Dravidian languages

"Kannada has been declared as Official Language of the State and is being used in all correspondences at all levels of Administration in the State in accordance with the provisions of Karnataka Official Language Act, 1963 (Karnataka Act 26 of 1963)."

"Representations were received from a wide spectrum of political and civil opinion from both Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh for declaration of Kannada and Telugu languages as Classical Languages. These representations were referred to a Committee of Linguistic Experts and the Committee has recently recommended that both Telugu and Kannada languages should be classified as Classical Languages."

"It has now been decided by the Government of India that on the occasion of the Rajyotsava day in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh formation day in Andhra Pradesh which fall on Ist November to declare Kannada and Telugu as Classical Languages."

"Karnataka's linguistic diversity means that many list other languages as their first and Kannada as a second language. This adds 11.5 million to the ranks of Kannada speakers and another 1.4 million use it as a third language. In total, Kannada had 50.8 million speakers in 2001 compared to Gujarati's 50.3 million."

"The oldest well-preserved palm leaf manuscript is that of Dhavala, preserved in Jain Bhandar, Mudbidri. The manuscript contains 1478 leaves written in ink in old Kannada|old Kannada of about 9th century A.D."

"Kannada is the major Dravidian language of Karnataka in southern India."

"The long-drawn movement by Kannadigas to secure classical language status to Kannada language got a shot in the arm with a Mysore-based scholar discovering an inscription, which is said to be at least 50 years older than Halmidi inscription — the earliest known record in Kannada characters and is dated 450 A.D."

"Nishadhi is the oldest known Kannada language inscription dating to 400 A.D."

"Although this undated inscription has a mention in the Epigraphia Karnataka, epigraphists, who decoded Gunabhushitana Nishadi Shasana have said that “the purport of the inscription is not clear."

"Although there is a disagreement among epigraphists about the antiquity, Halmidi inscription is considered as the oldest known Kannada language inscription. This undated inscription was discovered in 1936 by M.H. Krishna, Director of Archaeology in the princely State of Mysore at Halmidi in Hassan taluk."

"After in-depth study I figured out Prakrit, Sanskrit and Purvada Halegannada words. I was aware of the fact that there are no Prakrit words in Halmidi inscription. The four-lined inscription has six words, besides Prakrit words. I also discovered that the inscription is in Shatavahana Brahmi and Aadi Ganga script. With great difficulty I restructured the text of inscription and reached the conclusion that the inscription in question is much older than Halmidi inscription."

"There was no doubt that Gunabhushitana Nishadi Shasana was a Kannada inscription, which was in Purvada Halegannada script. The inscription in all probability was older by 50 to 100 years than Halmidi inscription. “In case the complete text is made available to me, I am interested in studying it"."

"The word Isila found in the Ashokan inscription (called the Brahmagiri edict from Karnataka) meaning to shoot an arrow is a Kannada word, indicating that Kannada was a spoken language in the third century BC."

"Kannada is considered the oldest language next to Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil. According to linguists, Tamil and Kannada branched off simultaneously from the Dravidian language of South India before the Christian Era."

"The names of a few places referred to by Ptolemy (A.D. 150) in his geographical treatise are undoubtedly the ancient forms of present day names of places in Karnataka."

"The "Halmidi inscription" has put an end to many controversies surrounding the evolution of Kannada. The 16-line inscription, which is on rectangular sandstone with a height of 2.5 ft. and a width of 1 ft., has a Vishnu Chakra on its top. The earliest Kannada inscription found at Halmidi in w:BelurBelur taluk of Hassan district is dated 450 A.D., and it is the earliest known record in Kannada characters."

"The language is known as "Poorvada Halegannada" (primitive Kannada), with distinctive characteristics resembling those of Tamil. Halmidi is a small village in the north of Hassan district with a population of 1,200, and was known as `Palmidi' and `Hanumidi'. However, the people of the village recently decided to retain the name Halmidi The inscription has become a subject of study for those who conduct research on the Kannada script, etymology, and Dravidian linguistics."

"Every word of the inscription has inspired linguists and set off debates on etymology. Although Halmidi has made a significant contribution to the history and culture of Kannada, the village has been neglected... the Hassan district unit of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat has taken steps to make it an important centre for students of literature and linguistics."

"As the inscription cannot be read easily, a replica [has been] readied in the Memorial Hall to give all information contained in it."

"Coin has inscription in archaic Kannada script found at Banavasi, capital of the Kadambas is said to be the first such coin found in the State. One side has a five-letter inscription and the other the symbol of Ujjain."

"Though punch-marked and Satavahana coins had been discovered in Karnataka, this is the first coin with an inscription in archaic Kannada."

"The discovery of the 5th century copper coin proves beyond doubt that Banavasi had a mint, and the tradition of minting coins with names or titles in Kannada was in vogue as early as the 5th century."

"Kannada has a long history of dictionary-making, beginning from the dictionary written by Rannakanda of the 10th century till the dictionary produced by the Sahitya Parishat in the 20th century."

"Kannada is rich in dialects, such as Havyaka and Sanketi, apart from many regional varieties."

