TEACHING TENSE CONCEPT FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER

Paper Presented in the 7th International Congress on English Grammar, Organized by Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam

TEACHING TENSE CONCEPT FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER

Introduction
 Tense, as we all know, is a grammatical category whereas the time is semantic notion.  It can be interpreted that as far as the semantics is concerned, there are three times namely, present, past and future.  Of course, for all these three semantic notions, three different markers are employed to represent these concepts in most of the languages.  But not all the languages have such distinguished markers to denote these concepts.  Like in Old Tamil, there were only two kinds of tenses – past and nonpast – to stand for these three time concepts.  Here the nonpast includes present and future.  But in the later period only the marker for present tense was developed.  On the other hand, in modern Tamil, we are using three tenses to indicate these three semantic concepts.  Nevertheless, concerning the tense system in the languages, English uses the present tense marker to represent the habitual notion whereas such semantic notion is realized by sentence which involves the future tense marker in Tamil.  Thus this paper attempts to give an account of such notions briefly in order to explain the tense system in both the languages from the teaching point of view.

Habitual Notion

For instance, for the English sentence, The Sun rises in the East, which involves the present tense marker grammatically, the most corresponding sentence cuuriyan kilakkee utikkiRatu is not more relevant expression in Tamil: rather, it should be cuuriyan kilakkee utikkum.  The reason is that the proposition of the whole sentence expresses the timeless truth.  More accurately, one can claim that the habitual sense should, mostly, be indicated by the present marker in English but not by the same tense marker in Tamil; instead, the future marker is used to denote the habitual notion in Tamil.  In the same way, to indicate the ‘inductive truth’, the present form is, in general, used in English while the future form is attested to express this semantic notion in Tamil (as in sentence, eNNai niiril mitakkum (Oil floats on water).  Malayalam, too, uses the future form to indicate such notion (as is shown in sentence, eNNa veLLattil poŋŋum).

On the other hand, assuming that there is a context where someone is coming.  For the Tamil sentence, avan varukiRaan, the equivalent English sentence may be he is coming, rather he comes.  Grammatically speaking, the Tamil sentence and the second sentence of English here are more closely related and correspondingly perfect.  In other words, both the sentences have the present tense marker grammatically.  But, with regard to semantics, the usage is different from grammar in some cases despite not in all the cases.  So it should be taught carefully in every situation in those languages.  Or else, the learner makes mistakes without understanding these conceptual strategies.  So such strategies have to be taught properly as a result of which the learners can understand the proper knowledge about the tense system in both the languages. 

Orientation Time

“Temporal reference involves three times, Orientation Time, Reference Time and Event Time: for independent sentence, Orientation Time (OT) in English is Speech Time”, Smith (1981:215) views. That is, three times are needed to account for temporal reference in languages such as English, because sentences may refer to three different times. According to him, ‘sentences are oriented to speech time (ST) and may indicate a reference time that is simultaneous with or sequential to ST.  Reference time (RT) corresponds to account for some cases; Event Time (ET) may be simultaneous with or sequential to RT’, according to Reichenbach (1947).

                                  RT & ET                   ST

                                       O                           O                                     

For instance, take the sentence in Tamil, Sita neeRRu vantaaL, (Sita came yesterday), in which the event time is simultaneous with reference time; both of them precede the speech time because RT is past.  On the other hand, for the sentence, Sita naaLai varuvaaL, the diagramme would be the one given below:

                             ST                       RT & ET

                             O                               O                                             

In this case, the speech time precedes the reference time and event time.  In this context, there will be no hurdle for the learners of both languages because in both the languages structure is one and the same.  But in some cases, it would be difficult for the learners to understand the structure of one language to another for single semantic notion.  For instance, the sentence in English like He is coming is, in one sense, interpreted as avan vantukoNTirukkiRaan in Tamil.  This is the parallel structure of English, of course.  However, in another sense, we are not able to translate like that.  For example, the parallel sequence for the sentence like He is coming tomorrow in English is not the sentence like avan naaLai vantukoNTirukkiRaan in Tamil. Even in Malayalam, such type of sentence is not possible.  But the equalent sentence for this semantic structure is avan naaLai varukiRaan without the progressive marker.

