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| dravidian family of languages: The Dravidian Languages Sanford B. Steever, 2019-12-18 The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with nearly 250 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka. This authoritative reference source provides a unique description of the languages, covering their grammatical structure and historical development, plus sociolinguistic features. Each chapter combines a modern linguistic perspective with traditional historical linguistics, and a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. New to this edition are chapters on Beṭṭa Kuṟumba, Kuṛux, Kūvi and Malayāḷam, and enlarged sections in various existing chapters, as well as updated bibliographies and demographic data throughout. The Dravidian Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, and will also be of interest to readers in the fields of comparative literature, areal linguistics and South Asian studies. |
| dravidian family of languages: A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages Robert Caldwell, 1913 |
| dravidian family of languages: The Dravidian Languages Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 2003-01-16 The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists. |
| dravidian family of languages: A comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages Robert Caldwell, 1875 |
| dravidian family of languages: A Compartive Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-indian Family of Languages Robert Caldwell, 1856 |
| dravidian family of languages: The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Typology Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, R. M. W. Dixon, 2017-03-30 Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics. |
| dravidian family of languages: Colonialism, Orientalism and the Dravidian Languages K. Venkateswarlu, 2020-11-29 The Dravidian language family is marked historically by a protracted struggle between Tamil and its aggressively assertive supremacy, and the consequent peripheralizing of other majoritarian languages of the region. This book looks at the development of Telugu — with its unique grammatical and lexical tradition as instrumental in the construction of the concept of the Dravidian language family in 1816, and in the development of comparative linguistics since that time. The author’s arguments locate Telugu in multiple matrices: of historical and theoretical Orientalism; the colonial state’s interest in native languages; the politics of state patronage; questions of cultural assimilation and divergence; the overbearing presence of Tamil and its literary traditions; and the related inter- and intra-civilizational dialogues. The book thus grapples with the tortured emergence of Telugu — a product of the dynamics of Andhra society, economy, polity and culture influenced and driven by Muslim, Hindu and Western influence. With its richly textured narrative, this book will be of interest to those in the fields of history, sociology, socio-linguistics, colonial studies, and literature, apart from the generally interested reader. |
| dravidian family of languages: Languages and Nations Thomas R. Trautmann, 2006-11-04 British rule of India brought together two very different traditions of scholarship about language, whose conjuncture led to several intellectual breakthroughs of lasting value. Two of these were especially important: the conceptualization of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones at Calcutta in 1786—proposing that Sanskrit is related to Persian and languages of Europe—and the conceptualization of the Dravidian language family of South India by F.W. Ellis at Madras in 1816—the Dravidian proof, showing that the languages of South India are related to one another but are not derived from Sanskrit. These concepts are valid still today, centuries later. This book continues the examination Thomas R. Trautmann began in Aryans and British India (1997). While the previous book focused on Calcutta and Jones, the current volume examines these developments from the vantage of Madras, focusing on Ellis, Collector of Madras, and the Indian scholars with whom he worked at the College of Fort St. George, making use of the rich colonial record. Trautmann concludes by showing how elements of the Indian analysis of language have been folded into historical linguistics and continue in the present as unseen but nevertheless living elements of the modern. |
| dravidian family of languages: A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages Mikhail Sergeevich Andronov, 2003 Due to their crucial role one of the major tasks in modern South Asia linguistics is the research of the historical view of the Dravidian Languages. A knowledge of the Dravidian language structure in all its development stages, from their earliest beginnings to today, is necessary for understanding numerous fundamental aspects with the emergence of the indoarian, Munda and other languages of south Asia and of course for the history of the Dravidian language family itself. The Comparative Grammar forms an important part of the historical linguistics. Yet Richard Caldwell's Comparative Grammar of Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages (London, 1856, 2/1875, 3/1913) is outdated. An up to date comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages therefore was long overdue. With the work of the renowned Russian Dravidian scientist Mikhail S. Andronov, in which the over 80 known, investigated and described languages and dialects of the Dravidian language family are taken in consideration, this gap has been closed. |