"Rev. F. Kittel, a great scholar in many languages including Sanskrit, studied Kannada and took up the task of compiling a Kannada-English dictionary. He started the compilation in a thorough and systematic manner on the lines of the dictionaries of the Western countries, especially English dictionary."

"The dictionary compiled by Rev. F. Kittel contained 70,000 words. On the literary side, it is a treasure of knowledge. Thus, Rev. F. Kittel may be called the father of Kannada dictionary. If he had not taken up and accomplished such a stupendous task in the 19th century, the present Kannada-English dictionary compiled by Kannada Sahitya Parishat would have taken another century to come into existence."

"The coastal belt of Karnataka has about half-a-dozen dialects of Kannada like Havyaka , Kota, Gauda, Halakki, etc."

"The term Kannada, the Canarese of European writers, is formed from Karnadu, the black cultivated country, referring to the black soil, commonly called cotton soil, which characterizes the plateau of the Southern Dekkan. In the Sanskrit language the term appears as Karanata and KarnKannada is the appellation of the Canarese country and its language."

"Kannada is spoken throughout Mysore, the Southern Mahratta country, in some of the western districts of the Nijam's territory and partly in north Canara on the western coast."

"The earliest written documents of the Kannada language are inscriptions on walls and pillars of temples, on detached stone-tablets and monumental stones, and on copper-plates of the Canarese country. The inscriptions are often dated; if they have no date, the form of the letters used and historical references to dated inscriptions serve to ascertain their age."

"As regards the forms of the Old and Modern Kannada alphabets, they are varieties of the so-called Cave-character, an alphabet which was used for the inscriptions in the cave hermitages of Buddhists in India, and rests on the Southern Ashoka character. This character was about 250 BC employed in the edicts of Buddhist King Ashoka. Different forms of the letters used for the Kannada inscriptions appear at different periods, the earliest form differing in the greatest degree from those of the modern Kannada alphabet. At the time of the composition of the Basavapurana 1369 A. D. the old alphabet had become already out of use, as the author of that work mentions the letters of Old Kannada as belonging to the past."

"The Kannada language in the old inscriptions of which specimens exist that belong to about 600 AD, is not the same as that of the present day; it is what is called Old Canarese. The Old Canarese is also the language of the early Kannada authors or the literary style. It may be said to have continued in use to the middle of the 13th century, when by degrees the language of the inscriptions and literary compositions begins to evince a tendency to become Modern Canarese or the popular and colloquial dialect of the present time."

"The grammatical treatises on Kannada were constructed on the Samskrita plan. Their Jaina authors took Panini d others as their guides. The earliest grammarian, whose works have come down to us, is N'agavarma who appears to belong to the first half of the 12th century."

"The ancient Kannada grammarians held the study of grammar in high esteem, as may be learned from the following words of the author of the Sabdaamnidarpana: " Through grammar (correct) words originate, through the words of that grammar meaning the beholding of truth the desired final beatitude."

"Perhaps being the oldest language next to Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Tamil, Kannada country and language have a rich heritage. 'Kavirajamarga' of king Nripatunga (9th century A.D.) is believed to be the earliest literary work in Kannada. It is a treatise on poetics or a guide to poets indicating that Kannada was a fully developed literary language....from epigraphical evidence it can be surmised that the spoken Kannada language evolved much earlier than the Halmidi inscription (c. 450 A.D. ). Belonging to the Prto-Dravidian group it has close affinity with the Tamil language, prevalent now in the neighboring Tamil Nadu. But the language of the Halmidi inscription is highly Sanskritized."

"By the 10th century Kannada had its greatest ancient poets like Pampa (born 902 A.D.), Ranna (born 949 A.D.) and special prose work like Waddaradhane (c. 930 A.D.) indicating that classical Kannada literature had fully evolved at least one or two centuries earlier, back to 'Kavirajamarga'. But since none of the earlier works have survived, we have to stick to the established norm that written Kannada came into vogue by the 5th century A.D."

"The pundits have divided the development of Kannada language into three phases; The Old Kannada Phase, The Middle Kannada Phase, and The Modern Kannada Phase."

"Most of the works in literature and secular sciences mentioned in reference books like Kavirajamarga are still not to be traced. But works of later centuries mention now extinct works on various topics. Thus, Chudamani (a 96,000 verse-measures), a commentary on logic (Tatwarthamahashastra) by Tambulacharya belonged to the 7th century."

"The rock stone inscription of Badami in archaic Kannada letters is ascribed to the 7th century. The three liner Tripadi (which by itself is as old as the Gayatri Mantra) type of literature was later popularized by the poet Sarvajna in his 'Vachanas'."

"'Desi' and 'Marga' styles of native Kannada and then others influenced by Sanskrit had become demarcated clearly by then, and Pampa prided over assimilating both styles in his two great epics Adipurana and Vikramarjuna Vijaya or simply known as Pampa Bharata."

"'Vaddaradhane' is the earliest prose work in Kannada. Some ascribe it to the 9th century. But from the linguistic form and the depiction of the existing society, most scholars agree to its belonging to the early 10th century."

"The language is suited to narrate stories and presents a well developed word form, idiom, structure, and texture indicating that Kannada was a full-fledged language for prose and poetry by the 10th century."

