Talk:Dravidian languages/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Bellari, Bellary and Belari

• Bellari language
• Bellary language
• brw

What's going on here? — Lfdder (talk) 21:24, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Belari [brw] in inland near Belari town where the three states meet, not on the coast. We don't have RS that this other Belari is a distinct language. (Not even sure about the first.) — kwami (talk) 23:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages, p. 343 says Bellari speakers near Udupi. Map on the previous page. — Lfdder (talk) 00:00, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Substrata in Dravidian itself?

The article mentions a Dravidian substratum in North India, but I thought there was evidence of pre-Dravidian substrata in South India too, indicating that Dravidian speakers migrated into South India from further north (specifically the northwest, ultimately perhaps from Iran). I think Witzel mentions something to this effect. There's also Toda, which is strikingly divergent typologically. Anyone know more about this topic? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:25, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Etymology

Tamil drived from old persian Tamiz or tamiza تمیز means pure ,clean. Maahmaah 11:36, 9 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maahmaah (talk • contribs)

The way you added it is meaningless. Moreover, it would only be confusing. If there is a reliable source, it might be added, but only in a clear way. --JorisvS (talk) 11:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Tamil word is derived from pali language and the pali word Dramila.

Ordering of the table of languages

I have reverted a change to the order of entries in the table of languages in the Distribution section, back to grouping by subgroup from South to North, and by population within each subgroup. Various orderings of tables are possible, but for an article on a language family, the subgrouping of the family is particularly important. This ordering also correlates with the distribution of the languages being presented in this section. Since this is a sortable table, the languages ordered by number of speakers can be obtained by clicking on the column. However, clicking on the groups column puts the groups in the less-useful alphabetic order. Kanguole 11:42, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Origin of Dravidian languages

One source, which says that it is "believed" that the Dravidian languages are indigenous to India, is very meager; even more so if that source does not give references for that statement. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

But this "one source" is a respected secondary source. So it trumps primary sources. I agree that it would be better to find more secondary sources. - Kautilya3 (talk) 10:40, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

There is some discussion in Krishnamurti, pp. 2–16, 44–45, 492 and McIntosh The Ancient Indus Valley pp. 352–354. It seems there is little or no evidence to be had from the time depth of the proposed migration. The migration idea seems to be based on the McAlpin's Elamo-Dravidian proposal, which is not accepted by Dravidian specialists. In any case, controversies of this nature do not belong in the article lead. Kanguole 11:07, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: In this MtDNA study of Iran covers some topics and theory regrading Dravidian-Elamite connection. It's also particularly interesting that in Tamil Elam means "Land" see also Tamil Eelam.117.192.208.44 (talk) 15:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

@Kautilya3: the languages; but what about the people?

@Kanguole: why do you think that "controversies of this nature" do not belong in the lead? It seems to be a relevant question, especially with the recent genetic research by Reich, Metspalu, Moorjani and Basu which connects the "Ancestral North Indians" with Eurasian origins, while Parpola argues that the Harappans were/spoke Dravidian. That does argue for an origin outside of India, and is definitely relevant.

@117.192.208.44: thanks; I'll read it.

Best regards to all of you, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 15:52, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

From "MtDNA study of Iran":

"Starting about 5000 years (ky) before present, pastoral nomadism developed in the grasslands of Central Asia, as well as in southeastern Europe, opening up the possibility of rapid movements of large population groups [16]. The spread of these new technologies has been associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-European languages in southern Asia [17], [18]. It is hypothesized that the proto-Elamo-Dravidian language, most likely originated in the Elam province in southwestern Iran, spread eastwards with the movement of farmers to the Indus Valley and the Indian sub-continent [13], [19]. Between the third and second millennia BCE the Iranian Plateau became exposed to incursions of pastoral nomads from the Central Asian steppes, who brought the Indo-Iranian language of the Indo-European family, which eventually replaced Dravidian languages, perhaps by an elite-dominance model [13], [17], [20]."

