Dravidian peoples

Dravidian
Dravidische Sprachen.png
Areas in South Asia native to Dravidian people
Total population

approx. 200 million  
Regions with significant populations
Flag of India.svg India
           Andra Pradesh
           Tamil Nadu
           Karnataka
           Kerala
Flag of Pakistan.svg Pakistan
            Balochistan
Flag of Sri Lanka.svg Sri Lanka
Languages
Dravidian languages
Religion
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
Brahui people · Gondi people · Kannadigas · Kodava · Malayalis · Tamils · Telugus · Tuluvas

Dravidian peoples refers to the peoples that natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers are found mostly in southern India. Other Dravidian peoples are found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. A number of earlier anthropologists held the view that the Dravidian peoples together were a distinct race. Comprehensive genetic studies have proven that this is not the case, however there are significant genetic differences to north-western Indian peoples. The genetic studies made also clear, that the origin of the Dravidian speakers is the Indian subcontinent.[1][2][3]

Contents

Etymology

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 drāvida in the work Tantravārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa (Zvelebil 1990:xx). 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.

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. That is to say, while linguists such as Zvelebil assert that the direction is tamiẓ >drāviḍa (ibid. page xxi), others state that the name Dravida also forms the root of the word Tamil (Dravida -> Dramila -> Tamizha or Tamil).

The word Dravida may also have its origin from Sanskrit 'Drava' - meaning water or sea. The word Dravidian may have been used to identify people living in India close to the sea. Since southern parts of India is surrounded by sea on three sides, the word may been used predominantly to identify the inhabitants of these areas.

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:p2, 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 in 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[4] lists for the Sanskrit word draviḍa a meaning of "collective Name for 5 peoples, viz. the Āndhras, Karṇāṭakas, Gurjaras, Tailaṅgas, and Mahārāṣṭras".

Origins of Dravidian peoples

Main articles: Proto-Dravidian, Dravidian homeland, Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, and Elamo-Dravidian languages

Kamil V. Zvelebil has suggested that proto-Dravidian was part of a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family[5]. However, S.A. Starostin has disputed the existence of an Elamo-Dravidian language family.

According to a view put forward by geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in the book The History and Geography of Human Genes, the Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Austro-Asiatic people, and followed by Indo-European-speaking migrants sometime later. The original inhabitants may be identified with the speakers of the Munda languages, which are unrelated to either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages. However, the Munda languages, as a subgroup of the larger Austro-Asiatic language family, are presumed to have arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the east, possibly from the area that is now southwestern China, so any genetic similarity between the present-day speakers of the Munda languages and the "original inhabitants" of India is likely to be due to assimilation of the natives by Southeast Asian immigrants speaking a proto-Munda language.

Some linguists believe that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before a series of Indo-Aryan migrations. In this view, the early Indus Valley civilization (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) is often identified as having been Dravidian. [6]. Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researches such as Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilization.

Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Dravidians moved into an already Indo-Aryan speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed (see Bryant 2001: chapter 5)}

This theory might be supported if a higher antiquity of the Indo-Aryan languages could be established. However, since this theory is mainly a linguistic hypothesis, the Dravidian influence on Aryan languages need not necessarily be equated to a movement of populations.

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.[7]

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.[8]

Zvelebil remarks[9] that "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, syntax and vocabulary".

Dravidian Languages

Main article: Dravidian languages

The best-known Dravidian languages are Telugu (తెలుగు), Tamil (தமிழ்),Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Malayalam (മലയാളം), and Tulu (ತುಳು).

There are three subgroups within the Dravidian linguistic family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and South Dravidian, matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.

