Dravidian languages

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Dravidan
Geographic distribution:	South Asia
Genetic classification:	One of the world's major language families
Subdivisions:	Northern Central South Central Southern
ISO 639-2:	dra

The Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages^[1] that are mainly spoken in southern India and northeastern Sri Lanka, as well as certain areas in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and eastern and central India, as well as in parts of Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore.

Contents 1 Origins of the word Dravidian 2 History 3 List of Dravidian languages 3.1 Southern 3.2 South Central 3.3 Central 3.4 Northern 4 Grammar 5 Phonology 5.1 Historical Phonology 5.2 Words starting with vowels 5.3 Numerals 5.4 Stability and Continuity of Dravidian 5.5 Dravidian substratum influence on Sanskrit 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Origins of the word Dravidian

The English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert Caldwell in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa in the work Tantravārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (Zvelebil 1990:xx). As for the origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa itself there have been various theories proposed. Basically the theories are about the direction of derivation between tamiẓ and drāviḍa.

There is no definite philological and linguistic basis for asserting unilaterally that the name Dravida also forms the origin of the word Tamil (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil). Zvelebil cites the forms such as dramila (in Daṇḍin's Sanskrit work Avanisundarīkathā) damiḷa (found in Ceylonese chronicle Mahavamsa) and then goes on to say (ibid. page xxi): "The forms damiḷa/damila almost certainly provide a connection of dr(a/ā)viḍa " and "... tamiḷ < tamiẓ ...whereby the further development might have been *tamiẓ > *damiḷ > damiḷa- / damila- and further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) -r-, into dr(a/ā)viḍa. The -m-/-v- alternation is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian phonology" (Zvelebil 1990:xxi) Zvelebil in his earlier treatise (Zvelebil 1975: p53) states: "It is obvious that the Sanskrit dr(a/ā)viḍa, Pali damila, damiḷo and Prakrit d(a/ā)viḍa are all etymologically connected with tamiẓ" and further remarks "The r in tamiẓ > dr(a/ā)viḍa is a hypercorrect insertion, cf. an analogical case of DED 1033 Ta. kamuku, Tu.kangu "areca nut": Skt. kramu(ka).".

Further, another eminent Dravidian linguist Bhadriraju Krishnamurti in his book Dravidian Languages (Krishnamurti 2003: p. 2, footnote 2) states: "Joseph (1989: IJDL 18.2:134-42) gives extensive references to the use of the term draviḍa, dramila first as the name of a people, then of a country. Sinhala inscriptions of BCE [Before Christian Era] cite dameḍa-, damela- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used damiḷa- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil); damilaraṭṭha- was a southern non-Aryan country; dramiḷa-, dramiḍa, and draviḍa- were used as variants to designate a country in the south (Bṛhatsamhita-, Kādambarī, Daśakumāracarita-, fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134-8). It appears that damiḷa- was older than draviḍa- which could be its Sanskritization."

Based on what Krishnamurti states referring to a scholarly paper published in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, the Sanskrit word draviḍa itself is later than damiḷa since the dates for the forms with -r- are centuries later than the dates for the forms without -r- (damiḷa, dameḍa-, damela- etc.). So it is clear that it is difficult to maintain Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil.

The Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary^[2] lists for the Sanskrit word draviḍa a meaning of "collective Name for 5 peoples, viz. the Āndhras, Karṇāṭakas, Gurjaras, Tailaṅgas, and Mahārāṣṭras".

Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 200 million people. They appear to be unrelated to languages of other known families like Indo-European, specifically Indo-Aryan, which is the other common language family on the Indian subcontinent. Some linguistic scholars incorporate the Dravidian languages into a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family, which includes the ancient Elamite language (Haltami) of what is now south-western Iran. Dravidian is one of the primary linguistic groups in the proposed Nostratic language system, linking almost all languages in North Africa, Europe and Western Asia into a common family with its origins in the Fertile Crescent sometime between the last Ice Age and the emergence of proto-Indo-European 4-6 thousand years BC.

Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian substratum.^[3]

[edit] History

Main article: Proto-Dravidian

The origins of the Dravidian languages, as well as their subsequent development and the period of their differentiation are unclear, partially due to the lack of comparative linguistic research into the Dravidian languages. In addition to Elamite, unsuccessful attempts have also been made to link the family with the Japonic languages, Korean, Sumerian, the Australian Aboriginal languages and the unknown language of the Indus Valley civilisation. The theory that the Dravidian languages display similarities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past,^[4] is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of scholars, including Robert Caldwell,^[5] Thomas Burrow,^[6] Kamil Zvelebil,^[7] and Mikhail Andronov^[8] This theory has, however, been rejected by specialists in Uralic languages,^[9] and has in recent times also been criticised by other Dravidian linguists like Bhadriraju Krishnamurti.^[10]. Rasmus K. Rask (1787-1832) considered Dravidian as belonging to the "Scythian" languages referring to Scythians as non-Semitic and non-Indo-European peoples and languages of Eastern Europe and Western Asia sometimes also termed "Hyperborean"^[11].

Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, nothing definite is known about the ancient domain of the Dravidian parent speech. It is, however, a well-established and well-supported hypothesis that Dravidian speakers must have been widespread throughout India, including the northwest region.^[12]

Many linguists, however, tend to favour the theory that speakers of Dravidian languages spread southwards and eastwards through the Indian subcontinent, based on the fact that the southern Dravidian languages show some signs of contact with linguistic groups which the northern Dravidian languages do not^{[citation needed]}. Proto-Dravidian is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, Proto South-Central Dravidian and Proto-South Dravidian around 500 BC, although some linguists have argued that the degree of differentiation between the sub-families points to an earlier split.

The existence of the Dravidian language family was first suggested in 1816 by Alexander D. Campbell in his Grammar of the Teloogoo Language, in which he and Francis W. Ellis argued that Tamil and Telugu were descended from a common, non-Indo-European ancestor. However, it was not until 1856 that Robert Caldwell published his Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages, which considerably expanded the Dravidian umbrella and established it as one of the major language groups of the world. Caldwell coined the term "Dravidian" from the Sanskrit drāvida, which was used in a 7th century text to refer to the Tamil language of the south of India. The publication of the Dravidian etymological dictionary by T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau was a landmark event in Dravidian linguistics.

[edit] List of Dravidian languages

Those recognized as Official languages of India are in boldface:^[13]

[edit] Southern

• Dravidian
  • Badaga
  • Kannada (Karnataka)
  • Tamil-Kodagu
    • Kodagu
      • Kodava Takk
      • Kurumba
    • Tamil-Malayalam
      • Malayalam (Malayāḷam)
      • Tamil (Tamiẓh)
        • Arwi (Arabic-Tamil hybrid language employed as a lingua-franca among Tamil Muslims and Sri Lankan Moors; now extinct)
    • Toda-Kota
      • Kota
      • Toda
• Tulu (Karnataka, Kerala)
  • Bellary

[edit] South Central

• Abujmaria
• Gondi
• Kui
• Kuvi
• Konda (Koṇḍa)
• Koya
• Manda (Maṇḍa)
• Pengo
• Sugali
• Telugu

[edit] Central

The languages formally enumerated by linguists (Zvelebil 1990:p xiv, Subrahmanyam 1983) as belonging to the Central Dravidian subfamily are:

• Kolami
• Naiki
• Parji
• Ollari
• Gadaba

Other possible enumerations are:

• Kolami-Naiki
  • Naiki
  • Northwestern Kolami (India)
  • Southeastern Kolami (India)
• Parji-Gadaba
  • Duruwa (India)
  • Mudhili Gadaba (India)
  • Parji
  • Pottangi Ollar Gadaba (India)

[edit] Northern

The languages formally enumerated by Dravidian linguists (Zvelebil 1990:p xiv, Subrahmanyam 1983) as belonging to the North Dravidian subfamily are the three below:

• Brahui
• Kurux
• Malto

Scholar Franklin C. Southworth writes that the relationship between Brahui and the Dravidian languages is "perhaps"^[14] close enough to prove a relationship.