| dravidian family of languages: The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia Hans Henrich Hock, Elena Bashir, 2016-05-24 With nearly a quarter of the world’s population, members of at least five major language families plus several putative language isolates, South Asia is a fascinating arena for linguistic investigations, whether comparative-historical linguistics, studies of language contact and multilingualism, or general linguistic theory. This volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic research on the languages of South Asia, with contributions by well-known experts. Focus is both on what has been accomplished so far and on what remains unresolved or controversial and hence offers challenges for future research. In addition to covering the languages, their histories, and their genetic classification, as well as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics, the volume provides special coverage of contact and convergence, indigenous South Asian grammatical traditions, applications of modern technology to South Asian languages, and South Asian writing systems. An appendix offers a classified listing of major sources and resources, both digital/online and printed. |
| dravidian family of languages: Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia Franklin Southworth, 2004-08-02 Linguistics Archaeology of South Asia brings together linguistics and archaeological evidence of South Asian prehistory. |
| dravidian family of languages: A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary Thomas Burrow, Murray Barnson Emeneau, 1960 |
| dravidian family of languages: South Asian Languages Kārumūri V. Subbārāo, 2012-03-26 Explores the similarities and differences of about forty South Asian languages from the four different language families. |
| dravidian family of languages: The Roots of Hinduism Asko Parpola, 2015-07-15 Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult. |
| dravidian family of languages: Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia Jeffrey P. Williams, 2020-08-30 Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia explores the intricacies of the grammars of several of the languages of the South Asian subcontinent. Specifically, the contributors to this volume examine grammatical resources for shaping elaborative, rhyming, and alliterative expressions, conveying the emotions, states, conditions and perceptions of speakers. These forms, often referred to expressives, remain relatively undocumented, until now. It is clear from the evidence on contextualized language use that the grammatically artistic usage of these forms enriches and enlivens both every day and ritualized genres of discourse. The contributors to this volume provide grammatical and sociolinguistic documentation through a typological introduction to the diversity of expressive forms in the languages of South Asia. This book is suitable for students and researchers in South Asian Languages, and language families of the following; Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic. |
| dravidian family of languages: Marathi Rajeshwari Pandharipande, 2021-09-21 First and only grammar available Author is native speaker of Marathi and a Professor of Linguistics Combines traditional insights from traditional grammarians and contemporary Linguistic approaches Comprehensive coverage of syntax, morphology, phonology of modern Marathi |
| dravidian family of languages: Dravidian India T. R. Sesha Iyengar, 1989 |
| dravidian family of languages: A Reference Grammar of the Tamil Language Mikhail Sergeevich Andronov, 2004 |
| dravidian family of languages: Telugu Verbal Bases Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 2009-03 Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (1928) is Professor and Head of the department of Linguistics at Osmania University, Hyderabad. He received a B.A. (Hons.) Degree (1948) in Telugu language and literature at Andhra University Waltair and an M.A. (1955) and Ph.D. (1957) in linguistics from the university of Pennsylvania U.S.A. |
| dravidian family of languages: The Republic of India Alan Gledhill, 2013 |
| dravidian family of languages: A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil Harold F. Schiffman, 1999-10-14 This is a reference grammar of the standard spoken variety of Tamil, a language with 65 million speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. The spoken variety is radically different from the standard literary variety, last standardized in the thirteenth century. The standard spoken language is used by educated people in their interactions with people from different regions and different social groups, and is also the dialect used in films, plays and the media. This book, a much expanded version of the author s Grammar of Spoken Tamil (1979), is the first such grammar to contain examples both in Tamil script and in transliteration, and the first to be written so as to be accessible to students studying the modern spoken language as well as to linguists and other specialists. The book has benefitted from extensive native-speaker input and the author s own long experience of teaching Tamil to English-speakers. |
| dravidian family of languages: Grammars of Space Stephen C. Levinson, David P. Wilkins, 2006-09-14 Spatial language - that is, the way languages structure the spatial domain – is an important area of research, offering insights into one of the most central areas of human cognition. In this collection, a team of leading scholars review the spatial domain across a wide variety of languages. Contrary to existing assumptions, they show that there is great variation in the way space is conceptually structured across languages, thus substantiating the controversial question of how far the foundations of human cognition are innate. Grammars of Space is a supplement to the psychological information provided in its companion volume, Space in Language and Cognition. It represents a new kind of work in linguistics, 'Semantic Typology', which asks what are the semantic parameters used to structure particular semantic fields. Comprehensive and informative, it will be essential reading for those working on comparative linguistics, spatial cognition, and the interface between them. |
| dravidian family of languages: Nagavarmana Kannada Chandassu Nāga Varmā (son of Vennamʹ-ayya.), Nāgavarma, 1875 |
| dravidian family of languages: The Brahui Language Mikhail Sergeevich Andronov, 1980 |
| dravidian family of languages: A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages Robert Caldwell, 1875 |