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 Asian 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.[10]

Concept of the Dravidian people

The term Dravidian is taken from the Sanskrit term Dravida, historically referring to Tamil.[11] It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication that established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world. Over seventy-three languages are presently listed as Dravidian.[12] Further, the languages are spread out and cover parts of India, south eastern Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.[13] Robert Caldwell was a Catholic missionary and used the term Dravidian to refer to the people of South India.[14]

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.[15]

The circumstances of the advent of Dravidian speakers in India are shrouded in mystery. There are vague linguistic and cultural ties with the Urals, with the Mediterranean area, and with Iran. It is possible that a Dravidian-speaking people that can be described as dolichocephalic (longheaded from front to back) Mediterraneans mixed with brachycephalic (short-headed from front to back) Armenoids and established themselves in northwestern India during the 4th millennium BC. Along their route, these immigrants may have possibly come into an intimate, prolonged contact with the Ural-Altaic speakers, thus explaining the striking affinities between the Dravidian and Ural-Altaic language groups. Between 2000 and 1500 BC, there was a fairly constant movement of Dravidian speakers from the northwest to the southeast of India, and about 1500 BC three distinct dialect groups probably existed: Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, and Proto-South Dravidian.[16]

When Hiouen Tsang (Hsuan-Tsang or Xuanzang) traveled in India he described two kingdoms, one Dravida (with its capital as Kanchipura) and the other Malakuta.[17] Scholars believe that Dravida country was of the Pallavas although are confused of Malakuta.[17] Some believe it was of the Cholas, others that it was a Malaya kingdom.[17]

As an aside, mention must be made of a fact that does not lie in the realm of what could be considered Conventional History. Dravidian is an English word which comes from Dravida just as Aryan comes from Arya. Now pre-historic traditions from both Dravida and Arya make mention of Dravida being the original homeland of both the Dravidians and the Aryans of India. Here, however Dravidians are a people on the basis of region and not race, and similarly Aryans are a people on the basis of practiced customs and not race. Both the Dravidian legends and Aryan legends attribute their origins to this sunken continent, possibly Kumari Kandam.[18][19]

Dravidian peoples:

Genetic classifications

Main article: Indian genetic studies

The genetic views on race differ in their classification of Dravidians. According to population geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, based on work done in the 1980s, Indians are genetically Caucasian, but Lewontin rejects the label Caucasian. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians.[20] Dr. Eduardas Valaitis, in 2006, found that India is genetically closest to East and Southeast Asians with about 15% more genetic similarity than to Europeans; he also found that India could be considered very distinct from other regions.[21] Genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn considered in the 1960s that the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations.[22][20] Others, such as Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, claim South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians.[23][24][25] Recent genetic results conclude, that Dravidian peoples share more similarities with East Asian peoples rather than West- or Central-Asian.

Studies of the distribution of alleles on the Y chromosome,[1][26] microsatellite DNA,[2] and mitochondrial DNA[3] in India have cast overwhelming doubt for a biological Dravidian "race" distinct from non-Dravidians in the Indian subcontinent, however the north-western Indian region is significantly different, due to successive migrations in that area. This doubtfulness on the concept of a distinct Dravidian race applies to both paternal and maternal descent; however, it does not preclude the possibility of distinctive South Indian ancestries associated with Dravidian languages.[27]

Political ramification

India

Main articles: Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies) and Dravidian movement

Some Indians believe that the British Raj exaggerated differences between northern and southern Indians beyond linguistic differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of Aryan or Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India. It is now widely believed that the British used this only as their "Divide and rule" blueprint for taking over the region.[28]The British also used this "theory" of perceived differences between so-called "Aryans" and "Dravidians" to propagate racist beliefs concerning the inherent "inferiority" of the Dravidians when compared to the "Aryans", thus justifying their colonization of South Asia (since the British identified themselves as "Aryans").[29]