However, according to scholar Edwin Bryant, Brahui, Kurukh and Malto have their own myths about external origins (coming from outside.)^[15] The Oraons (Kurukh) have traditionally claimed to be from the Deccan Peninsula^[16], more specifically, Karnataka. The same tradition has existed of the Brahui.^[17][18] They call themselves immigrants.^[19] Many scholars hold this same view of the Brahui ^[20] such as L. H. Horace Perera and M. Ratnasabapathy.^[21] Mr. Bloch who wrote about the Brahui in 1911, 1925 and 1929 wrote that they were immigrants from far south.^[18]

Some other enumerations are:

• Brahui (the only Dravidian language spoken in Pakistan; in the Balochistan province) and Iran Sistan and Balochistan province
• Kurux language (India)
• Kurux language Nepali - (Nepal)
• Malto, including Sauria Paharia language and Kumarbhag Paharia language - (India and Bangladesh)

[edit] Grammar

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

The most characteristic features of Dravidian languages are:^[7]

• Dravidian languages are agglutinative.
• Dravidian languages exhibit the inclusive and exclusive we feature.
• The major word classes are nouns (substantives, numerals, pronouns), adjectives, verbs, and indeclinables (particles, enclitics, adverbs, interjections, onomatopoetic words, echo words).
• Proto-Dravidian used only suffixes, never prefixes or infixes, in the construction of inflected forms. Hence, the roots of words always occurred at the beginning. Nouns, verbs, and indeclinable words constituted the original word classes.
• There are two numbers and four different gender systems, the “original” probably having “male: non-male” in the singular and “person:non-person” in the plural.
• In a sentence, however complex, only one finite verb occurs, normally at the end, preceded if necessary by a number of gerunds.
• Word order follows certain basic rules but is relatively free.
• The main (and probably original) dichotomy in tense is past:non-past. Present tense developed later and independently in each language or subgroup.
• Verbs are intransitive, transitive, and causative; there are also active and passive forms.
• All of the positive verb forms have their corresponding negative counterparts, negative verbs.

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Historical Phonology

Vowels: Proto-Dravidian had ten vowels: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, ē. There was contrast between short and long vowels. There were no diphthongs. ai and au are treated as *ay and *av (or *aw) (Subrahmanyam 1983, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003).

Consonants: Proto-Dravidian is reconstructible with the following consonantal phonemes (Subrahmanyam 1983:p40, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003) :

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t	ṯ	ṭ	c	k
Nasal	m	n	ṉ (??)	ṇ	ñ
Flap			r
Fricative				ḻ (ṛ, r̤)
Lateral			l	ḷ
Approximant	v				y

Alveolar stop ṯ in many daughter languages developed into an alveolar trill ṟ. It still retains the stop sound in Kota and Toda (Subrahmanyam 1983). Malyalam still retains the original (alveolar) stop sound in gemination. (ibid). In Old Tamil it takes the enunciative vowel like the other stops. In other words, ṯ (or ṟ) does not occur word-finally without the enunciative vowel (ibid).

Velar nasal ṅ occurs only before k in Proto-Dravidian as in many of its daughter languages. Therefore it is not considered a separate phoneme in Proto-Dravidian. However, it attained phonemic status in languages like Malayalam, Gondi, Konda and Pengo due to the simplification of the original sequence *ṅk to ṅ. (Subrahmanyam 1983)

The glottal fricative H has been proposed by Bhadriraju Krishnamurti to account for the Old Tamil Aytam (Āytam) and other Dravidian comparative phonological phenomena (Krishnamurti 2003).

