dravidian-languages

"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'."

"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" ."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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 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 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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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 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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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 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."

"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 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."

"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."