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the current ethnic conflict and the civil war are further complicated by the view that the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils belong to two different ethnic and linguistic families. Sinhalese (like Dhivehi) is an Indo-Aryan language that exists in the southern part of South Asia.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sahoo, Sanghamitra; Anamika Singh, G. Himabindu, Jheelam Banerjee, T. Sitalaximi, Sonali Gaikwad, R. Trivedi, Phillip Endicott, Toomas Kivisild, Mait Metspalu, Richard Villems and V. K. Kashyap (Jan 2006). "A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: Evaluating demic diffusion scenarios". Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of United States of America 103 (4): 843–8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0507714103. PMID 16415161. PMC: 1347984. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/103/4/843. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sengupta, S.; et al. (Feb 2006). "Polarity and temporality of high-resolution y-chromosome distributions in India identify both indigenous and exogenous expansions and reveal minor genetic influence of Central Asian pastoralists.". Am J Hum Genet. 78 (2): 201–21. doi:10.1086/499411. PMID 16400607. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sharma, S.; Saha A, Rai E, Bhat A, Bamezai R. (2005). "Human mtDNA hypervariable regions, HVR I and II, hint at deep common maternal founder and subsequent maternal gene flow in Indian population groups.". J Hum Genet. 50 (10): 497–506. doi:10.1007/s10038-005-0284-2. PMID 16205836. 
  4. ↑ (German) Sanskrit, Tamil and Pahlavi Dictionaries
  5. ↑ Kamil V. 1974. "Dravidian and Elamite - A Real Break-Through?", Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.3 (July-Sept.): 384-5.
  6. ↑ Stone celts in Harappa
  7. ↑ (Mallory 1989)
  8. ↑ Thomason & Kaufman (1988:141–144)
  9. ↑ Dravidian languages - Britannica Online Encyclopedia
  10. ↑ Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003) The Dravidian Languages Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0-521-77111-0 at p. 40-41.
  11. ↑ Annamalai, E. (2003-11-07). "Facts about Dravidian languages". Retrieved on 2008-09-17.
  12. ↑ Ethnologue study
  13. ↑ Dravidian language family study
  14. ↑ P. 678 Dancing With Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism, By Himalayan Academy, Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Master Subramuniya.
  15. ↑ "Dravidian languages." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 5 June 2008
  16. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 P. 125 Ancient Jaffna By M. C. Rasanayagam.
  18. ↑ Matysa Purana
  19. ↑ Kumari Kandam
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Robert Jurmain, Lynn Kilgore, Wenda Trevathan, and Harry Nelson. Introduction to Physical Anthropology. 9th ed. (Canada: Thompson Learning, 2003)
  21. ↑ Valaitis, E., Martin, L. DNA Tribes. 2006. January 22, 2007. [1]
  22. ↑ Garn SM. Coon. On the Number of Races of Mankind. In Garn S, editor. Readings on race. Springfield C.C. Thomas.
  23. ↑ Jorde LB, Wooding SP (Nov 2004). "Genetic variation, classification and 'race'". Nature genetics 36 (11 Suppl): S28–33. doi:10.1038/ng1435. PMID 15508000. http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html. 
  24. ↑ Bamshad MJ, Wooding S, Watkins WS, Ostler CT, Batzer MA, Jorde LB (Mar 2003). "Human population genetic structure and inference of group membership". Am J Hum Genet. 72 (3): 578–89. doi:10.1086/368061. PMID 12557124. 
  25. ↑ Rosenberg NA, Pritchard JK, Weber JL, et al (Dec 2002). "Genetic structure of human populations". Science 298 (5602): 2381–5. doi:10.1126/science.1078311. PMID 12493913. 
  26. ↑ Sengupta S, Zhivotovsky LA, King R, et al (Feb 2006). "Polarity and temporality of high-resolution y-chromosome distributions in India identify both indigenous and exogenous expansions and reveal minor genetic influence of Central Asian pastoralists". Am J Hum Genet. 78 (2): 202–21. doi:10.1086/499411. PMID 16400607. 
    A prehistory of Indian Y chromosomes: evaluating demic diffusion scenarios
  27. ↑ Sitalaximi T, Trivedi R, Kashyap VK (Oct 2003). "Microsatellite diversity among three endogamous Tamil populations suggests their origin from a separate Dravidian genetic pool". Human biology; an international record of research 75 (5): 673–85. PMID 14763604. 
  28. ↑ Nelson, Robin (2003) (in English). Antinomies of Modernity: Essays on Race, Orient, Nation. Duke University Press. pp. 37-38. ISBN 0822330466. 
  29. ↑ van der Veer, Peter (in English). Conversion to modernities: The Globalization of Christianity. Routledge (UK). pp. 130. ISBN 0415912733. 

References

External links