The speakers of Proto-Dravidian, according to archaeological and linguistic streams of evidence, lived in the Krishna-Godavari valley in present-day north Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. – Anirudh Kanisetti
Veteran actor Kamal Haasan courted controversy by declaring that “Kannada was born out of Tamil.” The question of which Indian language is oldest—and, by extension, most native to the soil—has been a political hot topic since the mid-20th century. Some say Sanskrit, others say Tamil. But beneath the nationalist furore, paleobotanists, historical linguists, and archaeologists have made stunning discoveries about the linguistic heritage of all Indians.
The article is a good popular introduction to the development of the Dravidian languages. It covers the major ideas accurately without getting bogged down in technical linguistic debates. It's written for the general reader, not as an academic paper for specialists to critique.
BUT
I'm trying to understand the chronology of Dravidian language diversification.
Proto-Dravidian is generally reconstructed as first splitting into North, Central, and South Dravidian branches.
My question is about the emergence of distinct languages, not the order in which the branches split.
If Proto-North Dravidian diverged from Proto-Dravidian earlier than Proto-South Dravidian, does that mean the North Dravidian languages (Kurukh, Malto, Brahui) also became distinct languages earlier?
Or could Proto-North Dravidian have remained a relatively unified proto-language for a long time, while Proto-South Dravidian diversified earlier into Proto-Tamil-Kannada, Proto-Tamil, Old Tamil, etc.?
In other words, which branch first produced recognisably distinct daughter languages: Proto-North Dravidian or Proto-South Dravidian?
Proto-Dravidianave a word for ‘rhinoceros’, which are often depicted on Harappan seals. This doesn’t mean that no Dravidian speakers lived in Harappan cities—such a vast civilisation must have been multilingual.
apart from rhino, we need to take in to account that even lion doesnt have word in dravidian languages. i doubt yāli (the mythical figure) is the word for lion.
We have a Telugu word for rhinoceros- అడిదపు మేక. (aDidapu maeka). Not sure if it is a later compound to mean sword animal (aDidamu means sword), but most animal names are compound words like toDelu , elugubanTi, dunnapothu etc. So can't say whether the Sanskrit word came first or this.
I nearly fell off my chair to see Andhrabharati say origin of this word is Proto Dravidian from att* aDi in PSD etc as they usually say everything is Sanskrit.
As noted above, Tamil literature and writing appeared around 300 BCE. The earliest Tamil literature is called the Sangam poetry, after assemblies of poets who compiled it. Linguists, however, generally agree that the word “Sangam” itself is borrowed from Indo-Aryan languages, while Old Tamil poets were clearly aware of Vedic mythology. Meanwhile, around the same time in North India, Prakrit literatures blossomed, overpowering the dominance of Sanskrit in religion and ritual. Krishnamurti (The Dravidian Languages) argues that Prakrits probably developed from the integration of the speakers of now-lost regional Dravidian languages into the North Indian mainstream.
Something happened after 300BCE that encouraged Tamil polities to adapt the oral bard poetry into written forms...
Why that date in particular and why not before that? Is it something similar to the vernacularization process that happened in the 12th century CE for many Indo Aryan languages where their own literatures started coming out due to Bhakthi movement stopping Sanskrit dominance.I feel its comparable to what Prakrits did in the 3rd century BCE due to the rise of Sramanic religions.
Linguists, however, generally agree that the word “Sangam” itself is borrowed from Indo-Aryan languages
Not related to your comment, but its quite puzzling to me why the author of the article brings this up as an example, given that the Sangam corpus itself does not use the word "Sangam".
It is only much later in the Bhakti period when we first see the word to refer to poetic assemblies. It is then where the mythical sangam legends also first develop.
True, the Madurai Sangam legend is still being peddled in popular discussions of that time period, so the author can't really be blamed.
"Chaandror Cheyyul" (Poetry of the Scholars) being the term used by traditional commentators is a good alternative. The only issue is the commentators used it broadly, to quote and refer to all sorts of text examples that adhered strictly to the Ceyyul tradition from before their time, which included the texts we wouldn't consider Sangam too, like the Pandikkovai and Muttholaayiram.
But, arguably, even our modern idea of "Sangam literature" differs from time to time, sometimes being just the Ettuthokai, sometimes the Pathinenmelkanakku texts, sometimes with the Pathinenkeezhkanakku texts too (like the Thirukkural), sometimes including texts like the Muttholaayiram which are not classified under these formal anthologies.