Event Time

Consider the sentence in Tamil, Bhaarat varumpootu Kiran tuuŋkikkoNTiruntaan (Kiran was sleeping when Bharat came).  In this sentence, there are two events taken place, as far as the actions are concerned.  But both the events have, in one sense, completed before speech time, of course.  In these two events, one is progressive whereas the other one is non-progressive.  Here progressive activity is represented by ET₂ and the non-progressive by ET₁.  It can be explained diagrammatically:

                                                 ET₁                      ST

                                               

           ET₂

As already told, both the events are past and therefore both are represented by the past marker in this sentence.  However, as far as the durative notion is concerned, the durative action (ET₂) is expressed by the progressive marker while the other event (ET₁) by only the simple past in English.  With regard to aspect, the same nature almost prevails in Tamil, too, except tense marker in embedded sentence.  So the teaching materials should make clear such points to the learners of both the languages.  Almost, one and the same structure is attested in Malayalam like Bharat varumpooL Kiran uRaŋŋukayaayirunnu, (Kiran was sleeping when Bharat came), as in Tamil.  In the same way, we can explain past perfect in English.  Take, for example, the sentence in Tamil, Bhaarat varum munpee  Kiran vantiruntaan (Kiran had come before Bharat came).

                                       ET₁                ET₂                    ST

                                               

Here the Kiran’s coming is represented by ET₁ and Bharat’s coming by ET₂.  Therefore, the first action (ET₁) in the Matrix sentence gets past perfect tense whereas the second action (ET₂) in the subordinate clause gets simple past in both the languages.  But both have taken place before speech time.  So the way in which teaching should be semantic oriented, rather than the word by word, will enable the learners to improve their learning quality in the language someone is learning.   

Past-in-Future

Consider the sentences in Tamil and Malayalam, respectively, nii vanta piRaku tuuŋkuveen and taan vannu kaliññiTTu ñaan uRaŋŋum (I will sleep after you will come (here)). As far as the semantics is concerned, the time of action ‘coming’ is future with reference to the situation of the speech act; however, it has past tense marker morphologically in the subordinate clause of the sentence. That is, its tense is past-in-future.  In this respect, the past is oriented to the time expressed by the higher sentence whereas the future is oriented to the time at which the utterance is made. Conversely, in other sentence in Tamil, nii varummunpee tuuŋkineen (I had slept before you came), the tense specified by the subordinate clause here is future–in–past. (Here the future is anchored to the time interpreted by the main clause but the past is anchored to the situation of the utterance). One and the same structure like taan varunnatinu munpee ñaan uRaŋŋi is in Malayalam, too.  Nevertheless, such a future sense does not extend to the moment of speaking.   Here it is understood that the structures in Tamil and Malayalam are almost the same but its structure of English is different.  Thus the tense in subordinate clause of Tamil and Malayalam is past unlike in English.  Such a semantic notion and its parallel structure should be taught carefully to the learners of both the languages.  

Habitual-Past-Action:

To express the habitual-past-action, which means that an action’ was regular in the past but does not prolong  at the time of speech, English uses the forms like ‘used to’ whereas Tamil uses the future form associated with the past referential adverb in a sentence, munnaaTiyellaam Kiran aŋku varuvaan, (Kiran used to come there in the past).  Considering the markers used in these languages, there is no one to correspondent in the constructions.  One language uses the future marker whereas other language employs entirely different form.  The equalent sentence of Malayalam for this Tamil sentence may be paNTokke Kiran aviTe varumaayirunnu /*varum (Kiran used to come there in the past).  We are not able to use the simple future form in Malayalam, as is used in Tamil.  Instead, Malayalam language uses the aspectual form, aayirunnu. Therefore, we have to teach the grammatical elements only after knowing the semantic notion of the sentence in the individual language.  So it is better to know the proposition of the sentence first and then proceed to teach something.   

Bibliography

Comrie, B. 1985. Tense. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Huddleston, R. 1969.     Some Observations on Tense and Deixis in English. Language-45 (777 -806).

Scheffer,  J.  1975.  The Progressive in English.  Amsterdam : North Holland.

Smith, C. S.  1981.  Semantic and Syntactic Constraints on Temporal Interpretation. In Syntax and Semantics (Tense and Aspect). Volume-14. New York : Academic Press.

Lado, Rabert. 1979. Language Teaching – A Scientific Approach, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Co. Ltd., New Delhi.