"Apart from written works, the inscriptions of the period illustrate many variations of meters and structural variety. The hero-stone of Manalera's dog Kali (943 A.D.), the details of the pologame of Rashtrakuta, on king Indra IV. The heroic fight of Nolambaraditya provide moving descriptions attesting the fact that well known poets were asked to compose epitaphs befitting the occasion. These inscriptions are a wealth of information for historical data, cultural life and study of Kannada language and literature of early times."

"The Greek dramatists of the 4th century B.C., particularly Euripides and Aristophanes, appear to have been familiar with the Kannada country and the Kannada language, and had actually used Kannada phrases and expressions in the dialogues of their characters. This shows a far more intimate contact of the Greeks with Kannada Indian culture than with Indian Culture elsewhere."

"Kannada-Tamil literature, especially Kannada literature, is the key to the successive development of the literary and cultural, as well as the spiritual history of India. For we find, on the basis of Kannada literature mainly, that the course of India's religious, literary, cultural and national evolution can conveniently be divided into successive slabs of: (a) Pre-Buddhistic, (b) Buddhistic, (c) Jain, (d) Saivite, (e) Vaishnavite, (f) Late Hindu and lastly (g) the Modern periods. This succession is clearly shown in the history of Kannada literature, though the first two slabs, the Pre-Buddhistic and the Buddhistic are lost to us in Kannada and are available only in Tamil and in Sanskrit."

"In the familiar milieu of the Tamil land, where musicians and devotees can sing and proclaim about the Lord who is wonderfully auspicious, the Srivaisnava uses Tamil, the language that he is most accustomed to."

"Sri Aurobindo’s study of Tamil, which he did with the help ;of Subramania Bharati, led him to discover that the “original connection between the Sanskrit and Tamil tongues” was “far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed” and that they were “two divergent families derived from one lost primitive tongue.” The artificial division between Indo-European and Dravidian languages had gone: “My first study of Tamil words had brought me to what seemed a clue to the very origins and structure of the ancient Sanskrit tongue.”"

"In...the cultural milieu, however, Sanskrit has greater prestige than Tamil. It is the language of revelation (sruti), of the eternal Veda."

"The bhakti movement began in South India about the sixth century AD when several saints wandered from temple to temple singing the praise of Vishnu or Shiva. The twelve devotees of Vishnu who are recognized as poet-saints by the Srlvaisnava community were called the alvars and the sixty-three devotees of Siva were known as nayanmars. Tirumankai alvar and NammaWar wrote over half of the four thousand verses [in Tamil language] that forms the Divya Prabandham or Sacred Collect for the Srlvaisnava community."

"For the first time within Hinduism, devotion was expressed in a mother tongue, a language --- continuous with the language of one’s earliest childhood and family, once folk and folklore. Unlike Sanskrit, it was a spoken language, associated with powerful emotions, and the deity of the Tamil hymns was brought close to the worshipped by the language fraught with tender words used for beloved ones."

"In actual life, it is impossible to separate us into two nations. We are not two nations. Every Moslem will have a Hindu name if he goes back far enough in his family history. Every Moslem is merely a Hindu who has accepted Islam. That does not create nationality. … We in India have a common culture. In the North, Hindi and Urdu are understood by both Hindus and Moslems. In Madras, Hindus and Moslems speak Tamil, and in Bengal, they both speak Bengali and neither Hindi nor Urdu. When communal riots take place, they are always provoked by incidents over cows and by religious processions. That means that it is our superstitions that create the trouble and not our separate nationalities."

"The history of publishing and printing in Tamil is as interesting and rich as the language itself. The first book [Tamil] dates back to 20 October 1578. On the eventful day, Portuguese missionary Henrique Henriques (also Anrique Anriquez) published ‘Thambiraan Vanakkam' with paper imported from China."

"From its inception, Tamil devotion meant that speakers of Tamil had to be at the service of the language, to labor in its name and on its behalf. Glossed in devotional narratives as tamiḻppaṇi, “Tamil work,” or tamiḻttoṇṭu, “Tamil service,” this labor is presented as honorable, virtuous, and meritorious. It is mandatory for all those who claim to be Tamilians for it is an obligation (kaṭamai), even a debt (kaṭaṉ), that they owe, by virtue of being speakers of Tamil, to their language."

"Dravidianism, too, lent its support to the contestatory classicist project, motivated principally by the political imperative of countering (Sanskritic) Indian nationalism.... It was not until the DMK came to power in 1967 that such demands were fulfilled, and the pure Tamil cause received a boost, although purification efforts are not particularly high on the agenda of either the Dravidian movement or the Dravidianist idiom of tamiḻppaṟṟu."

"...considering most of the consequences of the rediscovery of classical Tamil literary and cultural heritage, we feel we are entitled to characterize these consequences as the Tamil renaissance; that is, compared with the general cultural and even ... imaginative and erudite literature before roughly 1850, the Tamil linguistic and cultural scene exhibited unmistakable signs of vigorous revival."

"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."

"The dating of Sangam literature and the identification of its language with Old Tamil have recently been questioned by Herman Tieken who argues that the works are better understood as 9th century Pāṇṭiyan dynasty compositions, deliberately written in an archaising style to make them seem older than they were. Tieken's dating has, however, been criticised by reviewers of his work."

