On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 9:45 AM, SS <[email protected]> wrote: > On Fri, 2013-09-06 at 09:29 +0530, Kingsley Jegan Joseph wrote: > > You know, sometimes I think that Mr. Mahadevan may be as > > over-enthusiastic in finding dravidian connections for Indus script > > Problem is that there are very profound linkages between "Dravidian" and > non Dravidian Indian languages indicating links that no one has > explained properly. >
What is to explain? For populations to exist side by side exchanging cuisines, culture, genes and words is self explanatory and not profound. One sees Tamil and Malayalam blending in Palghat. Telugu and Tamil blending in Tirupathi. There are many more such examples. That said, linguists use tools more powerful than anecdotal books published in 1910 to support their case. And the consensus opinion among contemporary linguists (not Evil European ones of the 1910 vintage) is that South Indian languages (like Tamil, Telugu, etc.) belong to a family of languages different from North Indian languages (like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, etc.). And that there was liberal exchange of words between these languages over the last few millenia. Also, the Tamil (words and grammar) spoken today is significantly different from the Tamil spoken in the Sangam period. To backport the modern similarities between contemporary Tamil and Hindi to Sangham Tamil and Pali is not how Linguistics is done. Thaths -- Homer: Hey, what does this job pay? Carl: Nuthin'. Homer: D'oh! Carl: Unless you're crooked. Homer: Woo-hoo!
