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448
Dravidian
Languages
Dravida
Robert
Caldwell
(1856)
was
the
first
to
use
Dravidian
as
a
generic
name
of
the
major
language
family
spoken
in
the
South
Asian
subcontinent.
The
new
name
was
an
adaptation
of
a
Sanskrit
term
dravida-,
which
is
traditionally
used
to
designate
the
Tamil
language
and
people,
in
some
contexts,
and
in
others,
vaguely
the
south
Indian
peoples.
Prehistory
There
is
no
archeological
or
linguistic
evidence
to
show
actually
when
the
people
who
spoke
the
Dravidian
languages
entered
India.
But
we
know
that
they
were
already
in
the
northwest
India
by
the
time
the
Aryans
entered
India
by
the
fifteenth
century
BC.
Most
of
the
proposals
that
the
Proto-Dravidians
entered
the
subcontinent
from
outside
are
based
on
the
notion
that
Brahui
was
the
result
of
the
first
split
of
Proto-Dravidian
and
that
the
Indus
civilization
was
most
likely
Dravidian.
The
Dravidian
Languages
as
a
family
Francis
Whyte
Ellis,
an
English
civil
servant,
in
his
1816
dissertation
asserted,
the
high
and
low
Tamil;
the
Telugu,
grammatical
and
vulgar;
Carnataca
or
Cannadi,
ancient
and
modern;
Malayalma
or
Malayalamand
Tuluva
are
the
members
constituting
the
family
of
languages
which
may
be
appropriately
called
the
dialects
of
South
India.
Robert
Caldwell
brought
the
first
edition
of
his
Comparative
Grammar
in
1856.
He
enumerated
twelve
languages
Mainly
drew
upon
the
literary
languages
of
the
south
with
greater
attention
paid
to
Tamil.
He
succeeded
in
showing
family
likeness
among
the
Dravidian
languages
in
phonology
and
morphology
and
in
disproving
the
Sanskrit
origin
of
Dravidian
languages.
Geographical
distribution
and
demographic
details
There
are
twenty-six
Dravidian
languages
known
at
present.
They
are
classified
into
four
genetic
subgroups
are
follows:
1.
South
Dravidian
(SD
I):
Tamil,
Malayalam,
Irula,
Kurumba,
Kodagu,
Toda,
Kota
Badaga,
Kannada,
Koraga,
Tulu;
2.
South-Central
Dravidian
(SD
II):
Telugu,
Gondi,
Konda,
Kui,
Kuvi,
Pengo,
Manda
3.
Central
Dravidian
(CD):
Kolami,
Naikri,
Naiki,
Parji,
Ollari,
(Kondekor)
Gadaba;
4.
North
Dravidian
(ND)
:
Kurux,
Malto,
Brahui.
Tamil
Cave
inscriptions
in
Tamil
Brahmi
script
were
found
in
Madurai
and
Tirunalveli
districts
dated
around
second
century
BC.
Pengo
Spoken
in
Nabarangpur
district
of
Orissa
Population
1,300
Manda
Spoken
near
Thuamul
Rampur
of
the
Nabarangpur
district
of
Orissa
Population
(not
known)
Closely
related
to
Pengo
Kolami
Alidabad
district
of
AP,
Yavatmal
and
Wardha
district
of
Maharashtra
It
has
borrowings
from
Telugu
from
a
very
early
period
Naikri
Spoken
in
AP
and
Maharashtra
in
the
vicinity
of
Kolami
Population
1,500
(1961)
Naiki
Chanda
district
of
MP
Naikri
and
Naiki
are
treated
as
related
languages
in
contemporary
comparative
studies
Parji
Bastar
district
of
MP
and
the
adjacent
hills
of
Koraput
district
of
Orissa
Ollari
Spoken
in
the
same
area
as
Gadaba
Some
linguists
treat
Ollari
and
Gadaba
as
dialects
of
the
same
language.
Gadaba
Srikakulam
district
of
AP
and
Koraput
district
of
Orissa
Population
(9197
in
census
1981:
in
1991?
54000)
The
census
report
do
not
distinguish
between
this
language
and
Mundarian
Gadaba
known
as
Gotub
Gadaba.
Kurux
Chota
Nagpur
plateau
covering
Jharkhand,
MP,
and
Orissa
Kurux
is
in
contact
with
both
Indo-Aryan
and
Munda
languages.
There
is
a
dialect
of
Kurux,
called
Dhangar,
spoken
by
10,000
persons
in
Nepal.
Malto
Spoken
in
Raj
Mahal
Hills
bordering
Jharkhand
and
West
Bengal
Not
geographically
adjacent
to
Kurux.