"In 2004 Tamil was declared a classical language of India, meaning that it met three criteria: its origins are ancient; it has an independent tradition; and it possesses a considerable body of ancient literature. In the early 21st century more than 66 million people were Tamil speakers."

"The earliest Tamil writing is attested in inscriptions and potsherds from the 5th century BCE. Three periods have been distinguished through analyses of grammatical and lexical changes: Old Tamil (from about 450 BCE to 700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600), and Modern Tamil (from 1600)."

"The Tamil writing system evolved from the Brahmi script. The shape of the letters changed enormously over time, eventually stabilizing when printing was introduced in the 16th century CE. The major addition to the alphabet was the incorporation of Grantha letters to write unassimilated Sanskrit words, although a few letters with irregular shapes were standardized during the modern period. A script known as Vatteluttu (“Round Script”) is also in common use."

"Spoken Tamil has changed substantially over time, including changes in the phonological structure of words. This has created diglossia—a system in which there are distinct differences between colloquial forms of a language and those that are used in formal and written contexts. The major regional variation is between the form spoken in India and that spoken in Jaffna (Sri Lanka), capital of a former Tamil city-state, and its surrounds."

"Within Tamil Nadu there are phonological differences between the northern, western, and southern speech. Regional varieties of the language intersect with varieties that are based on social class or caste."

"Like the other Dravidian languages, Tamil is characterized by a series of retroflex consonants (/ḍ/, /ṇ/, and /ṭ/) made by curling the tip of the tongue back to the roof of the mouth. Structurally, Tamil is a verb-final language that allows flexibility regarding the order of the subject and the object in a sentence. Adjectives and relative, adverbial, and infinitive clauses normally precede the term they modify, while inflections such as those for tense, number, person, and case are indicated with suffixes."

"The land of Tamil speech and people was in ancient times ruled by three famous lines of king, the Chera, Chola], and Pandiya. The land ruled by them was called Chera Nadu (Chera country), Chola Nadu (Chola country), and Pandiya Nadu (Pandiaya country) respectively."

"Tamils are of Dravidian origin. Many historians claim that the Dravidians, before the dawn of the history of the Tamils, were spread all over India. For various reasons they split into small groups. Consequently, the original language also split into different languages. Tamil is found to have retained about 80 per cent of the features of the original Dravidian language."

"There are three major sub-groups in the Dravidian family of language, namely, South Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and North Dravidian"

"The Tamil literature may broadly be classified into:(i) Sangam Classics; (ii) Bhakthi or Devotional Literature;(iii) Ethics, and (iv) Modern Literature."

"The early Tamil literatures are called [w:Sangam literature|Sangam Classics]]. Though there are controversies over the time of the Classics, generally the period between 200 BCE and 500 CE is considered the period of Sangam. Sangam Classics are mostly descriptive."

"Many of the poems [in Tamil] seem to belong to the post-Sangham Age. It is widely accepted that among these, Thirukkural was composed before the second century CE. The Thirukkural consists of 1330 Kural, which are short verses of seven words. Thiruvalluvar is the author of this book."

"The famous Tamil work Silappathikaram belongs to the later Sangam period. w:Ilango AdigalSaint Ilango, a Chera prince, wrote this epic. Silappathikaram is the story of a chaste woman, Kannaki."

"Bhakti literature deals with religious philosophy, the history of saints, etc. Most of these are devotional poems. Religious teaching entered Tamil literature for the first time in Manimekalai. Sathanar the author of this book believed in Buddhism. The philosophy of Buddha is extensively discussed in Manimekalai."

"Modern literature must be dealt with under two sub-headings: (1) Prose and (2) Poetry. It may be noted that prose writings have gained more popularity in this century. Prose style is chosen as a better medium for novels, short stories, essays, etc."

"In general, grammar includes phonology, morphology and syntax. But Classical Tamil tradition seems to differ from this. The earliest grammar Tholkappiyam deals not only with phonology, morphology and syntax but also with personal and impersonal, internal and external dialects of life, beauty of literature, behavioral dialects of human life, Tamil linguistic traditions, etc., and this portion is termed Porulathikaram."

"According to the tradition that Tholkappiyar followed a grammar is three fold: (1) Ezhuthu (sounds and letters), (2) Col (words), (3) Porul (meaning). Later it was five fold: (1) Ezhuthu, (2) Col, (3) Porul, (4) Yappu (versification), and (5) Ani (beauty of literature)."

"Works dealing exclusively with the science of music were written during the Sangam period, but were lost long ago. The Silappthikaram of the second century AD throws flood of light on the music of the Tamils. Music in Tamil nomenclature is isai. They had five kinds of Pans (specific melody type), namely Mullai, Kurinji, Marudham, Neythal and Palai. Apart from this, they had seven musical notes, viz., Kural, Thuttam, Kaykkilai, Uzhai, Ili, Vilari and Tharam."

