Proto-Dravidian is the

linguistic reconstruction Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction: * Internal reconstruction uses irregularities in a single language to ...

of the common ancestor of the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, and

Proto-South Dravidian Proto-South Dravidian is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the south Dravidian languages. Its descendants include Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu, Badaga, Kodava, Irula, Kota and Toda. It has been estimated that Proto ...

, although the date of diversification is still debated.

History

As a

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

, Proto-Dravidian is not itself attested in historical records. Its modern conception is based solely on

reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

. It is suggested that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium BCE, and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd-millennium BCE. The origin and territory of the Proto-Dravidian speakers is uncertain, but some suggestions have been made based on the reconstructed Proto-Dravidian vocabulary. The reconstruction has been done on the basis of cognate words present in the different branches ( Northern,

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

and Southern) of the Dravidian language family. According to , the botanical vocabulary of Proto-Dravidian is characteristic of the

dry deciduous forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

s of central and peninsular India. For the Southern Dravidians, this region extends from Saurashtra and

Central India Central India is a loosely defined geographical region of India. There is no clear official definition and various ones may be used. One common definition consists of the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which are included in alm ...

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...

. It thus represents the general area in which the Southern Dravidians were living before the separation of branches. According to

Franklin Southworth Franklin C. Southworth (born 1929) is an American linguist and Professor Emeritus of South Asian linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private r ...

(2005), the Proto-Dravidian vocabulary is characteristic of a rural economy based on agriculture, animal husbandry and hunting. However, there are some indications of a society more complex than a rural one: * Words for an upper storey and

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

Metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

* Trade * Payment of dues (possibly taxes or contributions to religious ceremonies) * Social stratification This evidence is not sufficient to determine with certainty the territory of the Proto-Dravidians. These characteristics can be accommodated within multiple contemporary cultures, including: * 2nd and 3rd millennium BCE Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures of

Elam Elam (; Linear Elamite: ''hatamti''; Cuneiform Elamite: ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ; he, עֵילָם ''ʿēlām''; peo, 𐎢𐎺𐎩 ''hūja'') was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretc ...

and

Mehrgarh Mehrgarh (; ur, ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated ) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Ka ...

and present-day western Rajasthan,

Deccan The large Deccan Plateau in southern India is located between the Western Ghats and the Eastern Ghats, and is loosely defined as the peninsular region between these ranges that is south of the Narmada river. To the north, it is bounded by the ...

and other parts of the peninsula. * Early

Indus Valley civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...

sites in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and later ones in the Saurashtra (Sorath) area of present-day

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. *

Asko Parpola Asko Parpola (born 12 July 1941, in Forssa) is a Finnish Indologist, current professor emeritus of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in Sindhology, specifically the study of the Indus script. Biography Parpola i ...

identifies Proto-Dravidians with the

Indus Valley civilization The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900&n ...

(IVC) and the

Meluhha or ( sux, ) is the Sumerian language, Sumerian name of a prominent trading partner of Sumer during the Middle Bronze Age. Its identification remains an open question, but most scholars associate it with the Indus Valley civilisation. Etymolo ...

people mentioned in

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...

ian records, and has suggested that the word "Meluhha" derives from the Dravidian words ''mel(u)-akam'' ("highland country, high abode"). *

Loan words A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...

identified in Sumerian such as the words for

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is ...

and

sesame Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus ''Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cu ...

are considered to be derived from Proto-Dravidian and spread from IVC to

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

due to trade.

Phonology

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'').

Consonants

Proto-Dravidian has been reconstructed as having the following consonant phonemes: The alveolar stop ''*ṯ'' developed into an alveolar trill in many daughter languages. The stop sound is retained in Kota and Toda.

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

and Sri Lankan Tamil still retains the original (alveolar) stop sound in gemination (''ibid'') and after a nasal. In Old Tamil it took the enunciative vowel ''-u'' like the other stops. In other words, ''*ṯ'' (or ''*ṟ'') did not occur word-finally without the enunciative vowel. 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 because the original sequence ''*ṅk'' was simplified to ''*ṅ'' or ''*ṅṅ''. The glottal fricative ''*h'' has been proposed by to account for the Old Tamil Aytam (''Āytam'') and other Dravidian comparative phonological phenomena. The Northern Dravidian languages Kurukh, Malto and Brahui cannot easily be derived from the traditional Proto-Dravidian phonological system. proposes that they branched off from an earlier stage of Proto-Dravidian than the conventional reconstruction, which would apply only to the other languages. He suggests reconstructing a richer system of dorsal stop consonants:

Numerals

Vocabulary

Crop plants

Below are some crop plants that have been found in the Southern Neolithic complex of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

and

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

, along with their Proto-Dravidian or Proto-South Dravidian reconstructions by . In some cases, the proto-form glosses differ from the species identified from archaeological sites. For example, the two Southern Neolithic staple grasses ''

Brachiaria ''Brachiaria'', or signalgrass, is a genus of plants in the grass family native to tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, Australia, southern Europe, the Americas, and various islands.Setaria verticillata ''Setaria verticillata'' is a species of grass known by the common names hooked bristlegrass, rough bristle-grass and bristly foxtail. It is native to Europe, but it is known on most continents as an introduced species and often a noxious weed. I ...

'' respectively correspond to the reconstructed Proto-Dravidian forms for ''

Sorghum vulgare ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a grass species cultivated for its grain, which is used for food for humans, animal feed, and ethanol produc ...

'' and ''

Setaria italica Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidenc ...

'' as early Dravidian speakers shifted to

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

species that were later introduced to South India.

Basic vocabulary

Basic vocabulary of Proto-Dravidian selected from :

References

Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* {{Tamil language * Dravidian Pre-Indo-Europeans