a family of languages spoken mainly in India, especially in its southern part. The Dravidian languages are subdivided into the following groups: southern (Tamil, Malayalam, Kota, Toda, Kodagu, Kannarese, or Kannada), southwestern (Tulu), southeastern (Telugu), central (Kolami, Naiki, Parji, Gadba), Gondwana (Gondi, Konda, Kui, Kuwi, Pengo, Manda), northeastern (Kurukh, Malto), and northwestern (Brahui). Little is known about some of the Dravidian languages (Yerukala, Kaikadi, Kurumba, Bellari, Koraga), and their affiliation with other groups has not yet been established. Altogether, the Dravidian languages are spoken by more than 130 million people (1967, estimate). Four Dravidian languages (Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu) have an old literary tradition and are recognized as the official languages of the Indian states of Tamil Nadu (Madras), Kerala, Mysore, and Andhra Pradesh. The Tulu language acquired a writing system only in the latter half of the 19th century; the other Dravidian languages do not have writing systems.
The phonology of the Dravidian languages is characterized by the distinction between long and short vowels, an abundance of retroflex consonants, and the absence of phonemic stress. Vowels and only certain consonants occur at the beginnings and ends of words; in the middles of words inadmissible sound combinations are eliminated by means of elision, assimilation, or substitution, as well as by means of euphonic sounds and syllables. The Dravidian languages have a predominantly uffixal agglutinative morphology. Native word roots are monosyllabic. Nouns and other declined parts of speech have two numbers and cases (11 in Brahui). Gender, which exists in all the languages except Malayalam, Toda, and Brahui, is of a lexical-grammatical nature. Adjectives are not inflected; degrees of attribution are expressed syntactically. Pronouns may be exclusive or inclusive in the first person plural and may be two, three, or four degrees away from the speaker in the third person. The verb has separate positive and negative forms. In addition to the indicative and imperative moods, optative, suppositional subjunctive, and conditional moods are also encountered. The number of tense forms in the indicative mood varies from two to six. Voices are not distinguished. Nonfinite verb forms include—besides the adverbial participle, participle, and infinitive—the supine, the conditional adverbial participle, and participial and verbal nouns. Other categories typical of the Dravidian languages are personal nouns (a special part of speech having number, gender, case, and person), imitative words, and echo words.
The syntax of the Dravidian languages shares many features with the syntax of such other similarly structured languages as Turkic and Mongolian.
M. S. ANDRONOV