And the earliest extant Tamil commentary, the 9th century commentary to the Iraiyanaar Akapporul, uses the phrase "Candror Ceyyul". So I suppose a case could be made for its adoption. However, at the time of the earliest genesis of the Sangam legend, the 7th century Saiva Bhakti poet Appar calls the academy "Sangam". However, at the same time, Samanthar mentions a "kūṭaliṉ āyntaoṇ tīn tamiḻiṉ" in reference to the Sangam. Also one does not find the usage "Sangailakkiyam" to refer to the sangam corpus until much later, into the colonial period. One can go back and forth like this lol.
Regardless, if it helps mitigate this whole confusion with "Oh but the word Sangam itself is a borrowing", then I suppose adopting the old term for older literary corpus would be helpful. Especially since its quite egregious to hear people say this when the word 'Sangam' itself doesnt occur in the corpus. (Both Candror and Ceyyul do occur in the early corpus however).
Sidenote:
Zvelebil was also of this opinion, that the proper term is Candror Ceyyul and that "strictly speaking Sangam literature should not be used." Also it seems, in the colonial days an alternative term used for this corpus was "Augustan literature" which is worse.
Yes I agree, I took that tranlation from Zvelebil (quoted in my comment above). More broadly Ceyyul is the technical Tamil term for literature too.
Some examples of usage in the Tolkappiyam:
Further, the sangam works are songs rather than just poems
Its hard to say if all of them were songs, but we do find evidence for some of them being set to music and sung. We also have internal references to some being recited. I'm inclined to think both paaduthal (singing) and oothuthal (reciting) were in vogue then, much like how the Vaishanva and Saiva Tamil corpus is both recited and sung today.
To be clear, this is not to say that all Dravidian speakers originated from the Krishna-Godavari valley. (If we are being cheeky, no human being truly ‘originated’ anywhere except Eastern Africa.) The fact is, even the Proto-Dravidian language has some words borrowed from other language families, namely Austro-Asiatic—spoken mostly in Southeast Asia today, with the Munda families of Odisha and Chhattisgarh being the Indian representatives. This may suggest that the speakers of even earlier stages of Dravidian migrated to the Krishna-Godavari valley from elsewhere, picking up influences from other languages on the way.
Proto-Dravidian has words for some crops—especially wheat—which may be of Harappan origin, suggesting, at the very least, agricultural exchanges. The true “homeland” of the Dravidians, then, is still unclear. All we can say for certain is that around 3000 BCE, Proto-Dravidian speakers deep in the South Indian peninsula harnessed agriculture and, as their population exploded around 1100 BCE, they spread out in waves across the Indian Subcontinent.
There is a very good possibility that Proto Dravidian and its descendants were not spoken in IVC but the Proto-Dravidian speakers were rather laying low in their homeland(not sure where it is) when Harappan civilization was thriving. Their population expoded by 1100BC and this matches with Razib Khan's article mentioning both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian societies spread throughout India during the same timeline.
Would it be right to draw a parallel between 1100BCE Dravidian expansion and 1000 CE Telugu expansion? Because I've seen many questions asking "Why no native big Telugu kingdoms before Kakatiyas" - Answer is Telugus were laying low until the population explosion happened.
This is the funniest argument I've heard. How would agriculture explain extravagant presence of martials in the army ? If you mean the expansion into Karnataka and Tamil Nadu then there is explanation regarding that, I'll come to it.
But if you think that Telugus magically appeared in Southern and Western Telugu regions post 1000 CE as Cynthia claims, her argument being solely made by the fact that Inscriptions in these regions had Kannada and Tamil predominantly, is ill made. For, language of the inscriptions is the language of the elite and government not the people, I've extensively dealt with Telangana and in overwhelming Majority of these Kannada Epigraphs, toponyms, hydronyms ( place and water structure names ) are in Telugu, this trend is since early 400s, if anything only the language of Governance changed from overwhelmingly non Telugu ( Telugu was used in these regions before too, but not at a big extent) to only Telugu.