But it's only three or four articles, from two (groups of) auhtors, and not very recent. Hmm... it's indeed a point of view, but not necessarily the point of view. Interesting. see also our discussions at Talk:Indo-Aryan migration theory#Scenarios. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 16:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this is from the Introduction, which is reviewing Colin Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza. But if you read the Discussion section, there is no information from genetics about what happened after the development of agriculture. So, I don't this paper is telling us anything useful about the Elamo-Dravidian connections. - Kautilya3 (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

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New August 2017 edits

A source [1] has been cited for claiming that "Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent", seems invalid. We don't have page numbers or quotations from the sources and a source[2] has either claimed or accidentally attributed to Renfrew[3] doesn't seem to be making any such claims, in fact it was written in 1990 and not 1987. We can already see in next line that Renfrew doesn't disagree that Dravidian are originated in India. As for Cavalli-Sforza, he says that Dravidian languages originated in western India and Northern India.[4][5] Two scholarly sources support it. Thus I have modified the claim. Although it also means that there is less support for the non-Indian origins than what we believed. Capitals00 (talk) 08:06, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

These edits removed spourced info, messed-up some references, and took a quote from Steven Roger Fischer out of context.

In the lead, this part

Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations in the fourth or third millennium BCE or even earlier, the Dravidian languages cannot easily be connected to any other language, and they could well be indigenous to India.

was changed into

Dravidian languages are generally accepted to be indigenous to India. A number of scenarios regarding origins or influence from other languages have also been proposed. Scholars have noted that Dravidian languages cannot easily be connected to any other language.

What Steven Roger Fischer actually says, is:

It is generally accepted that Dravidian - with no identifiable cognates among the world's languages - was India's most widely distributed, indigenous language family when Indo-European speakers first intruded from the north-west 3,000 years ago."

That is not the same as "Dravidian languages are generally accepted to be indigenous to India"; that's interpretation. Also, it's not in line with this line and quote:

Renfrew and Bahn conclude that several scenarios are compatible with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still very much out."

Furthermore, this sourced info was removed

Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza have also argued that Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent,

and replaced by

Cavalli-Sforza considers the Dravidian languages to have been originated in the western and northern India.

As an addition, this is good; it shows that not only Renfrew, but also Cavalli-Sforza has developed his thought on the Dravidian origins. But the removal is not correct; both Renfrew's and Cavalli-Sforza's comments stand in relation to their earlier comments. Which, by the way, makes it even clearer that McAlpin's ideas are noted, but problematic. Anyway, I have re-inserted the original info, but with a specific date, to make clear that this is an older view:

In the 1990's Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza have also argued that Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent,[61][6][62][note 3] but more recently Cavalli-Sforza considers the Dravidian languages to have originated in western and northern India.[63][64]

References

Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I would still hope that better sources can be found for Renfrew and Sforza. Problem with the lead is that it is not talking about the proposed connections, similarity, origins or influence from other languages. Where as not only the article but many sources have found relationship of Dravidian languages even with Korean, Japanese, etc.

Maybe we can add more sentences to the disputed paragraph of the lead that we have recently edited. Capitals00 (talk) 09:32, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

But doesn't that contradict the notion that Dravidian is language isolate? Anyway, I actuaaly like your additon of Panchanan Mohanty & Ramesh C. Malik, and Pereltsvaig, on Cavalli-Sforza (2000) (though exact quoting would be appreciated; you swapped the sources); it is in line with the notion that Dravidian spread from north-western India to the rest of India. One problem, though: "He goes on to suggest a relationship between Dravidian and Elamite to the west and also the language of the Indus civilization" (B H A D R I R A J U K R I S H N A M U R T I, "T H E D R A V I D I A N L A N G U A G E S"). So... Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

The citations in the "Origins" section are extremely weak. There are primary research papers on genetics. Instead of citations of experts about their own fields, there are citations of geneticists quoting archaeologists and linguists, historians and archaeologists quoting linguists, and even linguists quoting geneticists. The effect is to construct an elaborate structure that looks well-cited but rests on the smallest of foundations.

