Proto-Dravidian is the proto-language of the Dravidian languages. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-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.
As a proto-language, Proto-Dravidian has been reconstructed and is not itself found in the historical record. Due to a dearth of comparative linguistic research in Dravidian studies, not many details as to the grammar, epoch, or location of Proto-Dravidian are known.[1]
Contents |
Vowels: Proto-Dravidian contrasted between five short and long vowels: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, *ū, *e, *ē, *o, *ō. The sequences *ai and *au are treated as *ay and *av (or *aw)[2]
Consonants: Proto-Dravidian is reconstructible with the following consonantal phonemes (Subrahmanyam 1983:p40, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurthi 2003):
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | *m | *n | *ṉ | *ṇ | *ñ | (*ṅ) | |
| Plosive | *p | *t | *ṯ | *ṭ | *c | *k | |
| Fricative | *ḻ (*ṛ, *r̤) | (*h) | |||||
| Flap | *r | ||||||
| Approximant | *v | *l | *ḷ | *y |
The alveolar stop *ṯ in many daughter languages developed into an alveolar trill /r/. The stop sound is retained in Kota and Toda (Subrahmanyam 1983). Malayalam still retains the original (alveolar) stop sound in gemination. (ibid). In Old Tamil it took the enunciative vowel like the other stops. In other words, *ṯ (or *ṟ) did not occur word-finally without the enunciative vowel (ibid).
Velar nasal *ṅ occurred 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 Bh. Krishnamurthi to account for the Old Tamil Aytam (Āytam) and other Dravidian comparative phonological phenomena (Krishnamurthi 2003).
The Dravidian languages have been found mainly in South India since the start of the Christian era. Speculations regarding the original homeland being a mythical sunken continent called Kumari Kandam are largely discredited in academic circles (the geographically isolated language Brahui, spoken in Baluchistan, Pakistan – what was once part of Indus Valley – is usually considered to be the result of a migration in the Middle Ages).
Iravatham Mahadevan, who with his knowledge of both Tamil and Sanskrit, spent many decades studying the IVC script said in an interview in 1998 that IVC script is undeciphered. According to Michael Witzel, the well-known Indologist, there are not many Dravidian loan words in the earliest stratum of Vedas, even though the Dravidian influence quickly increases in the post-Rigvedic period. In the essay "Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan", Prof. Witzel says, "As we can no longer reckon with Dravidian influence on the early RV, this means that the language of the pre-Rigvedic Indus civilization, at least in the Panjab, was of (Para-) Austro-Asiatic nature."
T. Burrow (1984). Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198643265. http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/burrow/index.html. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||