Dravidian languages are noted for the lack of distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops. While some Dravidian languages (especially Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu) have accepted large numbers of loan words from Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages in addition to their already vast vocabulary, in which the orthography shows distinctions in voice and aspiration, the words are pronounced in Dravidian according to different rules of phonology and phonotactics: voicing is allophonic and aspiration of plosives is generally absent, regardless of the spelling of the word. This is not a universal phenomenon and is generally avoided in formal or careful speech, especially when reciting.

For instance, Tamil, like Finnish, Korean, Ainu, and most indigenous Australian languages, does not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced stops. In fact, the Tamil alphabet lacks symbols for voiced and aspirated stops.

Dravidian languages are also characterized by a three-way distinction between dental, alveolar, and retroflex places of articulation as well as large numbers of liquids.

[edit] Words starting with vowels

A substantial number of words also begin and end with vowels, which helps the languages' agglutinative property.

karanu (cry), elumbu (bone), adu (that), awade (there), idu (this), illai (no, absent)

adu-idil-illai (adu = that, idu = this, il= suffix form of "in", so => that-this-in-absent => that-in this-absent => that is absent in this)

[edit] Numerals

The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian languages.

Number	Tamil	Telugu	Kannada	Tulu	Malayalam	Kurukh	Kolami	Brahui	Proto-Dravidian
1	onru	okaṭi	ondu	onji	onnu	oṇṭa	okkod	asiṭ	*oru(1)
2	iraṇṭu	renḍu	eraḍu	raḍḍu	raṇṭu	indiŋ	irāṭ	irāṭ	*iru(2)
3	mūnru	mūḍu	mūru	mūji	mūnnu	mūnd	mūndiŋ	musiṭ	*muC
4	nālu, nālku, nānku	nālugu	nālku	nālu	nālu	nākh	nāliŋ	čār (II)	*nāl
5	aintu	ayidu	aidu	ainu	añcu	pancē (II)	ayd 3	panč (II)	*cayN
6	āru	āru	āru	āji	āru	soyyē (II)	ār 3	šaš (II)	*caru
7	ēẓu	ēḍu	ēlu	ēlu	ēẓu	sattē (II)	ēḍ 3	haft (II)	*eẓu
8	eṭṭu	enimidi	eṇṭu	ēṇma	eṭṭu	aṭṭhē (II)	enumadī 3	hašt (II)	*eṭṭu
9	onpatu	tommidi	ombattu	ormba	onpatu	naiṃyē (II)	tomdī 3	nōh (II)	*toḷ
10	pattu	padi	hattu	pattu	pattu	dassē (II)	padī 3	dah (II)	*pat(tu)

1. This is the same as the word for another form of the number one in Tamil and Malayalam. This is used as an indefinite article meaning "a" and also when the number is an adjective followed by a noun (as in "one person") as opposed to when it is a noun (as in "How many are there?" "One").
2. This is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning of "double" in Tamil and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20, literally meaning "double-ten") or "iraṭṭi" ("double") or Iruvar (meaning two people).
3. Kolami numbers 5-10 are borrowed from Telugu

• Words indicated (II) are borrowings from Indo-Iranian languages.

[edit] Stability and Continuity of Dravidian

The Dravidian language family has been considered remarkably stable. Some aspects of its stability are:

• Relative stability of root vowels seems to have been the rule (Zvelebil) [1]
• A tendency toward structural and systemic balance and stability is characteristic of the Dravidian group (Zvelebil, ibid)

[edit] Dravidian substratum influence on Sanskrit

Main article: Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit

Dravidian and Sanskrit have influenced each other in various ways. Some earlier views in this interrelationship tended to view it as one-way from Sanskrit to Dravidian as evidenced in the following statements: "While the origins and initial development of Dravidian languages was independent of Sanskrit,^[22] during later centuries, however, Dravidian languages like Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu have been greatly influenced by Sanskrit in terms of vocabulary, grammar and literary styles.^[23]"

