This has been the case from the earliest language available (ca. 1200 B.C.) of Sanskrit: the Ṛg Vedic speech.

The Ṛg Vedic language has retroflex consonants even though it is well known that the Indo European family and the Indo-Iranian subfamily to which Sanskrit belongs lack retroflex consonants (ṭ/ḍ, ṇ) with about 88 words in the Ṛg Veda having unconditioned retroflexes (Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999). Some sample words are: (Iṭanta, Kaṇva,śakaṭī, kevaṭa, puṇya, maṇḍūka) This is cited as a serious evidence of substrate influence from close contact of the Vedic speakers with speakers of a foreign language family rich in retroflex phonemes (Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999). Obviously the Dravidian family would be a serious candidate here (ibid as well as Krishnamurti 2003: p36) since it is rich in retroflex phonemes reconstructible back to the Proto-Dravidian stage[See Subrahmanyam 1983:p40, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003].

A more serious influence on Vedic Sanskrit is the extensive grammatical influence attested by the usage of the quotative marker iti and the occurrence of gerunds of verbs, a grammatical feature not found even in the Avestan language, a sister language of the Vedic Sanskrit. As Krishnamurti states: "Besides, the Ṛg Veda has used the gerund, not found in Avestan, with the same grammatical function as in Dravidian, as a non-finite verb for 'incomplete' action. Ṛg Vedic language also attests the use of iti as a quotative clause complementizer. All these features are not a consequence of simple borrowing but they indicate substratum influence (Kuiper 1991: ch 2)".

The noted Indologist Zvelebil remarks [2]: "Several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology (e.g., the retroflex consonants, made with the tongue curled upward toward the palate), syntax (e.g., the frequent use of gerunds, which are nonfinite verb forms of nominal character, as in “by the falling of the rain”), and vocabulary (a number of Dravidian loanwords apparently appearing in the Rigveda itself)"

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Ethnologue
  2. ^ Sanskrit, Tamil and Pahlavi Dictionaries
  3. ^ Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003) The Dravidian Languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-77111-0 at p. 40-41.
  4. ^ Tyler, Stephen (1968), "Dravidian and Uralian: the lexical evidence". Language 44:4. 798-812
  5. ^ Webb, Edward (1860), "Evidences of the Scythian Affinities of the Dravidian Languages, Condensed and Arranged from Rev. R. Caldwell's Comparative Dravidian Grammar", Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 7. 271-298.
  6. ^ Burrow, T. (1944) "Dravidian Studies IV: The Body in Dravidian and Uralian". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11:2. 328-356.
  7. ^ a b Zvelebil, Kamal (2006). Dravidian Languages. In Encyclopædia Britannica (DVD edition).
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ Zvelebil, Kamal (1970), Comparative Dravidian Phonology Mouton, The Hauge. at p. 22 contains a bibliography of articles supporting and opposing the theory
  10. ^ Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003) The Dravidian Languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-77111-0 at p. 43.
  11. ^ "Dravidian languages." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 13 March 2007 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9109791>
  12. ^ P. 12 Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia By Franklin C. Southworth
  13. ^ P. 83 The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate By Edwin Bryant
  14. ^ P. 18 The Orāons of Chōtā Nāgpur: their history, economic life, and social organization. by Sarat Chandra Roy, Rai Bahadur; Alfred C Haddon
  15. ^ P. 12 Origin and Spread of the Tamils By V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar
  16. ^ Ancient India; Culture and Thought By M. L. Bhagi
  17. ^ P. 23 Ceylon & Indian History from Early Times to 1505 A. D. By L. H. Horace Perera, M. Ratnasabapathy
  18. ^ Kittel (1993), p1-2
  19. ^ "Literature in all Dravidian languages owes a great deal to Sanskrit, the magic wand whose touch raised each of the languages from a level of patois to that of a literary idiom" (Sastri 1955, p309)
  20. ^ Trask, Robert Lawrence (2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Routledge. p. 97. ISBN 1579582184. 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. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

References

  • Caldwell, R., A comparative grammar of the Dravidian, or, South-Indian family of languages, London: Harrison, 1856.; Reprinted London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd., 1913; rev. ed. by J.L. Wyatt and T. Ramakrishna Pillai, Madras, University of Madras, 1961, reprint Asian Educational Services, 1998. ISBN 81-206-0117-3
  • Campbell, A.D., 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, Printed at the Hindu Press, 1849.
  • Krishnamurti, B., The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-77111-0
  • Subrahmanyam, P.S., Dravidian Comparative Phonology, Annamalai University, 1983.
  • Zvelebil, Kamil., Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction", PILC (Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture), 1990
  • Zvelebil, Kamil., Tamil Literature, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1975, ISBN 90-04-04190-7
  • Kuiper, F.B.J., Aryans in the Rig Veda", Rodopi, 1991, ISBN 90-5183-307-5 (CIP)
  • Witzel, Michael, Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages.Boston, "Mother Tongue", extra number 1999[3]
  • Trask, Robert Lawrence (2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Routledge. ISBN 1579582184. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
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