"There is a wide gap between spoken and written Tamil. Spoken Tamil is used for face-to-face communication or in informal occasions whereas written Tamil is used during official speeches and other formal occasions. Spoken Tamil is not generally written; thus, while writing, the written form is invariably used. While there is a wide gap between the two forms of Tamil, there are certain rules the use of that help the learner to derive one form of language from another."

"There are number of universities in India and Sri Lanka which have facilities for Tamil Studies."

"Tamil, a language with a long and ancient literary tradition, has been spoken in southern India for several millennia."

"Tamil is a member of the Dravidian family, whose members are nearly all spoken in southern India. Other relatives are Telugu (spoken in south central India to the east coast), Malayalam (in Kerala State on the Malabar Coast of southwest India), Kannada (in Mysore, a region of southern India), Brahui (in southern Pakistan), and several other less well-known languages."

"Tamil linguistic variation cross classifies through three dimensions: geography, caste, and diglossia. Six regional dialects can be classified as: East, West, North, South, Central, and Sri Lanka. Sri Lanken Tamil is relatively conservative, having retained older features while continental dialects have lost them or changed in different directions. Caste dialects mostly distinguish between Brahmin and non-Brahmin varieties. Overlaying all of this are diglossic variants."

"The high status non-Brahmin dialect--which is spoken in the Central dialect area, including the cities of Tanjore, Tirichirapalli and Madurai--is apparently gaining ground as a standard language."

"Tamil is written in an alpha-syllabic system like that of other South Asian languages. It derives from the Ashokan Brahmi script. Vowels have two forms, once used at the beginning of a word, another used following consonant symbols. Each consonant graph symbolizes the consonant plus following vowel "a". When another vowel symbol is used the "a" vowel is suppressed. Consonant symbols with a diacritic are used to represent just the consonant itself."

"Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinating language in which morphemes are transparently separable and analyzable affixes which are attached to roots or stems; such affixes in Tamil are nearly always suffixal. Words are made up of lexical roots, or stems (roots that have been expanded by a derivational suffix), followed by inflectional suffix(es) which mark such categories as, for example, person, number, mood, tense, etc."

"Nouns, a broad classification in Tamil grammatical terminology, include common and proper nouns, numerals, pronouns and some so-called adjectives; they inflect for case, person, number (singular and plural), and gender. There are two genders which are based on the referent's natural gender and correspond roughly to the distinction human/nonhuman; they are called "rational" (e.g., nouns referring to men, deities, women in some dialects) and "irrational" (e.g., women in some dialects, children, animals) respectively. There are 8 cases (nominative, accusative, dative, sociative, genitive, instrumental, locative, and ablative)."

"Modern Tamil has no articles; definiteness and indefiniteness are signaled by other grammatical devices, such as the number "one," used as an indefinite article. Compound nouns are used as deictic pronouns (demonstratives), which are used to indicate objects close by, at a distance, and a kind of neutral; Sri Lankan Tamil has a fourth indicating medial distance."

"Verbs are formally inflected principally for mood and tense by a grammatical particle suffixed to the stem. Most verbs also mark affective and effective "voice" (not equivalent to the notions "transitivity" or "causation") where the former indicates that the subject undergoes the action named by the stem, and the latter signals that the subject directs the action of the stem. Mood is also marked implicitly by grammatical formatives which also mark tense categories. These signal that the verbal event is, for example, unreal, possible, potential, or a real, and actual. There are three simple tenses (past, present, and future), and a series of perfects."

"Word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) and even though case and post positions are used to mark grammatical relations, word order is not completely free as it might be in similarly structured languages. Even where variation is allowed the verb in simple sentences must always come to the far right of the sentence."

"Tamil has a verbal category called "attitude" which is used to indicate the speaker's state of mind and subjective attitude about the narrated event. Verb auxiliaries are used for this purpose; examples of affected states projected are: pejorative opinion, antipathy, relief that a unpleasant event has ended, undesirability about the result of an event, and so on."

"Besides loans from Sanskrit, and some borrowing from Persian and Arabic, English in modern times has supplied a lot of loan words, but because of the emphasis on linguistic purism in Tamil grammatical tradition loans are assimilated to the phonological system."

"All Tamil speakers, including the uneducated, use two varieties of the language which only roughly correspond to the difference between literary and spoken Tamil. A high status variety is used in most writing, the media--including radio and television broadcasts--political speeches and other similar occasions. In contrast, a low status variety is used in every day discourse and conversations. It is also used in film and some authors of fiction use the variety as do some politicians and lecturers to create solidarity, or enhance intimacy, with their audiences."

"In both India and Sri Lanka, Tamil has the status of an official language. In India it is one of fourteen official languages, and in Sri Lanka it shares that status with Sinhalese. It is the first official language of India's Tamil Nadu state."

"Among the four ancient literary languages of southern India (Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu) Tamil has the longest tradition. The earliest records date from inscriptions from 200 BC. Other early works exist which were preserved on manuscripts made by palm-leaf and through oral transmission. Part of this rich and varied literary output includes a Tamil indigenous grammatical tradition independent of that of the ancient Sanskrit grammarians. The earliest text which describes the language of the classical period is the Tolkappiyam (dating from around 200 BC); another dates from the year 1000."