The above views must be considered in the light of the well-known Indologist and linguist (Zvelebil 1975: pp50-51): "... the period of the high water mark of Tamil classical literature was one in which the two great Sanskrit epics were already completed, but the Sanskrit classical poetry was barely emerging with Aśvaghoṣa." More importantly he continues: "No stylistic feature or convention could have been borrowed by the Tamils (though of course there are borrowings of purāṇic stories" (emphasis added). Zvelebil remarks:"Though the dominance of Sanskrit was exaggerated in some Brahmanic circles of Tamilnadu, and Tamil was given unduly underestimated by a few Sanskrit-oriented scholars, the Tamil and Sanskrit cultures were not generally in rivalry".

However more recent research has shown that Sanskrit has been influenced in certain more fundamental ways than Dravidian languages have been by it: It is by way of phonology^[24] and even more significantly here via grammatical constructs. This has been the case from the earliest language available (ca. 1200 B.C.) of Sanskrit: the Ṛg Vedic speech.

The Ṛg Vedic language has retroflex consonants even though it is well known that the Indo European family and the Indo-Iranian subfamily to which Sanskrit belongs lack retroflex consonants (ṭ/ḍ, ṇ) with about 88 words in the Ṛg Veda having unconditioned retroflexes (Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999). Some sample words are: (Iṭanta, Kaṇva,śakaṭī, kevaṭa, puṇya, maṇḍūka) This is cited as a serious evidence of substrate influence from close contact of the Vedic speakers with speakers of a foreign language family rich in retroflex phonemes (Kuiper 1991, Witzel 1999). Obviously the Dravidian family would be a serious candidate here (ibid as well as Krishnamurti 2003: p36) since it is rich in retroflex phonemes reconstructible back to the Proto-Dravidian stage[See Subrahmanyam 1983:p40, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurti 2003].

A more serious influence on Vedic Sanskrit is the extensive grammatical influence attested by the usage of the quotative marker iti and the occurrence of gerunds of verbs, a grammatical feature not found even in the Avestan language, a sister language of the Vedic Sanskrit. As Krishnamurti states: "Besides, the Ṛg Veda has used the gerund, not found in Avestan, with the same grammatical function as in Dravidian, as a non-finite verb for 'incomplete' action. Ṛg Vedic language also attests the use of iti as a quotative clause complementizer. All these features are not a consequence of simple borrowing but they indicate substratum influence (Kuiper 1991: ch 2)".

The Brahui population of Balochistan has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict population, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.^[25]

Thomason & Kaufman (1988) state that there is strong evidence that Dravidian influenced Indic through "shift", that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages. Elst (1999) claims that the presence of the Brahui language, similarities between Elamite and Harappan script as well as similarities between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian indicate that these languages may have interacted prior to the spread of Indo-Aryans southwards and the resultant intermixing of languages. Erdosy (1995:18) states that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned. Even though the innovative traits in Indic could be explained by multiple internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once – it becomes a question of explanatory parsimony; moreover, early Dravidian influence accounts for the several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed.^[26]

The noted Indologist Zvelebil remarks [2]: "Several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology (e.g., the retroflex consonants, made with the tongue curled upward toward the palate), syntax (e.g., the frequent use of gerunds, which are nonfinite verb forms of nominal character, as in “by the falling of the rain”), and vocabulary (a number of Dravidian loanwords apparently appearing in the Rigveda itself)"

