Dravidian languages (Dravidian languages) - a family of languages in the territory of the South Asian (Indian) subcontinent . Distributed mainly in India , especially in its southern part, as well as in Pakistan , southern Afghanistan , eastern Iran (the language of Brahui ), partly in Sri Lanka , countries of Southeast Asia , the islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and in South Africa .
| Dravidian languages | |
|---|---|
| Taxon | family |
| Status | universally recognized |
| Area | South and Central India , Balochistan |
| Number of carriers | 200+ million |
| Classification | |
| Category | Languages of Eurasia |
| Nostratic macrofamily (hypothesis) | |
| Composition | |
| Gondwana, northeast, northwest, central, southwest, southeast, south | |
| Separation time | IV millennium BC e. |
| Language group codes | |
| GOST 7.75–97 | dram 185 |
| ISO 639-2 | dra |
| ISO 639-5 | dra |
The total number of speakers of 85 Dravidian languages [1] exceeds 200 million people, over 95% of them use four languages: Telugu , Tamil , Kannada and Malayalam .
Content
Classification
Classification according to M. S. Andronov:
- northwest group
- Browi (Bragui, Brahui)
- northeast group
- kurukh
- malto
- central group
- gadaba
- cola
- nike
- parjis
- gondwana group
- gondi
- conda
- kuwi
- kui
- manda
- pengo
- southeast group
- Telugu
- southwest group
- Tulu
- south group
- kannara or kannada
- kodgu
- cat
- malayalam
- Tamil
- then yes
Some Dravidian languages (Yerukala, Kaikadi, Kurumba, Bellari, Korag, etc.) are poorly studied, and their belonging to one or another group is not defined. The total number of speakers of Dravidian languages currently exceeds 200 million people, and more than 90% of this number falls on the “Big Dravidian Four” - Telugu , Tamil , Malayalam and Kannada languages , which have more than a thousand-year written and literary traditions (the earliest Tamil monuments date back to the 2nd - 1st centuries BC ) and the status of the official languages of the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh , Tamil Nadu , Kerala and Karnataka, respectively.
History
In ancient times, Dravidian-speaking tribes were widespread in the territory from the Persian ( Elam ) to the Bay of Bengal , in the north reaching the southwestern regions of Central Asia [2] . Moreover, their ancestral home was the territory of Iran [3] . The Dravidian also includes the Elamite language (the Browi seems to be an intermediate link between the Elamic and the rest of the Dravidian) and, with a slightly lower degree of certainty (due to the worse state of deciphering the preserved monuments), the language of the “proto-Indian” cultures of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the valley Indus (see Indus Valley Writing ). According to the research of Georgy Starostin , the Elamite language is not closely related to the Dravidian languages, but, perhaps, is a link between the Nostratic and Afrasian languages [4] . However, Starostin’s conclusions about the position of the Elamian language in relation to other Dravidian languages, as well as the Dravidian language family to other Eurasian language families, are considered by most comparativists to be little convincing and are not shared .
Writing
The writing mainly uses different versions of Indian writing .
Kinship with other families
Dravidian languages are not closely related to the bulk of the languages of northern India ( Hindi , Bengali , Punjabi , etc.). These latter belong to the Indo-European family and entered the territory of India at a relatively late time, probably in the 2nd millennium BC. e.
Many speculations have been put forward that native speakers of Dravidian languages were the original inhabitants of India, creators of the Indus Valley civilization , who also developed the mythological system that formed the basis of Hinduism , it is also likely that Dravidian languages were distributed throughout Hindustan and a significant extent of the Iranian Highlands influence on the proto-Indo-European language. However, most hypotheses in this area are currently the subject of scientific debate. In any case, the most likely scenario is that the Dravids appeared on the territory of the Indian subcontinent before the Indo-Europeans, but later native speakers of the Austro-Asian languages who belonged to the Australoid race, to whom the Indians, and especially the Dravids , owe the prevalence of dark skin color among them.
Of the hypotheses about the external genetic connections of Dravidian languages, the most convincing hypothesis put forward in the 19th century by R. Caldwell is their hypothesis about their connection with the Uralic languages .
In accordance with the nostratic hypothesis of the distant kinship between the language families of Eurasia, the Dravidian languages are included in the Nostratic macro-family together with the Indo-European , Afrasian , Kartvelian , Uralic and Altai languages . This position, however, has been criticized by various experts, it is considered highly controversial and its conclusions are not accepted by many comparativists who consider the theory of Nostratic languages either as, in the worst case, completely erroneous, or as, in the best case, simply unconvincing [5] [6 ] ] .
Notes
- ↑ Ethnologue report for Dravidian . Date of treatment January 29, 2013. Archived February 1, 2013.
- ↑ IRAN AND MIDDLE ASIA IN ANCIENT
- ↑ Nostratic languages
- ↑ ON THE GENETIC AFFILIATION OF THE ELAMITE LANGUAGE
- ↑ George Starostin. Nostratic . Oxford Bibliographies . Oxford University Press (October 29, 2013). doi : 10.1093 / OBO / 9780199772810-0156 . - “Nevertheless, this evidence is also considered by many specialists as insufficient to satisfy the criteria generally required for demonstrating genetic relationship, and the theory remains highly controversial among mainstream historical linguists, who tend to view it as, at worst, completely invalid or, at best, inconclusive. ”. Archived on September 13, 2015.
- ↑ Neroznak V.P. Prayazyk: reconstruction or reality? // Comparative historical study of languages of different families: Theory of linguistic reconstruction / Ed. ed. N.Z. Gadzhieva . - M .: Nauka, 1988 .-- S. 36-38. - ISBN 5-02-010869-3 .
Literature
- Andronov M.S. Dravidian languages. M., 1965 .-- 124 s.
- Andronov M.S. Dravidian languages. - In the book: Languages of Asia and Africa, vol. II. M., 1978
- Andronov M.S. Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages. M., 1978
- Gurov N.V. Dravidian languages // Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary . - M .: SE, 1990 .-- S. 139-140 .
- Krishnamurti, B., The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-77111-0
Links
- Dravidian languages - an article from the encyclopedia "Around the World"
- Dravidian languages. Scheme
- The history of the study of Dravidian literature in Russia