"Three stages appear in the written records: ancient (200 BC to 700), medieval (700 - 1500) and modern (1500 to the present). Sometime between 800 and the turn of the millennium, Malayalam, a very closely related Dravidian language, split off and became a distinct language."

"During the medieval period Tamil absorbed many loan words from Sanskrit in the verbal system, but in the 1900s attempts were made to purge Tamil of its Sanskrit loans with the result that modern scientific and bureaucratic terminology is Tamil-based and not Sanskrit-based as in other Indic languages."

"Tamilism is an Ancient and Ethnic Religion of Tamil people. It denotes the religious traditions and practices of Tamil people and also know as Tamil Religion."

"Tamilism - popularly known as Tamil matham ('the Tamil religion')"

"By encouraging ethnic communities to re-enact and re-experience concentrated versions of a particular ethnic identity in a public (and even ritualistic) manner, tamil religious festivals such as mentioned above exemplify the form of "Tamilism""

"During 1800s The Nayak Hindu Brahmins dominated the villages and Tamil Religion was Forbidden"

"The emotional and sensual character of popular Tamil religion in particular the ecstatic union with various deities which had long existed within the indigenous south Indian Folk Religion"

"The Tamil Nationalism Movement had a specifically shaiva component that fostered the idea that Siddhantam preceded all other as the original Tamil Religion"

"Tamil Religion(Tamilism): Siddantham is the true and Original Philosophy of Tamilians who are not Brahmins"

"The Government of India decided that on the occasion of the Rajyotsava day in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh formation day in Andhra Pradesh which fall on 1 November to declare Kannada and Telugu as Classical Languages. This decision of the Government of India is based on the recommendation of the Committee of Linguistic Experts set up by the Ministry of Culture."

"Telugu language is the largest member of the Dravidian language family. Primarily spoken in southeastern India, it is the official language of the state of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In the early 21st century Telugu had more than 75 million speakers."

"The first written materials in the language date from 575 CE. The Telugu script is derived from that of the 6th-century Calukya dynasty and is related to that of the Kannada language. Telugu literature begins in the 11th century with a version of the Hindu epic Mahabharata by the writer Nannaya."

"There are four distinct regional dialects in Telugu, as well as three social dialects that have developed around education, class, and caste. The formal, literary language is distinct from the spoken dialects—a situation known as diglossia."

"Like the other Dravidian languages, Telugu has a series of retroflex consonants (/ḍ/, /ṇ/, and /ṭ/) pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled back against the roof of the mouth. Grammatical categories such as case, number, person, and tense are denoted with suffixes. Reduplication, the repetition of words or syllables to create new or emphatic meanings, is common (e.g., pakapaka ‘suddenly bursting out laughing,’ garagara ‘clean, neat, nice’)."

"Andhra Bhasha — the language of the Andhras is known as Telugu, or Tenugu (tene = honey, agu = is), meaning, sweet as honey. Telugu is numbered among the Dravidian languages, of which four are of importance in South India, namely Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam."

"The Telugu language does not seem to be as ancient as Tamil, though it is more ancient than Malayalam, and at least of equal antiquity with Kanarese. It is not possible to say with any certainty when the language now known as Telugu came into vogue."

"...the view, maintained by all Telugu grammarians and Sanskrit philologists, that Telugu is Vikriti — that is, a language formed by the modification of Sanskrit and Prakrit. An analysis of the language as it has ...been for centuries confirms this traditional view....But the information does not enable to say whether they used Telugu in any form. It is probable that they spoke a form of Prakrit, from which Telugu has descended."

"The lack of antiquity in the Telugu language is felt as a reproach by some writers, who believe that the greatness of a language depends on its age. This has given rise to later legends, one of which, tracing the origin of Telugu to the fourth quarter of Krita Yuga (Golden Age). According to legend...it was called Andhra Bhasha as it dispelled darkness."

"Nannaiah, the first poet of the Telugu language, wrote in these characters [Dravida Brahmi]. Between 1000 and 1300 AD, Telugu and Kanarese had the same script; but about the time of Tikkanna the Telugu characters separated themselves from the Kanarese, and assumed their current shapes."

"The Telugu poets are worshippers of style; and their art is in the refinement of language. It is the dexterity of weaving words, the daintiness of sentiment, sweetness of phrasing that draws their admiration."

"The language is called Telugu. or Tenugu. The Sanskrit name is Andhra."

"The words Telugu and Tenugu are corruptions of the word Telinga, which is the same as Trilinga, and means—the country of the three li'ngams, (from the Sanskrit tr-i three, and lingo the emblem of [[Shiva). There is a tradition that the GodSiva, in the form of a lingam, descended upon the three mountains named Kalésvaram,Srisailam, and Bhimesvaram, and that these three lingams marked the boundaries of the country."

"Although many Sanskrit words are used in Telugu, yet the language has not its origin in Sanscrit. Pure Telugu is formed from roots, which have a close connection with the roots of the other languages of South India, e.g., Tamil, Conarese, etc. These cognate languages form a distinct family of languages, which are distinguished by the term Dravidian."

"Native grammar-lane divide the words of the Telugu language into five classes, namely— 1) Words of pure Telugu origin. 2) Sanskrit derivatives, 3) Sanskrit interruptions, 4) Rustic or provincial terms, 5) Words introduced from foreign languages, that is, Hindustani, etc."