@@&&@@

DRAVIDIAN-INDO ARYAN COGNATES IN TOLKAPPIYAM

COURTESY:  Paper published in Language Vitality in South Asia

(Edited by Ali.R.Fatihi, Department of Linguistics, Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh, India)

DRAVIDIAN-INDO ARYAN COGNATES IN TOLKAPPIYAM

Dr. A. Kamatchi

Assistant Professor

CAS in Linguistics

Annamalai University

INTRODUCTION

Tolkappiyam is the earliest grammatical written records not only for Tamil but also for other Dravidian languages.  Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are, as we all know, the separate families of languages.  Of course, cognates mean the forms, which indicate the same meaning with shape similarity and are available in the daughter languages of the same language family.  The reason for calling them as cognates here is that they could be treated cognates in terms of the rules applying to the methods in the comparative linguistics. 

This study is, of course, not ready to argue that no borrowings had been taken place in Dravidian languages from Indo-Aryan.  But it is evidenced there are a number of items borrowed from Indo-Aryan right from the post Sangam period to the early 20^th century A.D.  But the so-called statement of borrowings in Sangam Tamil from Indo-Aryan seems to be disputable and questionable from the view point of comparative linguistics.  In the same way, while observing the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyam, applying the rules to Dravidian linguistics is different from the rules applying to the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyam.  One can feasibly know the fact that there could be no different of opinion in the application of the rules in the languages because there is a possibility for the linguists to treat the so-called borrowings in Tolkappiyam cognates.  That is, when the system of comparative methods such as metathesis, loss, change of one phoneme to other etc. within the languages of same family should be applied to the so-called borrowings of Tolkappiyam and Sanskrit forms, one can realize the fact that these are actually not borrowings but the cognates.   Thus, the study envisages the possibility to treat them as cognates from the various viewpoints of the comparative linguistics.

Undoubtful Cognates

            It is claimed that the following forms are undoubtedly cognates.  Of course, none of the scholar of comparative linguistics can argue that they are not cognates of the both language families.

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
antam	1096	anta	37	end, termination
antaram	1096	antara	37	sky, open space
amar	1010	camara	318	war
amarar	1031	amara	60	God
amiltam	1096	amrita	61	*ambrosia, nectar
arai	11	arddha	71	half
alal	1029	anala	27	fire
aaram	1586	haara	973	garland
pala	487	pelu, ‘much’		many
kaNavar		kaNa(pporuttam)		husband
karakam		karaka		waterpot
kaakam		kaaka	205	crow
karumam		karuma karuman	197 198	action
kaamam		kaama	210	love
kaaraNam	505	kaaraNa	213	cause
kaalai kaalam	22  991	kaala	216	time
kuncaram	1521	kunjara	225	elephant
kuTi	652	kuTi	226	*hut, house
kuNam	899	guNa	291	quality
kuravai	1026	kura	232	sound, roar
kulai	1590	gulujcha	294	*cluster
kuLan	1141	kula	239	pond, tank
kai	1096	kara	283	hand
kutirai	1161	ghooTaka	311	horse
caakkaaTu	1049	jyaa	355	death
caati	1545	jaati	347	caste
cuuttiram	1427	sutra	940	sutra
taN(mai)	1339	taNDa		water (cooling)
ticai	432	dis	410	direction
teyvam	488	daiva	425	God  (divine)
teeem  teeyam	1017   990	deesa	424	country, nation
naaTakam	1003	naaTya		drama, dance
naali	241	nadi		mareal, eight part of a marakkaal or kuRuNi
pakuti	501	prakruti	557	part
pakkam	991	pakSa	490	side
palam	1592	phala		fruit
puu	968	puSpa	546	flower
peem	849	bheema	621	*fear
maa	1010	mahat		great
maa(maram)	232	maakanda	654	*mango
vaNNam	563	varNa	737	colour
vali	850	vala	741	strenth / power

Metatheses Words

            These are the forms which are treated cognates based on the metathesis method of comparative linguistics.  The process of metathesis is very common in Telugu-Kuwi group (i.e. Telugu, Gondi, Konda, Pengo, Manda, Kui and Kuwi) among the Dravidian languages.  Here also, it quite possible to consider the following forms as cognates which are attested in both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan. 

Tol. Words

Sutra No.

Sanskrit Words

Page No.