Undue weight is given to the Elamo-Dravidian theory, which has few supporters. A short paragraph would be appropriate here – there's a whole article on it if the reader wants more, but there's no need to repeat that material here. I also disagree with the recent bundling of all the "Proposed relations with other families" section into the single "Origins" section in an attempt to construct a sequential narrative out of a series of highly-contentious hypotheses. Kanguole 17:59, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I've shortened the section. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 18:38, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I suspect Uralo-Dravidian currently gets undue proportional weight, but the solution would seem to be to expand some of the other seriously researched hypotheses (e.g. Dravido-Korean, see Indo-Pacific languages; also somewhat prominently featured in our articles on Korean languages and Altaic languages) also up to about a paragraph's length as well. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

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Languages with the most speakers

I have again reverted the addition of Tulu from the list of Dravidian languages with the most speakers. The top four each have over 30 million speakers. According to our sources, next come Brahui, Gondi, Kurukh and Tulu, but these have an order of magnitude fewer speakers than the big four. There is no reason to single out Tulu. Kanguole 18:00, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family

Interesting article: A Bayesian phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family. It argues that "the Dravidian language family is approximately 4500 years old, a finding that corresponds well with earlier linguistic and archaeological studies." No ancient language from outside of India, but a relative recent language, which (my take) developed in the IVC, and spread from there southwards, well before the Indo-Europanisation of northern India (a scenario which, of course, does not exclude pre-IE migartions from Iran into India, which explains the pre-IE Eurasian genetic component in India). Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

See also Razib Khan, The Dravidianization of India:

One conclusion I have come to is that Dravidian speaking groups are not the aboriginal peoples of the subcontinent. Rather, their settlement across much of South Asia is very recent. Almost as recent as Indo-Aryan habitation. In First Farmers the archaeologist Peter Bellwood proposed this model, whereby Indo-Aryans and Dravidians both expanded across South Asia concurrently.

More from Peter Bellwood (2003): Farmers and Their Languages: The First Expansions. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:35, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

And more from Razib Khan, who also picked-up on this paper: The peopling of the Indian subcontinent at the dawn of knowing. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The Hindu (dec. 2017), Who built the Indus Valley civilisation? descrribes four scenarios related to the forthcoming Rakhigarhi DNA analysis. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 03:52, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

One more article:New linguistic analysis finds that Dravidian language family is approximately 4,500 years old. One thing is that original paper is published under CC-BY so we are free to copy and adapt (including interesting maps and charts). @Joshua Jonathan, Utcursch, and Kautilya3:. You guys are good at analyzing and updating. Please do needful. -Nizil (talk) 05:39, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Wrong number

Actually, 245 million speak Dravidian languages — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3006:1464:8000:a977:3ea6:b005:745b (talk • contribs) 22:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Languages in alphabetical Order

Please update the article to show languages in alphabetical order. Not in the preferred order of contributors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Precisepie (talk • contribs) 12:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Kurukh also present in Bangladesh

The current text states:

“ Only two Dravidian languages are spoken exclusively outside the post-1947 state of India: Brahui in the Balochistan region of Pakistan and Afghanistan; and Dhangar, a dialect of Kurukh, in parts of Nepal and Bhutan.”

However, the map clearly shows a dialect (I cannot zoom close enough to see) of what appears to be Kurukh spoken in Bangladesh as well. 2600:1702:2150:1A61:45B0:4E50:DDBE:D6EA (talk) 17:15, 26 July 2020 (UTC)SoflaTom

It is Kurukh. This part is based on the map in Ethnologue. The Kurukh entry in Ethnologue (archived) says there was an ethnic population of 50,000 in Bangladesh in 2011, with the language spoken by "some young people, all adults". Kanguole 18:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Ivory

Intriguing study: Ansumali Mukhopadhyay, Bahata (2020-08-18). "Proto-Dravidian Languages in Indus Valley Civilization: An Ultraconserved Tooth-word Reveals Deep Linguistic Ancestry, Supports Genetics". Rochester, NY. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); very clever proposal. But, indeed, not arguing for pre-IVC West Eurasian origins of Dravidian. On the contrary: no elephants in Iran, remember? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:19, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Skllagyook, Kanguole and Joshua Jonathan: let's wait until this paper has appeared in a peer-reviewed publication. Then we can add it with due weight and without recentism, and describe what it actually says without wishful distortion. But even then: if s.o. believes that Pagel, Atkinson, Calude & Meade (2013) is a path-breaking study, this should raise some caveats. –Austronesier (talk) 11:38, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Addition