"The greater part of Telugu literature consists of Poetry, which is written in the higher dialect. So different is the higher dialect from the dialect branches of study."

"Telugu is remarkable for its melody of sound, which has gained for it the name of the Italian of India. It is regular in construction, and though copious, it is often like Tamil very laconic. In common conversation a single word, or short phrase, is often used to convey the meaning of a whole sentence."

"Whilst the language used in poetry is uniform, local dialects of Telugu vary. For instance, there is a certain amount of difference between the Telugu spoken in Rajahmundry, and that spoken in the w:Cuddapah districtCuddapah district."

"The Telugu language, like many others, may be viewed as consisting of three branches, namely—{1) The language of common conversation, (2) The language of prose books, and (3) The language of poetry. Each of these three branches differs not only in the choice of words, but also in grammatical forms of the same words."

"The letters of the Telugu alphabet and their combinations are very numerous, and at first sight make the language appear difficult. But in reality they make it far more easy to acquire correctly for there is a distinct letter for each word, and therefore every word is pronounced exactly as it is spelt."

"Telugu is written from left to right like English. The letters ought to be upright, or slightly sloping towards the left. Care must be taken to form them in the proper way"

"Telugu letters are divided, as in English, into vowels and consonants."

"Telugu is the principal language of the Eastern part of the Indian Peninsula from Madras to Bengal."

"The people themselves call their language Telugu or Tenugu. This word is generally supposed to be a corruption of Sanskrit Trilinga, It is explained as meaning the country of the three lingam."

"Telugu is not a uniform language for the whole territory where it is spoken as a vernacular. The dialect spoken in the Northern Circars is usually considered as the purest form of the language."

"Caste dialects of Telugu are also spoken in the Kanarese country and in Bombay."

"The difference between the conversational language and the literary form is considerable."

"The greater part of Telugu literature consists of poetry and is written in a dialect which differs widely from the colloquial form of the language."

"According to tradition the first Telugu author was Kannaiah, who lived at the court of Andhiraya. During the reign of that king Sanskrit is said to have been introduced into the Telugu country, and Kannaiah is supposed to have dealt with Telugu grammar after the methods of Sanskrit philologists. His work is now lost."

"The earliest extant work in Telugu belongs roughly to 1050 AD. About that time King Vishnuvardhana was a great patron of Telugu literature, and at his court lived Nannaya Bhatta, the author of the oldest extant Telugu grammar, and, according to tradition, the principal author of the Telugu version of the Mahabharata."

"The bulk of Telugu literature belongs to the 14th and subsequent centuries. In the beginning of the 16th century the court of King Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagar was famous for its learning, and various branches of literature were eagerly cultivated. The poet Vemana is supposed by some authorities to have lived during the 16th century."

"The Telugu language has been known under several different denominations. The first name which meets us is Andhra, under which denomination it is mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim Hwen Thsang who visited India in the 7th century A.D. He tells us that the Andhras had a language of their own, written in an alphabet which did not much differ from those used in Northern India, The well known Indian author Kumarila Bhatta mentions the Aadhra-Dravida-bhasha."

"The Union Cabinet decided to grant the coveted recognition to the language, spoken by 40 million Malayalis all over the world. Malayalam now joins Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, all members of the Dravidian linguistic family, as a classical language of India."

"The Grantha alphabet is a descendant of the Brahmi alphabet and started to emerge during the 5th century AD....Total alphabets are about 48 in number, without the Dravidian characters like the ra and zha. Granthakshara was used to write Sanskrit in Kerala before Ezhuthachan's time. Vattezhuthu used as Malayalam alphabet during that time is similar to Tamil."

"Vattezhuthu was the early script used to write Malayalam. Total alphabets|alphabets were about 30."

"From the Vattezhuthu was derived another script called the kolezhuthu. This script was more commonly used in the Cochin and Malabar areas than in Travancore. Yet another script derived from the vattezhuthu was the Malayanma, which was commonly used south to Thiruvananthapuram. Malayanma also does not differ fundamentally from the vattezhuthu."

"The absence of character combinations, the vowels a and o and conventions for symbols were real difficulties in Vattezhuthu. The trouble with kolezhuthu was still more, for it had regional variations also. And in the case Malayanma, the complexity of the script, Tamil usage and conventional abbreviations for words made it unintelligible to the rest of the region. With all these three scripts in current use the writing and reading of Malayalam must indeed have been a difficult affair."

"Malayalam is an Indian language spoken by 40 million people with its own script spoken in the south western state of Kerala."

"Malayalam has a rich literary tradition. The Malayalam script has a large number of similar characters making the recognition pattern challenging."

"Malayalam is one of the five major languages of the Dravidian language family, which also includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Tulu."

"The Malayalam speakers – referred to as Malayalis – have been strongly peripatetic. Hence, the language is heard widely all over India as well as in the Persian Gulf countries, Europe, Australia, and the North America."

"The language started as a variant of Tamil that was spoken in regions of Kerala, and evolved its own form, grammar, and vocabulary by 500 CE. A significant transition from Tamil happened with the introduction of a form of literature called Manipravalam, which freely mixed words from Sanskrit into the language."