Brahui
Spoken
in
Baluchistan
in
Pakistan
Brahui
is
said
to
have
10
per
cent
of
Dravidian
words
Some
sound
changes
shared
by
Kurux,
Malto
and
Brahui
suggest
a
common
undivided
stage
deeper
in
history.
Phonology
of
Dravidian
Languages
There
are
five
short
and
five
long
vowels
in
Dravidian
/I,
i:,
e,
e:,
a,
a:,
o,
o:,
u,
u:/.
Kodagu
and
some
languages
of
the
Nilgiris
have
centralized
vowels
/,
/,
which
have
developed
from
retracted
allophones
of
the
front
vowels
before
retroflex
consonants.
Only
Toda
and
Irula
have
also
developed
front
rounded
vowels
/,
/.
The
favored
syllable
pattern
of
the
word
(free
form)
in
Dravidian
is
(C)V:CV/
(C)VCCV/
(C)VCVCV.
The
other
types
are
infrequent
Words
can
begin
with
vowels
or
consonants.
Short
vowels
in
non-root
syllables
tend
to
be
lost.
There
are
seventeen
consonantal
segments
in
Proto-Dravidian,
six
stops,
four
nasals,
two
laterals,
one
trill,
one
approximant
and
three
semivowels.
Voicing
and
aspiration
are
not
phonemic.
The
three-way
distinction,
dental-alveolar-retroflex
/t,
t,
t/
in
the
stop
series,
a
separate
series
of
phonemic
retroflexes
with
different
articulatory
effort
/t,
n,
l,
z/
(stop,
nasal,
lateral,
approximant),
absence
of
voice
contrast
in
the
stop
series
are
the
typologically
important
features
of
Proto-Dravidian
consonant
system.
Morphology
The
Dravidian
languages
are
agglutinating
in
structure.
There
are
no
prefixes
or
infixes.
Grammatical
relations
are
expressed
only
by
suffixation
and
compounding.
Nouns
Nominals
(include
nouns,
pronouns,
numerals
and
adverbs
of
time
and
place)
are
all
inflected
for
case.
Gender
and
number
are
interrelated
categories.
The
categories
+/-
Animate,
+/-
Human,
+/-Male
human
underlie
gender
classification.
The
plural
is
differentiated
originally
between
human
and
non-human
categories.
There
are
two
plurals
of
the
first
person
pronoun,
one
including
the
person
addressed
(inclusive)
and
the
other
excluding
the
person
addressed
(exclusive).
Personal
pronouns
(first
and
second)
are
distinguished
for
number
not
gender
Gender
and
number
are
relevant
only
in
third
person
pronouns.
Adjectives
Adjectives
precede
the
noun
head
that
they
qualify.
Adjectives
do
not
agree
with
the
noun
head
in
gender
and
number.
Verbs
The
finite
verb
has
the
structure
Stem
(root
+
(transitive)
+
(causative))
+
tense
+
person-number-gender.
A
stem
can
be
complex
or
compound.
A
compound
stem
has
one
or
more
coverbs
attached
to
an
uninflected
noun
or
an
inflected
main
verb.
Dravidian
languages
are
tense
prominent.
Syntax
Dravidian
languages
have
SOV
word
order.
A
simple
sentence
consists
of
a
subject
and
a
predicate.
The
predicate
has
either
a
verb
or
a
nominal
as
head
Sentences
with
nominal
predicates
are
equative
sentences,
which
lack
the
verb
to
be
in
most
of
the
languages.
Example
-
Konda
ma:p
se:na
du:ram-ti
lo:ku
We
very
distance-loc
people
We
(are)
people
from
far
away
ba:nza
ra:za
su-t-an
barren
king
see-pst-3sg.m
The
barren
king
saw
Agreement
between
nominative
subjects
and
their
predicates
survives
in
all
the
daughter
languages
except
Malayalam,
where
personal
endings
have
been
lost.
Interrogative
sentences
are
formed
either
by
the
addition
of
an
interrogative
particle
(yes-no
type)
Or
By
using
an
interrogative
word
substituted
for
the
questioned
noun.
Nominal
and
verbal
predicates
have
different
negative
words
to
express
sentence
negation.
Non-finite
verbs
Non-finite
verbs
accordingly
fall
into
one
of
the
two
sets:
Those
that
combine
with
a
following
predicate
Those
that
combine
with
a
following
nominal.
The
first
set
contains
such
forms
as
the
1. conjunctive
form
Example
-
Konda
o:r
ne:
va:z-i
darmam
kia
one
day
come-conj
help
do
come
for
a
day,
and
help
(us).