Meaning

*aracu aracan	1585 1025	raajya raajan	703 701	kingdom king
*aravam	833	rava aarava	697 119	sound, *roar
*iravu	228	raa		night
*urupu *uru uruvu	141   14   17	ruupa		form
ulaku *ulakam	1064   542	loogaa		world

m-ending Words

            It is the common phenomenon that the m-ending forms in Dravidian are attested in Sanskrit without this consonant ending.  The reason is obvious.  The Sanskrit language system does not have consonant ending in the words.  Considering the m-ending forms available in Proto Dravidian, those forms may be treated as the proto forms for Dravidian and Indo-Aryan.  The reason is obvious.  A loss of phoneme in a form is very common phenomenon in the comparative linguistics and therefore the m-ending forms are taken as proto forms here.

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
*antam	1096	anta	37	end, termination
*antaram	1096	antara	37	sky, open space
*karakam		karaka		waterpot
*kaakam		kaaka	205	crow
*karumam		karuma karuman	197 198	action
*kaamam		kaama	210	love
*kaaraNam	505	kaaraNa	213	cause
kaalai *kaalam	22  991	kaala	216	time
*kuncaram	1521	kunjara	225	elephant
*cuuttiram	1427	sutra	940	sutra
*teyvam	488	daiva	425	God  (divine)
teeem  *teeyam	1017   990	deesa	424	country, nation
*naaTakam	1003	naaTya/ naaTaka		dance,drama
*pakkam	991	pakSa	490	side
*palam	1592	phala		fruit
vaNNam	563	*varNa	737	colour

Voiceless Initial becomes voiced

            There is no voiced characteristic nature of plosive in proto Dravidian.  So it evident to treat the following forms cognates.  Voiceless plosive becomes voiced one in Sanskrit. 

Tol. Words	Sutra No.		Sanskrit Words		Page No.		Meaning
*teyvam	488		daiva		425		God  (divine)
*teeem  *teeyam	1017   990		deesa		424		country, nation
*ticai	432		dis		410		direction
*caati	1545	jaati		347		caste
*caakkaaTu	1049	jyaa		355		death
*kutirai	1161	ghooTaka		311		horse
*kulai	1590	gulujcha		294		*cluster
*kuNam	899	guNa		291		quality
*peem	849	bheema		621		*fear

Initial ‘c-‘ Loss

            It is the very common nature in Dravidian that the initial *c- of proto Dravidian forms is loss in south Dravidian languages, but while the same nature prevails in the so-called borrowings in Old Tamil, the comparative linguists treat it as a borrowing in comparison with the languages of Dravidian and the languages of Indo-Aryan.  In the same way, in some other languages, initial *c- becomes s- in other languages.  One can observe the same nature in these two language group of families. 

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
amar	1010	*camara	318	war

*c- becomes ‘s-‘

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
*cuuttiram	1427	sutra	940	sutra

Initial ‘h-‘ Loss

            There is no velar fricative of h in proto Dravidian.  So it can be possible to claim the forms such as haara ‘garland’ may be proto language forms.

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
aaram	1586	*haara	973	garland

Ininitial *k- becomes c-

            Proto Dravidian initial *k- is palatalized to c- before the front vowels.  The following forms are examples for this category. 

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
ciirtti	1040	*kiirtti	224	fame

Some other forms may also be treated as cognates on the ground that there is no aspirated nature in Dravidian and no consonant cluster of phonemes in the initial position of the Dravidian words if the following forms are taken into consideration. 

‘ph-’ < > ‘p-‘

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
palam	1592	phala		fruit

‘pr-‘ > ‘p-‘

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
pakuti	501	*prakruti	557	part

‘-rN-‘ > ‘-NN-‘

Tol. Words	Sutra No.	Sanskrit Words	Page No.	Meaning
vaNNam	563	*varNa	737	colour

Dravidian with Scythic Language  

It is understood that the chief language families in India are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Tibeto-Burman.  Since the cultivated Dravidian languages abound in Sanskrit words many, many scholars, before Caldwell, once entertained the opinion that Dravidian languages, spoken in the southern part of India, were descended from Sanskrit like the modern Indo-Aryan languages, spoken in the Northern part of India.  While acknowledging the existence of a very large percentage of Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan words in the Dravidian vocabularies, Caldwell (1856) came to conclude that the Dravidian languages had no structural relationship with Sanskrit and attempted to prove that the grammatical affinities of these languages were mainly Scythic-Turanian. 