"Most words in traditional Malayalam has its roots in either Tamil or Sanskrit. Due to its lineage to both Sanskrit and Tamil, the w:Malayalam alphabetMalayalam alphabet has the largest number of letters among the Indian languages."

"Kerala had a flourishing spice trade with Europe, Middle east and Egypt for over 2000 years. This long-standing exposure led to words and expressions being borrowed from a variety of languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Latin. The most significant influence in the recent past has been English language, which has contributed a large number of words in everyday use, mostly in its original form."

"Malayalam has a strong literary history, which is centuries old and is very rich in several genres of literature. The earliest known literary composition in the language is from the 13th century. Notably, the work Ramacharitam by Cheeraman is recognized by scholars as the first book in Malayalam. The first Malayalam grammar/literary treatise, Leelathilakam, was compiled in the 14th century. Malayalam also has a rich vocabulary, with around 90,000 words, listed in the dictionary ShabdathArAvalli."

"The script and the linguistic structure of Malayalam was formalized by Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthassan, who lived in the 16th century."

"The intermediate development of the literature was primarily through the lyrics for performing art forms of Kathakali, Koothu, and Thullal and translations of the mythological stories. In fact, one of the first works in the language, Bhashakautilyam, from the 12th century, is a translation of Arthashastra from Sanskrit."

"A variety of literary styles in prose and poems, including mythical, satirical, fictional, narrative, and travelogue, were created in Malayalam before the 18th century. The literary journals such as Bhasha Poshini and Vidya Vinodini, which came into existence towards the end of the 19th century, played a critical role in popularising the literary culture and criticism in the language."

"The modern day literature in Malayalam is as evolved and complex as that of any other languages in the world."

"The recognition of printed or handwritten Malayalam has to deal with a large number of complex glyphs, some of which are highly similar to each other. However, recent advances in classifier design, combined with the increase in processing power of computers have all but solved the primary recognition problem."

"A characteristic of the Malayalam language is the common usage of compound words created from multiple root words, using the sandhi rules. This creates a combinatorial explosion in the number of distinct words in the language."

"Malayalam evolved either from a western dialect of Tamil or from the a branch of Proto-Dravidian from which modern Tamil also evolved. The earliest record of the language is an inscription dated 830 AD."

"An. early extensive influx of Sanskrit words influenced the Malayalam script (derived from the Grantha script, itself derived from Brahmi), it has letters to represent all the Sanskrit sounds besides the Dravidian sounds."

"The language also uses a script called Koleluttu (Rod script), which is derived from the Tamil writing system. The Tamil Grantha script is used as well."

"Like the Dravidian languages generally, its clause has a subject-object verb word order; it has a nominative-accusative case-marking pattern; its Malayalam language pronominal system has “natural” gender, non-human is a neuter and masculine/feminine is distinguished (fir humans) according to sex."

"But unlike other Dravidian languages, its finite verb is inflected only for tense, not for person, number, and gender."

"Malayalam is spoken mainly in the southwestern southern coast of Kerala and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep; but bilingual communities in contiguous parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu also speak it.... It has regional and caste-based dialects. A distinction, called diglossia, exists between the formal, literary language and the colloquial tongue."

"Initially, Emeneau was very confident of the Dravidian origin of the non-Sanskrit substratum in Vedic languages. However, later he publicly acknowledged that the Dravidian origins which he and Barrow had ascribed to most of the Rig Vedic substratum words were, in reality, largely conjectures and not empirical facts. In 1980, he stated that the words loaned from Dravidian into Indo-Aryan are 'in fact all merely suggestions'; 'all etymologies are in the last analysis unprovable'; and that such theories are 'acts of faith'. Emeneau conceded, 'It is clear that not all of Burrow's suggested borrowing from Dravidian will stand the test of his own principles.'"

"An example of a different interpretation of the common words shared by Tamil and Sanskrit is the refreshing 1979 observation of Franklin Southworth, a linguist from the University of Pennsylvania. According to his analysis: 'these two lists [Dravidian and Indo-Aryan] both seem to suggest a rather wide range of cultural contacts, and that they do not show the typical (or stereotypical) one-sided borrowing relationship expected in a colonial situation'. Southworth continued, 'No picture of technological, cultural or military dominance by either side emerges from an examination of these words'."

"Because the assumption of Mosaic ethnology was well established, it was important to secure both families of languages within that framework. Ellis claimed that Tamil is connected with Hebrew and also with ancient Arabic. Their logic was that since William Jones considered Sanskrit to be the language of Ham, and other scholars claimed that Sanskrit descended from Noah's oldest son, Japheth, by the process of elimination the remaining son of Noah, Shem, must be the ancestor of the Dravidian people. This made Dravidians a branch of the Scythians or in the same family as Jews."

"Das (1995), who accepts the external origin of Indo-Aryan on grounds other than the substratum hypothesis, points out that there is "not a single bit of uncontroversial evidence on the actual spread of Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic speakers in pre-historic times, so that any statement on Dravidian and Austro-Asiatic in Rgvedic times is nothing but speculation" ."