Proto-Dravidian

Proto-Dravidian is the proto-language of the Dravidian languages.

Due to lack of comparative linguistic research into the Dravidian languages, not many details as to its grammar, epoch, or location are known. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian and Proto-South Dravidian around 1500 BC, although some linguists have argued that the degree of differentiation between the sub-families points to an earlier split.

This geographical and chronological horizon would correspond well with an identification of Proto-Dravidian with the unknown language of the Indus Valley civilization, and the individual groups of Dravidian speakers would have been scattered after its collapse in the early 2nd millennium BC. Various substratic influence on Vedic Sanskrit ascribed to Dravidian lends further support to this hypothesis. Asko Parpola has suggested that Meluhha may be the Sumerian rendition of the a native Proto-Dravidian name for the Indus Valley Civilization.

Legends common to many Dravidian-speaking groups speak of their origin in a vast, now-sunken continent far to the south. Many linguists, however, tend to favour the theory that speakers of Dravidian languages spread southwards and eastwards through the Indian subcontinent, based on the fact that the southern Dravidian languages show some signs of contact with linguistic groups which the northern Dravidian languages do not.

See also

*Elamo-Dravidian