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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.
- Overview
- Dravidian and Indo-Aryan
- Distant relationships
As mentioned above, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages share many convergent features due to their long proximity to one another. The major features of Indo-Aryan phonology that are attributed to Dravidian influence are the voicing or weakening of the intervocalic stop consonants in Pali and Prakrits; the simplification of consonant clusters (e.g., Sanskrit aṣṭa- became Prakrit aṭṭha- ‘8,’ Sanskrit sapta- became Prakrit satta- ‘7,’ etc.); the emergence of (C)V:C or (C)VCC word-bases by resolving the older (C)V:CC type into one of these (e.g., Sanskrit dīrgha- developed into Prakrit dīgha-/diggha- ‘long’ rather than *dīggha-); and the proliferation of retroflex consonants, which did not occur in the other Indo-European languages.
Among the grammatical features, the important ones were the dative subject construction (e.g., ‘to him anger occurred’ instead of ‘he became angry’); the use of the particle api in Sanskrit in the sense of Dravidian *-um ‘even, also, and, indefinite’; morphological causatives (Sanskrit gam- ‘to go,’ gamaya- ‘to cause to go,’ Konda ki- ‘to do,’ kibis- ‘to cause to do’); the use of the perfective participle or gerund as head of subordinate clauses (Sanskrit kṛtvā ‘having done,’ Telugu cēsi ‘having done’); the extensive use of echo words; and the use of the particle iti ‘so and so’ in Sanskrit parallel to the Dravidian participle of the verb *en-/*an- ‘to say’ as a quotative marker (corresponding to English that).
As mentioned above, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages share many convergent features due to their long proximity to one another. The major features of Indo-Aryan phonology that are attributed to Dravidian influence are the voicing or weakening of the intervocalic stop consonants in Pali and Prakrits; the simplification of consonant clusters (e.g., Sanskrit aṣṭa- became Prakrit aṭṭha- ‘8,’ Sanskrit sapta- became Prakrit satta- ‘7,’ etc.); the emergence of (C)V:C or (C)VCC word-bases by resolving the older (C)V:CC type into one of these (e.g., Sanskrit dīrgha- developed into Prakrit dīgha-/diggha- ‘long’ rather than *dīggha-); and the proliferation of retroflex consonants, which did not occur in the other Indo-European languages.
Among the grammatical features, the important ones were the dative subject construction (e.g., ‘to him anger occurred’ instead of ‘he became angry’); the use of the particle api in Sanskrit in the sense of Dravidian *-um ‘even, also, and, indefinite’; morphological causatives (Sanskrit gam- ‘to go,’ gamaya- ‘to cause to go,’ Konda ki- ‘to do,’ kibis- ‘to cause to do’); the use of the perfective participle or gerund as head of subordinate clauses (Sanskrit kṛtvā ‘having done,’ Telugu cēsi ‘having done’); the extensive use of echo words; and the use of the particle iti ‘so and so’ in Sanskrit parallel to the Dravidian participle of the verb *en-/*an- ‘to say’ as a quotative marker (corresponding to English that).
Several studies made over the past two centuries assert that the Dravidian languages had some kind of genetic relationship with the Ural-Altaic languages of northern Europe, though, in general, most scholars have not found this theory to be sufficiently demonstrated. Attempts have been made to relate Dravidian with Elamite, Sumerian, Basque, the Sub-Saharan languages of Africa, Korean, and Japanese.
Because the traditional methods of comparative linguistics remain the standard for proof of genetic relationship, most of these claims have remained unproved. However, the comparative method fails when the data are not extensive enough to establish systematic correspondences among the sound systems and grammars of languages with a reasonable frequency. This problem becomes especially acute when the time gap spans millennia and a number of sister languages become extinct, events that obscure possible intermediate links in reconstruction. For instance, one could not conceive of any genetic relationship between Tamil-Malayalam-Kannada uppu ‘salt’ and Kui sāru ‘salt,’ if the link forms preserved by Parji-Kolami cup, Gondi sovar (derived from Proto-South-Central Dravidian *cow-ar, which came from Proto-Dravidian *cuw-ar/*cup-ar), and Konda sōru were not available. Linguists must develop a new methodology for establishing distant relationships between language families. According to the controversial Nostratic hypothesis, for instance, not only Indo-European and Dravidian but also Uralic, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic, and Kartvelian were alleged to have sprung from a common parent.
Nov 21, 2023 · Within India, the Dravidian languages have greatly influenced Indo-Aryan languages, such as Marathi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Marwari, Sindhi.
- There are around 70-80 different languages in the Dravidian family, out of which four are said to be the South-Indian Dravidian family. These are:...
- The Dravidian language family is said to have originated more than 4500 years ago in the Indian subcontinent. It is believed that the Dravidian peo...
- No Sanskrit is not a Dravidian language. The Dravidian literary languages include Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Sanskrit on the other han...
- Yes, Tamil is said to be the mother of all Dravidian languages. It dates back 5000 years. It is recognized as the oldest language in the world. The...
ABSTRACT. Historical language contact between the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages of South Asia has been written about extensively. Previous literature, however, has focused largely on possible Dravidian contact-induced features in Old Indo-Aryan (namely Vedic and Classical Sanskrit).
Dravidian and Indo-Aryan interactions Dravidian substrate. The Dravidian language influenced the Indo-Aryan languages. 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 ...
Since the Iron Age in India, the native languages of the Indian subcontinent are divided into various language families, of which the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian are the most widely spoken. There are also many languages belonging to unrelated language families such as Munda (from Austroasiatic family ) and Tibeto-Burman (from Trans-Himalayan ...
some major linguistic groups of present India (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and Austroasiatic), and their influences over one another. Dravidian-group languages, despite being spoken mostly