| dravidian family of languages: The History of the Bengali Language Bijay Chandra Mazumdar, 1927 |
| dravidian family of languages: Languages of South Asia G. A. Zograph, 2023-03-08 First published in 1982, Languages of South Asia covers all important languages and language groups of the so-called Indian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan). It concentrates on the more southern languages, that is the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Munda groups; a brief survey of Tibeto-Burman languages is also included. As well as giving a description of the current status and character of each language, Dr. Zograph goes into a detailed structural analysis of its phonology, morphology and syntax. The problems of the historical background of the modern languages, and their classification, are also discussed. The book is supplemented by two language maps, tables showing the main alphabets, a bibliography of reliable works on the subject and an index of 350 language names used in the text. This book will be of interest to students of language, linguistics and South Asian studies. |
| dravidian family of languages: Comparative Dravidian Linguistics Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, 2001 The book contains solutions to long-standing problems in the phonology and morphology of comparative Dravidian and proposes many seminal and original ideas. In addition to critical surveys on developments in comparative phonology, morphology, the subgrouping of the languages, and on the contact and convergence between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, there are chapters on types of sound change and phonological and morphological issues in Dravidian, as well as the methodology required to address them. Also included is the author's groundbreaking proposal for a laryngeal for Proto-Dravidian, by means of which he was able to address several grammatical and etymological problems in later linguistic developments.--BOOK JACKET. |
| dravidian family of languages: The Primary Classical Language of the World Devaneya Pavanar, 2017-09-12 'Tamil' is one of those words whose origin and root-meaning are wrapped up in mystery. All that we can say at present without any fear of contradiction is, that it is a pure Tamil word being current as the only name of the language of the Tamils, from the days that preceded the First Tamil Academy established at Thenmadurai on the river pahruli in the submerged continent. After some of the Vedic Aryans migrated to the South, Tamil got the descriptive name 'Tenmoli' lit. 'the southern language', in contradistinction to the Vedic language or Sanskrit which was called 'Vadamoli', lit. 'the northern language'. The word 'Tamil' or 'Tamilan' successively changed into 'Dramila', 'Dramila', 'Dramida' and 'Dravida' in North India and at first denoted only the Tamil language, as all the other Dravidian dialects separated themselves from Tamil or came into prominence one by one only after the dawn of the Christian era. That is why Sanskrit and Tamil came to be known as Vadamoi and Tenmoli respectively. This distinction could have arisen only when there were two languages standing side by side, one in the North and the other in the South, both coming in contact with each other. The Buddhist Tamil Academy which flourished in the 5th century at Madurai went by the name of 'Travida Sangam'. |
| dravidian family of languages: Language in South Asia Braj B. Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, S. N. Sridhar, 2008-03-27 An overview of the language in South Asia within a linguistic, historical and sociolinguistic context, comprising authoritative contributions from international scholars within the field of language and linguistics. It is an accessible interdisciplinary book for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language planning and South Asian studies. |
| dravidian family of languages: Tamil David Shulman, 2016-09-26 Spoken by eighty million people in South Asia and a diaspora that stretches across the globe, Tamil is one of the great world languages, and one of the few ancient languages that survives as a mother tongue for so many speakers. David Shulman presents a comprehensive cultural history of Tamil—language, literature, and civilization—emphasizing how Tamil speakers and poets have understood the unique features of their language over its long history. Impetuous, musical, whimsical, in constant flux, Tamil is a living entity, and this is its biography. Two stories animate Shulman’s narrative. The first concerns the evolution of Tamil’s distinctive modes of speaking, thinking, and singing. The second describes Tamil’s major expressive themes, the stunning poems of love and war known as Sangam poetry, and Tamil’s influence as a shaping force within Hinduism. Shulman tracks Tamil from its earliest traces at the end of the first millennium BCE through the classical period, 850 to 1200 CE, when Tamil-speaking rulers held sway over southern India, and into late-medieval and modern times, including the deeply contentious politics that overshadow Tamil today. Tamil is more than a language, Shulman says. It is a body of knowledge, much of it intrinsic to an ancient culture and sensibility. “Tamil” can mean both “knowing how to love”—in the manner of classical love poetry—and “being a civilized person.” It is thus a kind of grammar, not merely of the language in its spoken and written forms but of the creative potential of its speakers. |
| dravidian family of languages: Dravidian Origins and the West Nicolas Lahovary, 1963 |
| dravidian family of languages: Reduplication in South Asian Languages Anvita Abbi, 1992 |
