A05114 Dravidian Languages

This lesson talks about various Indian languages, especially the languages that belong to the Dravidian family. While exploring the unique aspects of the Dravidian languages, the lesson also informs us about their classification.

India is one of the world’s largest democracies. Nearly 1652 languages are spoken in India. The languages spoken in India can be divided into 3 groups: those belonging to the Aryan family of languages; those that come under the Indo-European family; and the ones that belong to the Dravidian family. The Dravidian family of languages is India’s second largest family of languages and is spoken by nearly 25% of Indians. Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam are the most important Dravidian languages. The Linguistic Survey of India launched in 1898 and subsequent research by renowned linguists has contributed to the understanding of Dravidian languages. The efforts of Dr. Caldwell are worth mentioning in this regard. His book on a comparative study of the grammatical structures of the Dravidian languages in 1856 was a landmark in linguistic research pertaining to Dravidian languages.

Dr. Caldwell classifies Dravidian languages as cultivated and uncultivated languages while Dr. Sten Konow divides them as the Tamil Group and Telugu Group. Linguists, however, believe that a classification based on region would be more effective. Thus there are 3 groups of Dravidian languages: the southern Dravidian languages; the central Dravidian languages and the northern Dravidian languages. Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and 6 other languages belong to the southern group. Of these Tamil is the most ancient. It must also be mentioned that Tamil and Malayalam literature are among the world’s best. Praguyi, Malto and Kruk are the northern Dravidian languages. Telugu belongs to the central Dravidian language family. Rich in vocabulary and sweet in sound, Telugu is spoken by nearly 3.767 crore people.