It is said that Marathi and Odia languages have much similarities with Dravidian languages. Their grammar style seems much Dravidian than Indo Aryan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tamilianda (talk • contribs) 12:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Disputed evidence for a south Indian homeland

Regarding the statement "On the other hand, reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms for flora and fauna provide some support for a south Indian origin" in Dravidian languages § Proto-Dravidian and onset of diversification, I recall criticism (mentioned in Witzel?) that Proto-Dravidian reconstructions, especially of lexicon, tend to exhibit a strong bias towards the South Dravidian languages because of their familiarity and rich attestation, going so far as to lead (if I remember correctly) to the reconstruction of a Proto-Dravidian lexeme for 'city' or 'palace' or the like (based on Tamil nakar and its cognates in South Dravidian? In fact, it has been suggested that this lexeme is not old in Dravidian, but is a relatively recent Indo-Aryan loanword, see Wiktionary), which was criticised (reasonably) as a stark anachronism (especially for the south of early Bronze Age India, at least until c. 2500 BC), and eliminating that bias could well significantly weaken the evidence for a southern homeland and strengthen the case for a northwestern coastal homeland again.

From the section "Classification", I gather that the oldest divergence within Dravidian may well have been between Brahui, Kurukh–Malto, and a "core" or "mainstream" branch combining Central, South–Central and Southern Dravidian, which would only point to a northern homeland even more decisively. Significantly, even a relatively agnostic classification with Brahui, Kurukh–Malto, Central, South–Central and Southern Dravidian as five coordinate branches would favour a more northern origin of the family too. Impressionistically, the diversity of Dravidian sub-branches is greatest around Chhattisgarh, not in the relatively uniform south. From experience in historical language geography, it makes sense that Dravidian may have originated further west, more towards Gujarat and even Sindh (where there is evidence of a prehistorical Dravidian substratum), and pushed east and south by the Indo-Aryan expansion. Proto-Dravidian need not have been the language of the IVC, but could well have been spoken in its orbit (or at least closer than often thought – perhaps in Maharashtra, and spread from there to all directions).

In any case, does anyone else remember what I'm referring to? We should qualify or soften the statement in question a bit, I think, and caution that evidence for a southern homeland has been criticised as unreliable. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:11, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

On rereading the relevant bit of Krishnamurti, it does seem that it does not support the "south" qualifier. And "some" already represents a softening.

I'm not sure that the above criticisms apply to reconstructed terms for flora and fauna. Krishnamurti does not indicate the range of the terms he lists, but they can also be found in Southworth Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia, where many of them do seem to be also attested in North and Central Dravidian. Kanguole 16:01, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Yeah, what the ranges of the flora and fauna in question imply would be crucial information. The terms actually attested throughout Dravidian may allow us to rule out the arid northwest, but not necessarily a homeland around, say, the lower Narmada and Tapti, given that the regions around Surat and Mumbai do not seem to have a very different climate from further south in India. Or anywhere southeast of Kutch, really. This would be a compromise solution, as such a location would still be relatively far in the northwest (and something like this is suggested by the distribution of the branches), and would fit a possible earlier introduction from the west (say, via Sindh, as Witzel also thinks, even though unlike McAlpin he does not seem to support a relationship with Elamite), but would mean that Proto-Dravidian could not have been identical with "Harappan", which appears to fit the linguistic evidence of the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit. However, an introduction of Dravidian to India only around 2000 BC or in the second millennium, concurrently with Indo-Aryan (p. 12), seems hard to support. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:59, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Changes to lead

Moved from User talk:Kanguole

Why "Iranian platue" should be particularly mentioned when the cited sources and the section Dravidian_languages#Proposed_relations_with_other_families mentions multiple hypothesis involving Ural, near East and others?

My edit only restored the original wording as appeared on long standing version before [6] and if you check a little more earlier version, you will find that it used to stay above the last para on the lead.[7]

I hope you restore my edits. 182.77.123.221 (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Relations with other families are different from migrations. All the migration theories, and the cited sources, postulate migration from Iran.