| dravidian family of languages: Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics Trask R. L. Trask, 2019-08-08 Historical and comparative linguistics has been a major scholarly discipline for 200 years, and yet this is the first dictionary ever devoted to it. With nearly 2400 entries, this dictionary covers every aspect of the subject, from the most venerable work to the exciting advances of the last few years, many of which have not even made it into textbooks yet.All of the traditional terms are here, but so are the terms only introduced recently, in connection with such varied subjects as pidgin and creole languages, the sociolinguistic study of language change, mathematical and computational methods, the novel approaches to linguistic geography, the controversial proposals of new and vast language families, and the attempts at relating the results of the historical linguists to those of the archaeologists, the anthropologists and the geneticists.More than just a dictionary, this book provides genuine linguistic examples of most of the terms entered, detailed explanations of fundamental concepts, critical assessment of controversial ideas, cross-references to related terms, and an abundance of references to the original literature.Features:*The first dictionary in the field.*Comprehensive coverage.*Clearly written and accurate entries.*Covers traditional and contemporary terminology.*Provides linguistic examples of terms defined.*Supplies numerous cross-references to related terms.*Includes hundreds of references to the original literature. |
| dravidian family of languages: Dravidian and Negro-African U. Padmanabha Upadhyaya, Susheela P. Upadhyaya, 1983 |
| dravidian family of languages: The Serial Verb Formation in the Dravidian Languages Sanford B. Steever, 1988 |
| dravidian family of languages: Dravidian Kinship Thomas R. Trautmann, 1982-01-29 |
| dravidian family of languages: The Languages of the World Kenneth Katzner, Kirk Miller, 2002-09-11 This third edition of Kenneth Katzner's best-selling guide to languages is essential reading for language enthusiasts everywhere. Written with the non-specialist in mind, its user-friendly style and layout, delightful original passages, and exotic scripts, will continue to fascinate the reader. This new edition has been thoroughly revised to include more languages, more countries, and up-to-date data on populations. Features include: *information on nearly 600 languages *individual descriptions of 200 languages, with sample passages and English translations *concise notes on where each language is spoken, its history, alphabet and pronunciation *coverage of every country in the world, its main language and speaker numbers *an introduction to language families |
| dravidian family of languages: Deciphering the Indus Script Asko Parpola, 2009-10-01 Of the writing systems of the ancient world which still await deciphering, the Indus script is the most important. It developed in the Indus or Harappan Civilization, which flourished c. 2500-1900 BC in and around modern Pakistan, collapsing before the earliest historical records of South Asia were composed. Nearly 4,000 samples of the writing survive, mainly on stamp seals and amulets, but no translations. Professor Parpola is the chief editor of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology. His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family. |
| dravidian family of languages: The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia George Erdosy, 2012-10-25 |
Dravidian peoples - Wikipedia
The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million …
Who are the Dravidians? Where did they come from? - Medium
Jul 27, 2020 · Dravidians are an ethno-linguistic people group predominantly found in southern India and Sri Lanka, but also in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. The …
Dravidian languages | Map, Origin, History, & Grammar | Britannica
May 29, 2025 · Dravidian languages are a family of some 70 languages spoken primarily in South Asia. The Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 215 million people in India, Pakistan, …
Dravidian peoples - New World Encyclopedia
Dravidian peoples refers to the peoples that natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. The language group appears unrelated to Indo-European language families, …
Who Were the Dravidians in Ancient India? - historyrise.com
Dec 7, 2024 · Let’s delve into the powerful dravidian kingdoms of chera, chola, and pandya in south india, explore their trade and maritime prowess, and uncover the profound impact of …
Dravidians - Encyclopedia.com
May 23, 2018 · The Dravidians were the majority population across the Indian subcontinent before the second millennium. The evidence of early Dravidians comes from studying the Indo-Aryan …
Dravidian peoples - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to scientists and historians, the Dravidian people are descendants of Neolithic West Asian farmers from Iran which conquered and largely displaced the outnumbered native hunter …
Who were Dravidians in India? - History - Maps of India
Mar 15, 2013 · We know very little about the Dravidian people in India, who used to reside in the country before the Aryans invaded Northern India from Iran and Southern Russia.
Dravidian languages - Wikipedia
The Dravidian languages are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South …
Dravidian People | History, Language & Ethnic Groups
Dravidians are an ethnolinguistic family of people with a unique culture and history who primarily live in the Southern Indian states and parts of Sri Lanka in South Asia. They speak one of...
Dravidian peoples - Wikipedia
The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian …
Who are the Dravidians? Where did they come from?
Jul 27, 2020 · Dravidians are an ethno-linguistic people group predominantly found in southern India and Sri Lanka, but also in Pakistan, Afghanistan, …
Dravidian languages | Map, Origin, History, & Grammar
May 29, 2025 · Dravidian languages are a family of some 70 languages spoken primarily in South Asia. The Dravidian languages are spoken by more than …
Dravidian peoples - New World Encyclopedia
Dravidian peoples refers to the peoples that natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. The language group appears unrelated …
Who Were the Dravidians in Ancient India? - historyrise.com
Dec 7, 2024 · Let’s delve into the powerful dravidian kingdoms of chera, chola, and pandya in south india, explore their trade and maritime …
