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The Dravidian languages are a language family spoken by more than 215 million people, mainly in southern India and northern Sri Lanka, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant immigrant communities outside South Asia in Mauritius, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Britain, Australia, France, Canada, Germany and the United States.
Tamil is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is the official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, as well as two sovereign nations, Singapore and Sri Lanka. In India, it is also the official language of the Union Territory of Puducherry. Tamil is spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also spoken by the Tamil diaspora found in many countries, including Malaysia, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia. Tamil is also natively spoken by Sri Lankan Moors.
Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India spoken by nearly 2.88% of Indians. Malayalam has official language status in the state of Kerala and in the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé) and is spoken by 34 million people worldwide. Malayalam is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the neighbouring states; with significant number of speakers in the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari, and Coimbatore, Tenkasi, Theni districts of Tamil Nadu and Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka. Due to Malayali expatriates in the Persian Gulf, the language is also widely spoken in the Gulf countries.
The Brahmic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia, including Japan in the form of Siddhaṃ. They have descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India and are used by various languages in several language families in South, East and Southeast Asia: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, Austroasiatic, Austronesian and Tai. They were also the source of the dictionary order (gojūon) of Japanese kana.
The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar or simply Tamils, are a Dravidian ethno-linguistic group who trace their ancestry to the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Union territory of Puducherry or to Sri Lanka. Tamils constitute 5.9% of the population in India, 15% in Sri Lanka, 6% in Mauritius, 7% in Malaysia and 5% in Singapore. Tamils, with a population of around 76 million and with a documented history stretching back over 2,000 years, are one of the largest and oldest extant ethnolinguistic groups in the modern world.
The Tamil script is an abugida script that is used by Tamils and Tamil speakers in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and elsewhere to write the Tamil language. Certain minority languages such as Saurashtra, Badaga, Irula and Paniya are also written in the Tamil script.
The Grantha script is a South Indian script, found particularly in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Originating from the Pallava script, the Grantha script is related to the Tamil and the Vatteluttu scripts. The modern Malayalam script of Kerala is a direct descendant of the Grantha script. The Southeast Asian and Indonesian scripts such as Thai and Javanese respectively, as well as South Asian Tigalari and Sinhala scripts are derived or closely related to the Grantha through the early Pallava script. The Pallava script or Pallava Grantha, emerged in the 4th century CE and was used until the 7th century CE, in India. This early Grantha script was used to write Sanskrit texts, inscriptions on copper plates and stones of Hindu temples and monasteries. It was also used for classical Manipravalam – a language that is a blend of Sanskrit and Tamil. From it evolved Middle Grantha by the 7th century, and Transitional Grantha by about the 8th century, which remained in use until about the 14th century. Modern Grantha has been in use since the 14th century and into the modern era, to write classical texts in Sanskrit and Dravidian languages. It is also used to chant hymns and in traditional Vedic schools.
The Pallava dynasty was an Indian dynasty that existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a portion of southern India. They gained prominence after the eclipse of the Satavahana dynasty, whom the Pallavas served as feudatories.
The Indus script is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilization. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constituted a script used to record a language, or even symbolise a writing system. In spite of many attempts, the 'script' has not yet been deciphered, but efforts are ongoing. There is no known bilingual inscription to help decipher the script, and the script shows no significant changes over time. However, some of the syntax varies depending upon location.
Manipravalam is a macaronic language found in some manuscripts of South India. It is a hybrid language, typically written in the Grantha script, which combines Sanskrit lexicon and Tamil morpho-syntax. According to language scholars Giovanni Ciotti and Marco Franceschini, the blending of Tamil and Sanskrit is evidenced in manuscripts and their colophons over a long period of time, and this ultimately may have contributed to the emergence of Manipravalam.
The languages of India are divided into various language families, of which the Indo-Aryan and the are the most widely spoken. There are also many languages belonging to unrelated language families such as Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan, spoken by smaller groups. Linguistic records begin with the appearance of the Brāhmī script from about the 3rd century BCE.
Tamilakam refers to the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Traditional accounts and Tolkāppiyam referred these territories as a single cultural area, where Tamil was the natural language and culture of all people. The ancient Tamil country was divided into kingdoms. The best known among them were the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyans and Pallavas. During the Sangam period, Tamil culture began to spread outside Tamilakam. Ancient Tamil settlements were also found in Sri Lanka and the Maldives (Giravarus).
Vatteluttu was an abugida of South India and Sri Lanka used for writing the Tamil and Malayalam languages.
Tamil-Brahmi also known as Tamili or Damili is a variant of the Brahmi script used to write inscriptions in the early form of the Old Tamil language. The Tamil-Brahmi script has been paleographically and stratigraphically dated between 3rd century BCE and 1st century CE, and it constitutes the earliest known writing system evidenced in many parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found on cave entrances, stone beds, potsherds, jar burials, coins, seals, and rings.
The Pallava script or Pallava Grantha, is a Brahmic script, named after the Pallava dynasty of Southern India, attested since the 4th century AD. In India, Pallava script evolved into the Grantha script. Pallava spread to Southeast Asia and evolved into local scripts such as Balinese, Javanese, Kawi, Baybayin, Mon, Burmese, Khmer, Lanna, Thai, Lao, and the New Tai Lue alphabet.
The earliest undisputed deciphered epigraphy found in India are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BCE, written in very early forms of middle-Indo-Aryan languages in the Brahmi script. Samanam inscriptions in South India written in Tamil-Brahmi, Bhattiprolu alphabet and the Kadamba alphabet are also of relatively early date. Some Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions discovered at Keeladi, Palani, Erode, and Adichanallur, have been claimed to be as ancient as 6th century BCE, but so far only the claimed pre-Ashokan inscriptions at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka have been published in an internationally recognised academic journal.
The Bhattiprolu script is a variant of the Brahmi script which has been found in old inscriptions at Bhattiprolu, a small village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, South India. It is located in the fertile Krishna river delta and the estuary region where the river meets the Bay of Bengal.
The Telugu-Kannada alphabet is a writing system used in southern India. Despite, some differences, the scripts used for the Telugu and Kannada languages remain quite similar.
Nandinagari is a Brahmic script derived from Nāgarī script which appeared in the 7th century AD. This script and its variants were used in the central Deccan region and south India, and an abundance of Sanskrit manuscripts in Nandinagari have been discovered but remain untransliterated. Some of the discovered manuscripts of Madhvacharya of the Dvaita Vedanta school of Hinduism are in Nandinagari script.
The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil, which is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic.
References
- ↑ Datta, Amaresh (2006). The Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature (Volume Two) (Devraj To Jyoti), Volume 2. Sahitya Akademi. p. 1720.
- ↑ P. Visalakshy (2003). The grantha script. Dravidian Linguistics Association. p. 65.
- ↑ Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju (2003). The Dravidian languages . Cambridge University Press. pp. 85. ISBN 978-0-521-77111-5.
- ↑ Rubinstein, Raechelle (2000). Beyond the realm of the senses: the Balinese ritual of kakawin composition. KITLV Press. p. 44.
- ↑ Zvelebil, Kamil (1973). The smile of Murugan on Tamil literature of South India. BRILL. p. 34.
- ↑ Cuppiramaṇiyan̲, Ca. Vē (1982). Studies in Tamilology. Tamil Patippakam.
- ↑ Blackburn, Stuart H. (2006). Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India. Orient Blackswan. p. 61.