Dravidian languages: References & Edit History
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Additional Reading
General works
Surveys of the field of comparative Dravidian include Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, The Dravidian Languages (2003); and Kamil V. Zvelebil, Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction (1990). Other works include Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Comparative Dravidian Linguistics: Current Perspectives (2001); and Robert Caldwell, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages, 3rd ed., rev. and ed. by J.L. Wyatt and T. Ramakrishna Pillai (1913, reprinted 1998).
A rich collection of stimulating essays about India as a linguistic area are in Murray B. Emeneau, Language and Linguistic Area (1980). Veneeta Z. Acson and Richard L. Leed (eds.), For Gordon H. Fairbanks, (1985), is a festschrift on Indian languages. A comprehensive bibliography of all aspects of Dravidian languages and linguistics is L.S. Ramaiah, General and Comparative Dravidian Languages and Linguistics (1994).
Phonology and morphology
A monumental work dealing with cognates from over 24 languages and dialects, and a necessary tool for comparative phonology, is T. Burrow and Murray B. Emeneau, A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1984). Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, Telugu Verbal Bases: A Comparative and Descriptive Study (1961, reprinted 1972), is the first comprehensive account of comparative Dravidian phonology and derivational morphology of verbal bases in Dravidian from the standpoint of Telugu. Comparative studies of morphology include P.S. Subrahmanyam, Dravidian Verb Morphology: A Comparative Study (1971); and P.S. Subrahmanyam, Dravidian Comparative Phonology (1983). The first serious attempt at the reconstruction of Proto-Dravidian morpho-syntactic phenomena is Sanford B. Steever, Analysis to Synthesis (1993).
Historical studies
A summary of the theories about the origin and identification of the Dravidian people is Andrée F. Sjoberg (ed.), Symposium on Dravidian Civilization, chapter 1, “Who Are the Dravidians?”, 1–26 (1971). Lucid essays on aspects of prehistoric contact between Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are in Madhav M. Deshpande and Peter Edwin Hook (eds.), Aryan and Non-Aryan in India (1979).
Article Contributors
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- Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
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Article History
| Type | Description | Contributor | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Updated state names and spellings. | Aug 31, 2026 | ||
| Modified link of Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family. | Dec 13, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: International Advanced Research Journal in Science, Engineering and Technology - Bio-Linguistic Studies on the South Indian Dravidian Language Family and Population (PDF). | Jul 11, 2025 | ||
| Clarified that the Rigveda was composed, not written down, c. 1500 BCE and added cross-references. | May 29, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: Nature - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Ancestral Dravidian languages in Indus Civilization: ultraconserved Dravidian tooth-word reveals deep linguistic ancestry and supports genetics. | Jan 31, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family. | Dec 20, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: IndiaNetzone - Dravidian Language. | Sep 26, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology - New Linguistic Analysis Finds That Dravidian Language Family Is Approximately 4,500 Years Old. | Aug 16, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: The Royal Society Publishing - Royal Society Open Science - A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family. | Apr 09, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: University of California, Riverside - The Main Dravidian Languages. | Feb 02, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: The Royal Society - A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family. | Mar 14, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Academia - Morphosyntax of Dravidian Languages (PDF). | Sep 07, 2022 | ||
| Clarified that a genetic connection to a proposed Ural-Altaic language family is not widely accepted among scholars. | Aug 11, 2020 | ||
| Clarified that Tamil is spoken in northern Sri Lanka. | Apr 15, 2020 | ||
| Deleted table. | Jun 22, 2018 | ||
| Add new Web site: Omniglot - Language family: Dravidian. | Nov 09, 2017 | ||
| Maps and tables added. | Dec 05, 2008 | ||
| New bibliography added. | Dec 05, 2008 | ||
| New article added. | Dec 05, 2008 | ||
| Article added to new online database. | Oct 19, 1998 |