As for the order of paragraphs, it makes sense to give the accepted facts about contemporary language distribution before giving speculative theories about origins. Kanguole 22:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: I agree that the paragraph talks about speculative proposal which was only supported by McAlpin about 50 years ago and found no support in academia but wide rejection. I don't think this should be even discussed on lead per WP:UNDUE. >>> Extorc.talk(); 06:33, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

McAlpin's Elam theory hasn't got much traction, but the general idea of a possible migration from the northwest is dicussed by many sources. Kanguole 09:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Then "may have been brought to India" should be changed to "may have been brought to South India" because the widely accepted origin is Southern part of India.

"Iranian plateau" is not the term we use on Indian-pages, instead we use the term "north west Indian subcontinent" to describe the regions of Balochistan, it should be changed to "north-west Indian subcontinent". Though I am not sure how this will address the 3rd proposal which is Dravidian languages#Northern Dravidian pockets and finds its origin within present-day India but outside South India. At this stage I think it would be better to remove "Iranian platue" as suggested by the IP since there is no single term which would address the three proposals.

But the sentence "well be indigenous to India" should be changed to "well be indigenous to South India". >>> Extorc.talk(); 11:04, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is commonly held that Dravidian was spoken more widely in the subcontinent before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers.

The sources on migration theories speak of Iran, i.e. outside the subcontinent. Kanguole 12:57, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

It is correct. This has been also described on "Prehistory" section and as such I have copied one line to the lead of the paragraph in question.[8] This solves my concern. >>> Extorc.talk(); 16:01, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Small but significant

The lead states:

Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant immigrant communities in ... (list of countries)

What does that mean? How small? In what sense significant - does it mean "small but not very small" (whatever that would mean, in percent or millions, say), or does it mean e.g. economically or culturally significant, despite their small size?

Should those three words simply be removed? You could say that then, the list could include all countries where there are at least 1 immigrant, but I guess it takes more than to make sth that can reasonably call "a community".--Nø (talk) 14:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Central Dravidian languages into Dravidian languages#Classification

Not developed enough for its own article (t · c) buidhe 12:12, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

It will with time, right now it’s stub or slightly better Kanatonian (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Northern Dravidian languages into Dravidian languages#Classification

{{Discussion top|result=To not merge, but to expand using articles referred to in the discussion. The content currently in the article can be covered in the main article. Not really developed enough to stand well on its own. (t · c) buidhe 17:13, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

For both, we've gone back and forth on whether theses should be separate articles for decades. Currently there seems to be no reason to have them, no indication that they're significant in themselves. If there was significant coverage of the protolanguage, i would support separation. But they don't even address the relative merits of N.Drav as a node vs the early separation of Brahui. — kwami (talk) 17:30, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Since there are pages for lower branches like Tamil-Kannada why not the major branches like Northern and Central too? and isnt Brahui as a separate branch an old theory? mostly by Zagrosian family supporters? AleksiB 1945 (talk) 11:06, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I think these articles are potentially notable, but unless they are significantly expanded along the lines of what kwami suggests, it's better to cover them in this article (t · c) buidhe 13:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The northern branch page could be expanded more about Brahui's seperation, phonology etc but central branch maybe not since they get almost no coverage AleksiB 1945 (talk) 15:09, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

If there isn't much coverage that's a sign it's not very notable and would better be covered here, even if the north article (or "North Dravidian hypothesis"[9]) could potentially be expanded a lot and stand on its own (t · c) buidhe 15:34, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

At the current state, it objectively seems better to merge and add a {{R with possibilities}}-template to the redirects. But OTOH, I would really like to have to these articles. Especially Northern Dravidian languages can be easily expanded based on the McAlpin article, and also for Central Dravidian languages, we can present some key facts e.g. about its morphological properties from Krishnamurti's monograph. There's also a paragraph about C. Dravidian in Steever's The Dravidian Languages that we can cite, so it won't be too heavily leaning on Krishnamurti. –Austronesier (talk) 16:22, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Agree. both branches are deserving of their own dedicated pages. They both can be easily expanded, its a just a case of getting the time to do it. Metta79 (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

They both should be separate Kanatonian (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Verify this source

Some native scholars claimed Tamil as the mother of all the Dravidian languages as Sanskrit spawned modern Indo-Aryan languages.

