Why do reconstructed Proto-Dravidian words have an asterisk before them?

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Thematic map of South Asia showing the distribution of Dravidian languages, with different regions shaded or marked to indicate where specific Dravidian languages and subgroups are spoken. Most languages are concentrated in southern and central India, with some northern outliers in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and eastern India. A key identifies the languages by number and subgroup, and striped areas indicate regions where several subgroups overlap. — Dravidian languages Distribution of Dravidian languages.

In the study of Dravidian languages, an asterisk () placed before a word indicates that the form is a reconstruction*.12

These reconstructed forms, such as those for Proto-Dravidian, are hypothetical linguistic forms derived through the systematic application of comparative linguistics. Because these ancestral languages were not recorded in writing, linguists use the comparative method to analyze phonological correspondences across daughter languages to postulate what the common parent language likely looked like.132

The asterisk serves as a standard convention to distinguish these theoretical, unattested forms from words that are directly documented in historical texts.34