DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES, the name given to a col lection of Indian languages comprising all the principal forms of speech of Southern India (Sanskrit Dravida). Their territory, which includes the northern half of Ceylon, extends northwards up to an irregular line drawn from a point on the Arabian sea about 1 oom. below Goa along the Western Ghats as far as Kolhapur, thence north-east through Hyderabad, and farther east wards to the Bay of Bengal. Farther to the north, Dravidian dialects are spoken by small tribes in the Central Provinces and Chota Nagpur, and up to the banks of the Ganges in the Raj mahal hills. A Dravidian dialect is, finally, spoken by the Brahuis of Baluchistan in the far north-west.
Classification.—Tamil and Malayalam can be considered as two dialects of one and the same language, which is, in its turn, closely related to Kanarese. Tulu, Kodagu, Toda, and Kota lie between Tamil-Malayalam and Kanarese, though more nearly related to the latter than to the former. The same is the case with Kurukh and Malto, while Kui and Gondi gradually approach Telugu, which latter language seems to have branched off from the common stock at an early date. Finally, the Brahui dialect of Baluchistan has been so much influenced by other languages that it is no longer a pure Dravidian form of speech.
The Dravidian languages are gradually losing ground in the north, where they meet with Aryan forms of speech. This process has been going on from time immemorial, but it is still possible to trace a Dravidian element in the Aryan languages of North India.
The Dravidian languages form an isolated group, and it has not been possible to prove a connection with any other family of lan guages. Such attempts have been made with reference to the Munda family, the Tibeto-Burman languages, the Ural-Altaic lan guages, and the dialects spoken by the aborigines of the Australian continent. The arguments adduced have not, however, proved to be sufficient. The Dravidian family has several characteristic features of its own. The phonetic systems of the smaller dialects deserve close study and analysis. In general the pronunciation is soft and mellifluous.
The forms pirdmana and Tiramida in Tamil illustrate another feature of Dravidian enunciation. There is a tendency in all of them, and in Tamil and Malayalam it has become a law, against any word being permitted to begin with a stopped voice consonant (g,j,d,d,b), the corresponding voiceless sounds (k,c,t,t,p, respec tively) being substituted. In the middle of a word or compound on the other hand, every consonant must be voiced. Thus the Sanskrit word danta, "tooth," has been borrowed by Tamil in the form tandam, and the Telugu anna, "elder brother," tammulu, "younger brother," become when compounded annadammulu, "elder and younger brothers." There is no strongly marked accent on any one syllable, though there is a slight stress upon the first one. In some dialects this equilibrium between the different parts of a word is accompanied by a tendency to approach to each other the sound of vowels in consecutive syllables. This tendency, which has been called the "law of harmonic sequence," is most apparent in Telugu, where the short u of certain suffixes is replaced by i when the preceding syllable contains one of the vowels i (short and long) and ei. Compare the dative suffix ku, ki, in gurramu-ku, "to a horse"; but tammuni-ki "to a younger brother." This tendency does not, however, play a prominent role in the Dravidian languages.
Words are formed from roots and bases by means of suffixed formative additions. The root itself generally remains unchanged throughout. Thus from the Tamil base per, "great," we can form adjectives such as per-iya and per-um, "great"; verbs such as per-u-gu, "to become increased"; per-u-kku "to cause to increase," and so on.
Many bases can be used at will as nouns, as adjectives, and as verbs. Thus the Tamil kadu can mean "sharpness," "sharp," and "to be sharp." Other bases are, of course, more restricted in their respective spheres.
Dravidian nouns are divided into two classes, which Tamil grammarians called high-caste and casteless respectively. The former includes those nouns which denote beings endowed with reason, the latter all others. Gender is only distinguished in the former class, while all casteless nouns are neuter. The gender of animals (which are irrational) must accordingly be distin guished by using different words for the male and the female, or else by adding words meaning male, female, respectively, to the name of the animal—processes which do not, strictly speaking, fall under the head of grammar.
There are two numbers, the singular and the plural. The latter is formed by adding suffixes. It, however, often remains un marked in the case of casteless nouns.
Cases are formed by adding postpositions and suffixes, usually to a modified form of the noun which is commonly called the oblique base. Thus we have the Tamil maram, "tree," maratt-al, "from a tree"; maratt-u-kku "to a tree," vidu "a house"; vitt-dl, "from a house." The case terminations are the same in the singular and in the plural. The genitive, which precedes the governing noun, is often identical with the oblique base, or else it is formed by adding suffixes.
The numeral system is decimal and higher numbers are counted in tens; thus Tamil pattu, "ten"; iru-badu, "two-tens," "twenty." The personal pronoun of the first person in most dialects has a double form in the plural, one including and the other excluding the person addressed. Thus, Tamil ndm, "we," i.e., I and you; nangal, "we," i.e., I and they.
There is no relative pronoun. Relative clauses are effected by using relative participles. Thus in Telugu the sentence "the book which you gave to me" must be translated miru ndku iccina pustakamu, i.e., "you me-to given book." There are several such participles in use. Thus from the Telugu verb kotta "to strike," are formed kott ut-unna, "that strikes," kotti-i-na, "that struck," kotte, "that would strike," "that usually strikes." By adding pronouns, or the terminations of pronouns, to such forms, nouns are derived which denote the person who performs the action. Thus from Telugu kotte and vddu, "he," is formed kotte vadu, "one who usually strikes." Such forms are used as ordinary verbs, and the usual verbal forms of Dravidian languages can broadly be described as such nouns of agency. Thus, the Telugu kottinadu, "he struck," can be translated literally "a striker in the past." Verbal tenses distinguish the person and number of the subject by adding abbreviated forms of the personal pronouns. Thus in Kanarese we have madid-enu, "I did," mddid-i, "thou didst," mddid-evu, "we did" ; madid-aru, "they did." One of the most characteristic features of the Dravidian verb is the separate negative conjugation. It usually has only one tense and is formed by adding the personal terminations to a nega tive base. Thus, Kanarese mad-enu, "I did not," mdd-evu, "we did not"; mdd-aru, "they did not." The vocabulary has adopted numerous Aryan loan-words. This was a necessary consequence of the early connection with the superior Aryan civilization.
The oldest Dravidian literature is largely indebted to the Aryans, though it goes back to a very early date. Tamil, Malaya lam, Kanarese, and Telugu are the principal literary languages. The language of literature in all of them differs considerably from the colloquial. The oldest known specimen of a Dravidian language occurs in a Greek play which is preserved in a papyrus of the 2nd century A.D. The exact period to which the indigenous literature can be traced back, on the other hand, has not been fixed with certainty.