reliable source: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=OBoSDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA233&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false Bobwikia (talk) 18:54, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

The context of the statement is the late-19th-century reaction to Caldwell's promulgation of Dravidian. There were a lot of theories swirling around in that period, and only a fraction have survived the test of time. We need modern linguistic sources to decide which is which. Those sources agree that Proto-Dravidian was quite different from the oldest attestations of Tamil. We should not be giving weight to long-discarded theories. Kanguole 19:59, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Shall we add it or just let it be? Bobwikia (talk) 02:15, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I meant to imply in the above that it should not be added. Kanguole 14:40, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Is that any more meaningful than "English (as it was two thousand years ago) is the ancestor of the Germanic languages"? —Tamfang (talk) 05:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't make any sense to this article. Dravidian itself denotes "Damila (Tamila)". Dravidian is a recent term. Bobwikia (talk) 06:07, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Certainly that is the origin of the name of the family. So a closer analogy would be saying "German is the ancestor of the Germanic languages". Kanguole 08:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

That's what the source says. Dravida denotes "Damila (Tamil)". In this sense, Some native scholars claimed Tamil as the mother of all the Dravidian languages as Sanskrit spawned modern Indo-Aryan languages.

Note: This source didn't say Tamil is the mother of Dravidian languages. It says what was happening in the 19th century.

But censoring this information is completely against the Wikipedia rules. Bobwikia (talk) 11:15, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, it was late 20th century. The source book published in 2011. The editor is Joshua Fishman, linguist specialist. Bobwikia (talk) 11:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Bobwikia, if you believe editors are trying to censor a viewpoint here, you can take up the issue at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. But in the meantime, you may find it helpful to read the source you're referring to: that should go a long way towards helping you see the point other editors are trying to make here. – Uanfala (talk) 12:08, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Uanfala, this is your pov that the source is a viewpoint. The author pointed out what was happening. Focus on content, not users.

But you all accept the Proto-dravidian viewpoint.

The article clearly says "As a proto-language, Proto-Dravidian is not itself attested in historical records. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction."

On the other hand, Tamil has historical records and inscriptional sources. As I mentionted before, the term "Dravida" means "Damila (Tamil)". In this sense, the scholars claimed Tamil as mother of the dravidic languages.

Adding "In this sense, Some native scholars claimed Tamil as the mother of all the Dravidian languages as Sanskrit spawned modern Indo-Aryan languages" to the article with the reliable references make you all think it's just a viewpoint.

Fine, I understood. Bobwikia (talk) 13:06, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

"Dravida" means "Damila (Tamil)". You've said that three times but I do not know what you mean by it. It seems about as meaningful as insisting that all Canidae are descended from (domestic) dogs because the word Canidae is derived from the Latin for dog. —Tamfang (talk) 19:33, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

You can say Candidae is Proto-dravidian. But not Tamil. Bobwikia (talk) 05:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

You will find handbooks about Dravidian languages of 300 pages length or more that don't bother to include this historical footnote about past errors. So why should we? For an article that genuinely covers an comparative-historical linguistic topic, mentioning a double fallacy (1. Sanskrit Dravida means "Tamil", so the language family must go back to the eponymic language, even when the term Dravidian was arbitrarily coined; 2. languages with a long history of written records are "older" than languages with a shorter span of attestation) is simply undue for inclusion.

Note also that the source that mentions this historical footnote is about Tamil. It might be worth considering to include it in Tamil language in a still to be created section about pseudo-linguistic theories. As annoying as it is, Tamil has a long tradition of being the subject of fringe hypotheses (a notoriety it shares with Hungarian). Taken from good secondary sources, we can inform readers about these fringe theories (and about their utter meritlessness) without promoting the emic POV (for a bad example, see pro-fringe in-universe presentation of the related topic Kumari Kandam). –Austronesier (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I understood. What is your suggestion now? Bobwikia (talk) 05:06, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

As I've said above, it might be worth considering to include it in Tamil language in a still to be created section about pseudo-linguistic theories. So Talk:Tamil language is the place to go. –Austronesier (talk) 07:50, 1 March 2023 (UTC)