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Genetic View of Languages

This document discusses the origins and early study of language families by William Jones and Robert Caldwell. It notes that William Jones first proposed the idea of language families in 1786 when he discovered commonalities between Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and other European languages. Robert Caldwell later proposed that the Dravidian languages of South India (including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada) formed a distinct family separate from Sanskrit. He was the first to use the term "Dravidian" and enumerated twelve Dravidian languages in his 1856 comparative grammar. This laid the foundations for the field of historical linguistics and the classification of language families.

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55 views

Genetic View of Languages

This document discusses the origins and early study of language families by William Jones and Robert Caldwell. It notes that William Jones first proposed the idea of language families in 1786 when he discovered commonalities between Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and other European languages. Robert Caldwell later proposed that the Dravidian languages of South India (including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada) formed a distinct family separate from Sanskrit. He was the first to use the term "Dravidian" and enumerated twelve Dravidian languages in his 1856 comparative grammar. This laid the foundations for the field of historical linguistics and the classification of language families.

Uploaded by

Subi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Genetic view of languages

William Jones first floated the idea in 1786


He was a civil servant
They founded Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal
Before he came to India he had the knowledge of the
antique languages Greek, Latin, Persia (old), Ghotic
Celtic languages.
When he started learning Sanskrit the Vedic languages of
India, he found some commonalities among the above
languages and stated for the first time in the history of
language sciences that these languages have some
commonalities especially in vocabulary i.e. in vocabulary
and meaning.
For the first time the concept of the language family was
put forwarded by William Jones.
• He translated Shakuntala into English language.
• These commonalities were found across the languages.
• For this cause borrowings could be one.
• But these borrowings are out of contiguous areas too. (explain
contiguous and non contiguous)
• Some examples are sugar and elephant (similarities were seen across
the languages)
• Large number of words are seen in these languages.
• He had come to conclusion that these languages might have come
from the one language that language could be a parent language.
• The started working on Endo European Family of Languages
• This hypothesis is called genetist hypothesis
• Later the field is developed into as a Historical linguistics.
Dravidian Family of Languages
• Though there are many explanations for the origin of the word Dravida, few of them seem to be suitable for the
present context.
• In the literature, it has been stated that the word Dravida was first used as a language by Kuma:rilabhaTTa in his
Sanskrit book titled tantrava:rttika in 7th century Caldwell (1956-4).
• However, in the literature, it has also been observed that the word Dravid awas used in Ashokan inscription around
248 BC., but the exact reference of the usage was unknown. Rao (2017) describes linguistically that the word
‘dravida’ might have been derived from the Tamil word ‘tamida’. Speakers of Telugu might have been changed
‘tamida’ into ‘dravida’ through hyper correction i.e., tamiṛa > damiḍa > daviḍa > draviḍa where t and r changed
to d and ḍ respectively, then m changed v followed by the insertion of r to the initial consonant which became a
consonant cluster due to the hyper correction.
• Examples: trova/trova -> dova ‘da:ri’, toray-> dora ‘prabuvu or lord’ tora-> dora ‘tender fruit’
• Example : chemudḍu -> chevuḍu 9deaf’ and camuru -> chavuru and mama -> mava.
• Example: sakku/ krakku ‘vomit’, teddu/treddu ‘row’, meka.mreka ‘goat’

• These three types of sound changes are very common in the Old Telugu.
• He also noted that damiḍa and daviḍa in Prakrits and Pali, draviḍa and dra:viḍa in Sanskrit are prevalent.

• It may be assumed that these words might have been borrowed into Prakrits, Pali and Sanskrit through the Telugu
Language.
• Though many explanations were prevalent, it was Robert Caldwell (1856, 3rdedn, repr. 1956: 3-6) who first used the
term “Dravidian’ as a generic name exclusively for languages spoken in southern India, next to Indo-Aryan in the
Indian subcontinent”.
The Concept of Language Family
• Francis Whyte Ellis, an English civil servant, in his Dissertation on
the Telugu Language (1816) (Published as a ‘Note to the
Introduction’ of A. D. Campbell’s A Grammar of Teloogoo
Language Commonly Called as Gentoo) asserted that Tamil, Telugu
and Kannada ‘form a distinct family of languages’ which are
independent of Sanskrit and stated that Sanskrit inter mixed with
them in later times, but has no genetic connection at all.
• Later Robert Caldwell (1856) was the first to propose Dravidian as a
separate family of languages spoken in southern India. In the first
edition of his book titled Comparative grammar, he enumerated
twelve Dravidian languages.
• He succeeded in showing family likeness among the Dravidian
languages in phonology and morphology by disproving the Sanskrit
origin of Dravidian languages, which was strongly advocated by
many Oriental and Western scholars (a myth called all languages are
originated from Sanskrit).
Linguistic Survey of India
• The Linguistic Survey of India, which is often
abbreviated as the LSI, is a complete linguistic
survey of British India, relating 364 languages
and dialects.
• It was a project of the Government of India conducted
between 1894 and 1928, under the direction of George
A. Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service.
• The entire survey is divided into eleven volumes. The
seventh chapter in volume one, and part two of fourth
volume, discusses the Dravidian languages.
List of languages enumerated by
Grierson
Caldwell’s Works
• A Dravidian comparative grammar, which appeared in 1856 is like a Bible for the
linguists who work on Dravidian family of languages. Scholars in the 19th century,
prior to Caldwell falsely considered Tamil and other South Indian languages to be
rooted in Sanskrit and affiliated to the Indo-European family of languages.
• A comparative grammar of the Dravidian is the first book which had uprooted the
false views like south Indian languages are born from the Sanskrit language. The
main object of the book is to “examine and compare the grammatical principles and
forms of the various Dravidian languages in the hope of contributing to through
knowledge of their primitive structure and distinctive character”.
• It is Caldwell who had arrived to India as an archbishop to Tirunelveli of Tamilnadu
and worked extensively on south Indian languages.
• Having 36 years of acquaintance with the Tamil and other languages of south India,
he is able to say that the south Indian languages constitute distinct family of
languages. He is the first to use the generic appellation or the generic name
‘Dravidian’ from the Draviḍa for south Indian people and their languages,
excluding Odisha and Dekhan in which Gujarati and Maraṭhi are spoken. By the
acceptance of the term Dravidian, the word Tamilian was left out.
• For the first time, Caldwell who had great
acquaintance with the Dravidian people and
languages enumerated twelve languages. He
had excluded Brahui from his list.
• After the enumeration of Twelve Dravidian
languages, he had divided them into two
categories viz. cultivated languages and
uncultivated languages.
• The following tree diagram shows the
Caldwell’s enumeration of twelve languages.
Caldwell list of Dravidian Languages
Hierarchy
P. S. Subrahmanyam
• Dravida Bashalu
• Divided into three viz. Daksina Draviḍa(south
Dravidian), Madhya Draviḍa (Cental Dravidian)
and Uttara Draviḍa (North Dravidian)
languages
Bh. Krishnamurti
• Has divided
• Daksina Draviḍa(south Dravidian), Daksina
Draviḍa I (south Dravidian I), Madhya Draviḍa
(Cental Dravidian) and Uttara Draviḍa (North
Dravidian) languages them into four groups
viz.

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