Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/comparativegramm00caldrich#page/ii/mode/2up

Download pdf Book : http://ia311304.us.archive.org/2/items/comparativegramm00caldrich/comparativegramm00caldrich.pdf

eye opening... looking forward to more such, thanks

What is the Afghan connection?

Wow - what a wonderful map. But I have no idea of the area in the north marked in Pink - viz Brahui - wonder what is the reason for it being classified as a South Indian Language

Sorry....image unrelated to the book. The closest visual I could source.

@ deepak RBSI - it is an apt cover, dravidian languages are not confined to the south alone, brahui is one such that is classified as belonging to the dravidian family tree - "dravidian northern", whereas south indian languages belong to either "dravidian south central" & "dravidian south"

and i guess, this was a landmark work that definitively identified and slotted dravidian as a seperate language tree which was till then assumed to belong to a sub branch of indo european by scholars, thanks for sharing and making it available.....

So the map is appropriate. What is the modern form of Brahui?

It is a language still in usage in parts of southern afganistan and some parts of pakistan, but because of diminishing patronage, it has been classified as "unsafe" by unesco, meaning there is substantial chances of it becoming extinct in a couple of centuries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahui_language

The scientific explanation (supported by all historic, linguistic, anthropological, and genetic evidence) for this anomaly - that is, the presence of a Dravidian-based Brahui dialect in Baluchistan and in several tribal areas of India - rests with the Aryan invasion of India in ancient times. This explanation, I may forewarn, is not popular with the politicians. Originally, the Dravidian races were spread all over India (both North and South) and used Dravidian languages.The Aryan came from the Northwest and brought the Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit and conquered most of North India. This is why one finds a gradation of racial mixing as one travels from the North to the South of India. Along with this conquest came the Aryan language (which later evolved into Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Pali, Assamese etc), and the Dravidian languages (like Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam etc) were wiped out from the North, except in small pockets (like parts of Baluchistan and some tribal areas in India). When Emperor Ashoka sent missionaries from Bihar to Ceylon, they developed the Aryan language Sinhalese while the original language there may have been Tamil. DNA-based evidence indicates that the Dravidian people in the South have affinities to the native populations in Andaman, Indonesia, and Australia, while the Aryan populations in the North have affinities to similar populations in Europe and Central Asia (but not to the Mongols which is a separate stock). Thus we are derived from two prinicipal racial stocks and we should recognize it. India has been invaded many time from the Northwest - for ex: Aryan, Indo-Scythian, Muslim. The reason for this becomes obvious when one flies from Central Asia to India. The landscape throughout is barren - dry, brown, rocky, and uninviting until one crosses the Khyber Pass into India. It suddenly turns green and fertile with many great rivers irrigating the lush valleys. This is why the people from those hungry lands were historically attracted to India. The politicians do not like to recognize these inherent racial differences that are part of our history. They claim " All Indians are one". Yes, that is true - we are one, and we should be one - and treat each other as equals. But such a unity should not ignore our genetic diversity. Unity that is based on diversity is stronger than that based on homogeneity (or"racial purity"). Look at the Americans; they are all Americans, yet they openly recognize that the came from different lands.

@ahmed - a very succinct description of a very abstruse, intricate, shrouded and unacknowledged (and maybe embarrassing?) history.

@ahmed - thanks for your comment. I recently visited Melghat which is North of the Kolami and West of Gondi areas marked on the map. Kolams and Gonds still occupy that region. Melghat is known as the land of the Korku tribe.Their language is said to be distinctly different from any other languages -Dravidian or Aryan. The tribes-people worship Meghnad, son of Ravana in a spectacular pooja performed atop a totem(?) pole. Only a few years ago, the Melghat region had acquired notoriety for high infant mortality due to malnutrition. I wonder if this tribe is the same as Kurukh shown in the map. Also, I wonder if their language is also classified as "unsafe" by Unesco.

Guys this is awesome and eye openinig, is anybody a specialist here ?