[edit] See also

• Susumu Kuno, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics (Harvard University), author of numerous books on Dravidian and other languages
• Official languages of India
• Nostratic languages

v • d • e Languages of South Asia Main articles Languages of India (list by number of speakers - scheduled)  · Languages of Pakistan · Languages of Bangladesh  · Languages of Nepal · Languages of Sri Lanka Historic languages Linguistic history of India · Vedic Sanskrit · Classical Sanskrit · Prakrit · Pāli · Classical Tamil  · Middle Indic Contemporary languages Indo-Aryan: Sinhala · Hindi · Urdu · Bengali · Gujarati · Maithili · Marathi · Oriya · Punjabi · Assamese · Sindhi · Dogri · Nepali · Hindko · Konkani · Kashmiri · Dravidian: Telugu · Tulu · Tamil · Kannada · Malayalam · Brahui · Iranian: Persian · Balochi · Pashto · Tajik · Tibeto-Burman: Nepal Bhasa · Tibetan · Meitei · Bodo · Sikkimese · Mizo · Kokborok · Ao · Tenyidie · Garo · Munda: Santali · Mundari · Ho · Korku · Sora · Mon-Khmer: Nicobarese · Khasi  · Austronesian: Sri Lanka Malay · Isolates: Kalto · Burushaski · Andamanese · Kusunda · of European influence: French · English · Portuguese Scripts Indus · Brahmi · Brahmic family: Devanagari · Sinhala · Telugu · Tamil · Gurmukhi · Bengali · Ranjana · Oriya · Malayalam · Kannada · Gujarati · Arabic: Nasta'liq · Shahmukhi Language activism Hela Havula · Bengali Language Movement · Sanskrit revival · Language movement · Pure Tamil movement · Nepal Bhasa movement · Anti-Hindi agitations · Urdu movement

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Caldwell, R., A comparative grammar of the Dravidian, or, South-Indian family of languages, London: Harrison, 1856.; Reprinted London, K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd., 1913; rev. ed. by J.L. Wyatt and T. Ramakrishna Pillai, Madras, University of Madras, 1961, reprint Asian Educational Services, 1998. ISBN 81-206-0117-3
• Campbell, A.D., A grammar of the Teloogoo language, commonly termed the Gentoo, peculiar to the Hindoos inhabiting the northeastern provinces of the Indian peninsula, 3d ed. Madras, Printed at the Hindu Press, 1849.
• Krishnamurti, B., The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-77111-0
• Subrahmanyam, P.S., Dravidian Comparative Phonology, Annamalai University, 1983.
• Zvelebil, Kamil., Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction", PILC (Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture), 1990
• Zvelebil, Kamil., Tamil Literature, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1975, ISBN 90-04-04190-7
• Kuiper, F.B.J., Aryans in the Rig Veda", Rodopi, 1991, ISBN 90-5183-307-5 (CIP)
• Witzel, Michael, Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages.Boston, "Mother Tongue", extra number 1999[3]
• Trask, Robert Lawrence (2000). The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Routledge. ISBN 1579582184. 

[edit] External links

• Dravidian Etymological Dictionary. The complete dravidian etymological dictionary in a searchable online form.
• Dravidian languages page in SIL Ethnologue.
• Dravidian from Etruscan Paper claiming a relationship between Dravidian and Etruscan.
• Dravidian origin of the Guanches. A paper claiming a Dravidian origin for the language of the Guanches.
• Tamil and Japanese
• http://www.brahui.tk A site by Shafique-Ur-Rehman, Its all about Brahui People live mostly in Balochistan, Pakistan.
• A subsection of the "Languages of the World" Site maintained by the National Virtual Translation Center in Washington DC.

v • d • e Dravidian languages Southern Allar  · Arwi†  · Badaga  · Bellary  · Irula  · Kanikkaran  · Kannada  · Kodava Takk  · Kota  · Kurumba  · Malayalam  · Paliyan  · Tamil  · Toda  · Tulu South-Central Abujmaria  · Gondi  · Kui  · Kuvi  · Konda (Koṇḍa)  · Koya  · Manda  · Pengo  · Sugali  · Telugu Central Kolami  · Naiki  · Parji  · Ollari  · Gadaba North Brahui  · Kurux  · Malto Legend: † Extinct language (no surviving native speakers and no spoken descendant)