Others’ View

            Among those who accepted his theories in their entirety special mention must be made of Dr. H.Gundert, a profound scholar of the Malayalam language and literature, and Dr. F. Kittel, a eminent scholar of the Kannada language and literature.  However, Dr. G.U. Pope, a distinguished scholar in Tamil language and literature, was reluctant to accept Caldwell’s theories; and in a series of articles in the Indian Antiquity. He carefully mentions (1) that “between the languages of southern India and those of the Aryan family there may be deeply seated and radical affinities; (2) that the differences between the Dravidian tongues and the Aryan are not so great as between the Celtic (for instance) and the Sanskrit; (3) that, by consequence, the doctrine that the place of the Dravidian dialects is rather with the Aryan than with Turanian family of languages is still capable of defense”.

            Caldwell (1856), of course, accepted the existence of the plenty of Sanskrit words in Dravidian.  However, only on the ground that there is no structural relationship between these two language families, he rejects the earlier theory that Dravidian descended from Sanskrit.  On the contrary, considering the Sanskritic theory that Indo-European, one can notice that the theory established by Sir William Jones in 1896 was mainly developed by the common vocabularies, i.e. treated as cognates, available in Sanskrit and the European languages such as German, Latin, Greek etc.   Here it is an important point to be noted that the gap between the Caldwell’s period and the Sir William Jones period is nearly forty years. 

            There should not be two opinions in adopting the rules and regulations followed in the comparative linguistics.  But it is kept in mind that in both the cases the same rules should have been followed in grouping the language families.  The contrast between these two theories that the former theory developed on the basis of vocabularies was accepted by the scholars working in the field of comparative linguistics whereas the latter theory come out before 4 four decades was summarily rejected.  What is the reason behind that, we don’t know. That is, it is peculiar to say that whereas grouping of Sanskrit under Indo-European is based on the vocabularies, the Dravidian theory fails to agree the same formulae, though the Dravidian and Sanskrit have plenty of common vocabularies, which are cognates alike.
Wherefrom Dravidian Comes  

            The editors of the series of the Linguistic Survey of India remark that “with regard to the Drāvidas, some authorities believe that they arrived in India from the South, while others suppose them to have entered from the North-West where a Dravidian language is still spoken by the Brāhūīs of Baluchistan (Linguistic Survey of India, Vol.IV, p.5).  According to Zvelebil (1990), “that the speakers of Dravidian languages moved from west or Central West Asia to the South Asian sub-continent seems to be indisputable”.  He (1972) earlier proposes a hypothesis that Dravidian marched from the mountains of eastern Iran to South India and Sri Lanka, ‘dropping off’ groups along the way rather like a bus depositing passengers.  He (1972:57) further writes: “the Dravidians were a highlander folk, sitting, sometimes around 4000 B.C. in the rugged mountainous area of North-eastern Iran (where they came into extended contact with the speakers of Uralian / Altaic languages), whence, round about 3500 B.C., they became a South-eastern movement into the Indian subcontinent which went on for about two and a half millennia”.

Speakers of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan

            As Southworth (1976) puts it, “there is nothing against the assumption that the Indus Valley was the area where Dravidian speakers first made their appearance in the subcontinent, after their presumed departure from West Asia”.  According to Emeneau, Zvelebil, Southworth and so on, the speakers of Dravidian language family might have moved from central west Asia to India.  Suppose that the so-called Sanskrit words in Tolkappiyam are treated cognates of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, there is a possibility to believe that both the speakers of Dravidian and the Indo-Aryan jointly as one family without two groups might have moved together from Central West Asia towards Indian subcontinent. 

            Some other theories say that showing the existence of Dravidian language, Brahui in Baluchistan, the well settled Dravidian speakers in the Sindhu Valley might have been driven away to southern part of India by the Aryan people.  In other way round, it can be presumed that the period at which the Dravidians fled from this valley, is assumed to have separated from each other only after they had lived together in the valley.  In that period itself, both the languages of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are presumed to have been a single language family of Indo-Dravidic Aryan.

No Short Vowels e and o in Toda

Emaneau further mentions that “proto Dravidian *o represents a correspondence in which all the languages have o,  except that  Toda often has wa, wï, or ï, Gondi in some dialects has a  and Brahui has either ō, u, or a”.  (Emaneau 1970 : 25).

(Ta)              (To)

cevi    ‘ear’   kїfy

eli        ‘rat’   isy

nencu  ‘heart’  nїz

“PDr.  *e represents a correspondence in which all the languages have e, except that Toda often has ö, Parji sometimes has a, Gondi in some dialect, has a,  and some of the other languages sometimes have a;   Brahui has either i or a,”   (Emaneau 1970 : 21).