Shekhar: India has a unique combination of three distinct root languages: Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and Semitic. It seems unlikely that an isolated tribe (Korku) could have developed its own language; it is probably a dialect that has evolved independently of others because of religion-based isolation. Regarding Ravana, I made some inquiries from senior Sri Lankan scientists (Sinhalese) during a visit many years ago, and they said there is no reference to Ravana in their ancient history. How could that be?

I have heard that the entire Ramayana related place names are present in present day Bihar, Jharkhand & Orissa. Any truth in this ? That could probably explain why Ravana does not get referred in Srilnkan history

@Shekhar : Let me, at the cost of repetion, reproduce an earlier post which seems to fit the context. Just as we have been reading mainly Euro-centric versions of History of the world, we are also fed with a simplistic and one sided view connecting Sanskrit to European languages on one hand and most of other Indian languages to Sanskrit on ...the other, with a grudging acknowledgement for Tamil as another ancient language. According to eminent researcher from Pune Vishwanath Khaire, who won the Sahitya Akademi award, there was no division in Aryans and Dravidians in Indology and his research has shown that Sanskrit had been derived out of Indian dialects spoken in ancient India. One should not assume that the Aryans brought Sanskrit to India. Even a layman like me finds his books (in Marathi) like Adgula Madgula, Bharatiya Miththyancha Magova, Marathi Bhasheche Mul exceedingly readable.

ndakumaran : I too remember having read some papers - not able to recall the precise sources now - which suggest that considering the state of development of the world at the time and the descriptions in the epic, Ramayana (which possibly depicts the pre-agrarian, tribal period) could not have been spread over a geographical area larger than, say, a few districts.

Sorry for the typo - it should have been @Nandakumaran : And nice to see you on RBSI page, Nandu.

Just as Aryan-Dravidian may be a myth, Hinduism as a religion may also be a myth. For a system of thought to qualify as a religion, many conditions must be satisfied. One of them is the urge to spread it, another is to weave it into the instruments of the State, another could be belief in one God (monotheistic rather than multi-theistic); yet another could be a certain equality under the Belief-system. India may actually be a mosaic of several belief systems, therefore of necessity,secular and hence different from others.

I found this on Wikie : "Brahui is the only Dravidian language which has not been written in a Brahmi-based script in the recent past". And "Brahui" and "Brahmi" sound so similar although one refers to a language while the other to a script!.

See Unesco's Atlas of unsafe (endangered) languages for India (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00206 - select India) - it might as well be passed off as Home Ministies' map of troubled spots (naxallites, terrorists, separatists, fundamentalists, et al)! Something more than a conincidence?

Interesting. If the French language feels threatened by the forces of globalization, what of the poor tribemen? One way to assuage the insecurity is to devote resources and projects to the preservation of language. Else the diversity of this basic human skill (language) may be lost for ever.

In my comment dated July 21 (above) I had mentioned that the Korku tribes people worshiped Meghnad, son of Ravana in a spectacular pooja atop a pole which I had witnessed earlier this year. RBSI's photo album actuallly has a picture of such a pooja which however is attributed to a Bengali tribe. Those who are interested can refer to my comment of July 21 on this thread and plate number 21 of 106 under the RBSI album heading "Indian Life and Landscape by Western Artists (1760-1880)". The pooja is an annual feature of the Korku people performed every year at the time of Holi which is celebrated with gusto. These people do not celebrate other Hindu festivals as they celebrate Holi.

telugu is 65% sanskrit :) what dravid lang is it idonoo

or probably the telugu upper caste speak other dialect of telugu sorry. but my telugu is almost 80% Sanskrit. nouns used are 99% Sanskrit

dravid telugu say konda for hill. arya telugu says parvatam . dravida telugu is very much less spoken. middle ages kings have replaced it with arya telugu

same is in tamil.. they say thanni for water. drivida tamil. and arya tamil says neer. which is sanskrit word

among all of these languages, Telugu alone is vowel ending.so i believe is brahui.(is it why Telugu is called Italian of the east)