Revision 1028924 of "इलामो द्राविडीयन भाषाकुळ" on mrwiki

{{भाषांतर}}

'''इलामो द्राविडीयन भाषाकुटुंब'''
{{Portal|Ancient Near East}}
The '''Elamo-Dravidian languages''' are a hypothesised [[language family]] which includes the living [[Dravidian languages]] of [[India]], in addition to the extinct [[Elamite language]] of ancient [[Elam]], in what is now southwestern [[Iran]]. Linguist [[David McAlpin]] has been a chief proponent of the Elamo-Dravidian Hypothesis. The Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis claims that the extinct [[Harappan language]] (the language or languages of the [[Indus Valley Civilization]]) may be part of the same family.

==Linguistic arguments==
McAlpin (1975) identified several similarities between Elamite and Dravidian. According to McAlpin, 20% of Dravidian and Elamite vocabulary are [[cognate]]s; a further 12% are probable cognates. Elamite and Dravidian possess similar second-person [[pronoun]]s and parallel [[declension|case ending]]s. They have identical derivatives, abstract nouns, and the same verb stem+tense marker+personal ending structure. Both have two positive [[Grammatical tense|tenses]], a "past" and a "non-past".<ref>David McAlpin, "Toward Proto-Elamo-Dravidian", ''Language'' vol. 50 no. 1 (1974); David McAlpin:  "Elamite and Dravidian, Further Evidence of Relationships", ''Current Anthropology'' vol. 16 no. 1 (1975); David McAlpin: "Linguistic prehistory: the Dravidian situation", in Madhav M. Deshpande and Peter Edwin Hook: ''Aryan and Non-Aryan in India'', Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1979); David McAlpin, "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its Implications", ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'' vol. 71 pt. 3, (1981)</ref>

However modern linguists point out the probability of commonalities being found even between two disparate languages.<ref>''Foundations of statistical natural language processing'' by Christopher D. Manning, Hinrich Schütze; McAlpin, et al.</ref> This understanding has led to specific criticisms of the Elamo-Dravidian Hypothesis.<ref>Comment on David W. McAlpin's "Elamite and Dravidian: Further Evidence of Relationship".  (This includes discussions by M.B. Emeneau, W.H. Jacobsen, F.B.J. Kuiper, H.H.Paper, E. Reiner, R. Stopa, F. Vallat, R.W. Wescott, and a reply by McAlpin), ''Current Anthropology'' 16, (1975), pp. 105-115.</ref>

[[Georgiy Starostin]] criticized McAlpin's proposed morphological correspondences between Elamite and Dravidian as no closer than correspondences with other nearby language families. [[Nostratic languages|Proto-Nostratic]] was already hypothesized to be an ancestor of Dravidian, and  [[Václav Blažek]] had proposed that Elamite was related to [[Afroasiatic languages|Afroasiatic]], so Starostin performed a [[lexicostatistical]] comparison using the [[Swadesh list]] between Elamite, [[Afro-Asiatic languages|Proto-Afroasiatic]], [[Nostratic languages|Proto-Nostratic]] (a version of Nostratic not including Afroasiatic, similar to [[Joseph Greenberg]]'s [[Eurasiatic]]), and [[Sino-Caucasian languages|Proto-Sino-Caucasian]]. He concluded that Elamite is related to Afroasiatic and Nostratic but not a member of either, with Sino-Caucasian being more distant from those three.<ref>[http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/elam.pdf G.A.Starostin, On the genetic affiliation of the Elamite language]</ref>

In addition, the  Dravidian [[Brahui language]] of Baluchistan, which McAlpin supposed to be the link between Elamite and the Central Indian Dravidian languages ({{Harvtxt|Elst|1999}}), has been suggested by J.H. Elfenbein to be a late, c. 1000 year old  immigrant from Central India. As such, it cannot reflect a remnant of a Dravidian language speaking Indus population.<ref>Elfenbein, J.H.A "Periplous of the Brahui problem". ''Studia Iranica'' 16, 1987, 215-233</ref>

==Proposed cultural links==

Apart from the linguistic similarities, the Elamo-Dravidian Hypothesis rests on the claim that agriculture spread from the Near East to the [[Indus Valley]] region via Elam. This would suggest that agriculturalists brought a new language as well as farming from Elam. Supporting ethno-botanical data include the Near Eastern origin and name of wheat (D. Fuller). Later evidence of extensive trade between Elam and the Indus Valley Civilization suggests ongoing links between the two regions.

The disjunct distribution of living Dravidian languages, concentrated mostly in southern India but with isolated pockets in South Eastern Iran, Southern Afghanistan and Pakistan (Brahui) and in northeast India (Kurukh, Malto), suggests to some a wider past distribution of the Dravidian languages. The Indo-European languages of modern India and Pakistan were later arrivals in the [[Indo-Gangetic plain]], leaving isolated islands of the older Dravidian languages in the surrounding mountains.These northern Dravidian  languages however arrived in their present locations only around 1000 CE (Elfenbein 1987).

A variety of Dravidian loan words (i.e., ''phalam-'' ripe fruit, ''khala-'' threshing floor) in Vedic [[Sanskrit]] suggests that the two languages existed for a time in proximity. [[Retroflex consonant]]s, which exist in Vedic Sanskrit and Dravidian but do not exist in Iranian or European languages could suggest a Dravidian [[substratum]] or [[adstratum]] in Vedic Sanskrit, which however could derive from other northwestern languages (such as Burushaski) as well.

==Script==

Proponents of the hypothesis claims similarities between the early [[Harappan script]], which has not been deciphered, and early (Proto-)Elamite script that, however, is hardly even recognized as such so far. Some who claim to have (partially) deciphered the Harappan script, including [[Asko Parpola]] and Walter A. Fairservis Jr., suggest that the Harappans spoke a Dravidian language,<ref>Walter A. Fairservis Jr., ''The Harappan Civilization And Its Writing: A Model For The Decipherment Of The Indus Script'', Brill, Leiden (1992); Walter A. Fairservis Jr.: "The script of the Indus Valley Civilization", ''Scientific American'' (1985);
Asko Parpola, ''Deciphering the Indus Script'', (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Asko Parpola: "Interpreting the Indus Script", in A.H. Dani: ''Indus Civilisation: New Perspectives'', Quaid-i-Azam University, Centre for the Study of the Civilization of Central Asia, Islamabad (1981)</ref> while others, for instance [[S.R. Rao]], suggest  that the Harappan script represents an Indo-European language, similar to Sanskrit.<ref>S.R. Rao: ''Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilisation'', Aditya Prakashan, Delhi (1992)</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elamo-Dravidian Languages}}
[[Category:Elamite language]]
[[Category:Proposed language families]]

[[en:Elamo-Dravidian languages]]
[[es:Lenguas elamo-drávidas]]
[[id:Bahasa Elamo-Dravida]]
[[it:Lingue elamo-dravidiche]]
[[ko:엘람드라비다어족]]
[[ru:Эламо-дравидийские языки]]
[[sv:Elamo-dravidiska språk]]
[[ta:ஈல-திராவிட மொழிக் குடும்பம்]]