(Ta)                                           (To)

oTunku  ‘become reduce’         wїDg-

oTi          ‘to break’                    war-

kolu         ‘fat, prosporous’         kwalp-

koy          ‘to pluck’                   kwїy-

            Out of 380 entries with e in DED in total, only 4 occurrences of near cognates have attested in Malto whereas merely 6 occurrences of near cognates out of 374 entries with o in DED, exist in Malto.  In the same way, only 7 occurrences out of 380 DED entries with o and merely 3 occurrences out of 374 with the short o in DED have been recorded in Kurukh, one of the north Dravidian languages.  So, due to this meager percentage of occurrences with e and o available in Malto and Kurukh of the north Dravidian languages, Kamatchi (2006) (SALA-26) claims that there had been no short vowels of e and o in proto Dravidian.

No short Vowels e and o in Dravidian

A close watch on the vowel symbols employed in the early Dravidian records of early Tamil-Brahmi, belonging to 3^rd century B.C. to 1^st century A.D., evidently shows that there was no distinction between short and long vowel of e and ee and o and oo as available in Sanskrit.  That is, as in the vowel system of Indo-Aryan, no symbol for either short e or o has been recorded in the early Dravidian records.  They were actually not developed to graphemic status in the early period, as far as the paleographic status is concerned.  Suppose that Dravidian had e and o in her phonemic system, why didn’t it have the symbols for e and o in the early records.  So, one can strongly claim that no earlier Dravidian records show the symbols for the short vowels e and o.  What it means is that there might have been no phonemic status for these vowels.  So there is reason to belief that proto Dravidian had no short e and o in its phonemic system.  Therefore, it is assumed that in the later period only, these might have been developed to phonemic status in the languages. 

Comparing this system with the loss of e and o in Brahui, Kamatchi (2005), in his paper on “Are the short vowels of e and o loss in Brahui?”, presented in the SAP-National Seminar on Tribal studies in Dravidian languages, posits that the theory of loss of e and o in Brahui should be reconsidered and further claims that the Dravidian vowel system did not seem to have e and o. 

Dravidian Borrowings in early Sanskrit

            Burrow had found some twenty words in the earliest Sanskrit recorded, the Rgveda, which he considers to be of Dravidian origin.  A number of them have been accepted by Emeneau; among the most important and most interesting are Skt. khála- ‘threshing floor’, ‘open place’, ‘battle field’ etc.;  Skt. phála- fruit:  Tamil…Malto, palam ‘fruit’, palu ‘to ripen’ etc. and so on.  As Emeneau says, “if the Rig-Vedic examples, or any of them, are accepted, this is evidence for the presence of Dravidian speakers as far toward the northwest as the Panjab, i.e. the Upper Indus Valley, in the first centuries (it is uncertain how many) of the presence of Sanskrit-speakers on Indian soil”.  Though the scholars treat these forms as borrowings, this study, based on the comparative linguistic methods, claims that these forms are purely cognates for these language families.

Conclusion

Linguists all over the world are viable to the rules and regulations in approaching the languages due to the fact that linguistics is scientific study of languages.  But, as we have noted earlier, in comparative Dravidian linguistics, it seems that they fail to follow the very common phenomenea such as metathesis, loss and so on.  In addition, there are a number of forms like these available in Sangam literature to substantiate this study.  Of course, this is the preliminary study.  We are in the computer world. Using the computer, we can collect more evidences thorough internet and e-mail from the scholars belonging to other languages families in the world. If the study goes on this way of hypothesis, we are able to prove that the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan are under the same umbrella.

References

Burrow, T. (1968)  ‘The Loss of Initial *c/s in South Dravidian’. In Collected        Papers on Dravidian Linguistics. Annamalai University : Annamalai nagar.

Caldwell, Robert (1856) A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South         Indian Family of Languages (3^rd edition, London, 1913, reprinted: Madras,     1956.

Emeneau, M. B. (1954) ‘Linguistic Prehistory of India’, PAPS-98, p.282-92.

Southworth, Franklin C.  (1976) ‘On Subgroups in Dravidian’, IJDL-5, p.114-37.

Subrahmanyam, P.S. (1983) Dravidian Comparative Phonology. Annamalai University : Annamalai nagar. 

Zvelebil, Kamil (1972) ‘The Descent of the Dravidians’, IJDL, pp57-63.