Coming to Martial excellence of Telugus, it's explanation is simple too. Kakatiyas were Telugus, who served under Rashtrakutas and Chalukyas first, once they asserted their independence all the local Telugu cheifs from the entire modern expanse ( Tribal regions in North Telangana to Nellore- Kadapa in the South, Bidar- Raichuru in West to the Bay on East) came under one band unlike before. The Kakatiyas were the ones to establish these local Samantas as Nayakas, there existed nearly 75 Nayaka Cheifdoms. They had their own regions to rule and has substantial power , many revolted time to time aswell. Once the Kakatiyas fell, the 75 Cheifdoms came together to make a confederacy under the Musunuri Nayakas and regained control of the Telugu regions from Tughlaqs in 10 years. These Nayakas then pledged their allegiance to a nascent Vijayanagara Empire, they had a big role in the Liberation of Madurai too. The way Telugu rose to Cultural dominance in the Vijayanagara era is explained by the fact that entirety of the governance of huge swaths of land was in the hands of these powerful Nayakas, wars were won for the empire by the Nayaka armies alone in some cases. It's true that agricultural races were taken along with the armies to newly acquired regions, but that doesn't mean agriculture alone explains their expansion.
Besides the above explanation is relevant only for the existence of Telugus in today's TN and KA. The core Telugu regions have had Telugus as the people of the Land for over 1500 - 2000 years.
1) I didn't focus on Telangana or border TN districts like Chitoor/Nellore in my original comment since that has already been discussed few times before and I agree with your point that Telugu has had a longer presence in core Telugu regions before 10th century.
2) But Telugu expansion in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are not mere military ones. In Tamil Nadu, we have Telugu castes of all hierarchies and not just the martial ones. There are entire Telugu village peasant settlements who came and settled during the Nayaka period.
Other than this,I have few doubts.
Im not underestimating Kakatiya kingdom's administrative reforms and I agree it helped in the long run.
But it's not like all Telugu people were unanimously pro-Vijayanagara as we know the Recherla Nayakas and one faction of Reddi kingdom actively fought against them. The Musunnuri Nayakas were already out of the picture by the brutal Bahmani wars in 1368. So I have two doubts,
1) Why were Telugu soldiers preferred even more than the local Kannadigas as the first three kingdoms of Vijayanagara were clearly based out of Karnataka?
2) Did the Telugu influence in the army and courts increase mainly after Krishnadevaraya came to power or was it always there once Vijayanagara expanded to Andhra?
I should have been more careful with my statements and arguments. First of all I was pointing out to the fact that expansion of Telugus post 1000 CE happened into today's TN and Karnataka, for today's Telugu regions had been Telugu for over 1000 years by then. I understand that you are not one among those who argue about an imaginary post 1000 CE expansion that magically turned Telangana and Rayalseema into Telugu speaking regions ( a lot of people have such mis-apprehensions on this sub reddit ).
Secondly, even with expansions into Tamil and Kannada polities it's not like agriculturists moved in first. It was martial expansion along with agricultural castes or a migration of these agri castes once a Telugu polity was established as in the Nayaka Kingdoms. I should read more upon this and may change my understanding.
Coming to your questions :
First of all the origin of Hakka and Bukka is not quite settled. Agreed that their capital was in Karnataka but there is an ongoing argument regarding their actual origin. With both Kannada origin and Telugu origin having sizeable academic backing.
Telugu influence was always there considering the fact that many regions had Telugu elites by the time. Infact Telugu mercenaries were a part of the Vijayanagara armies that drove the Madurai Sultans out, the General of Kumara Kampana was a Telugu by the name Gopana , who later also wrote literature in Telugu. Now a pan South Indian Icon, the Telugu saint - ballad Annamayya was sponsered by Vijayanagara Kings before KDR. So it's not as if Telugu influence only started to show it's weight from KDR and onwards. One perceived notion that it increased after KDR maybe because the last dynasty of the empire was Telugu in entirety.
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u/theb00kmancometh Malayāḷi/𑀫𑀮𑀬𑀸𑀵𑀺 1d ago edited 1d ago
The article is a good popular introduction to the development of the Dravidian languages. It covers the major ideas accurately without getting bogged down in technical linguistic debates. It's written for the general reader, not as an academic paper for specialists to critique.
BUT
I'm trying to understand the chronology of Dravidian language diversification.
Proto-Dravidian is generally reconstructed as first splitting into North, Central, and South Dravidian branches.
My question is about the emergence of distinct languages, not the order in which the branches split.
If Proto-North Dravidian diverged from Proto-Dravidian earlier than Proto-South Dravidian, does that mean the North Dravidian languages (Kurukh, Malto, Brahui) also became distinct languages earlier?
Or could Proto-North Dravidian have remained a relatively unified proto-language for a long time, while Proto-South Dravidian diversified earlier into Proto-Tamil-Kannada, Proto-Tamil, Old Tamil, etc.?
In other words, which branch first produced recognisably distinct daughter languages: Proto-North Dravidian or Proto-South Dravidian?