Talk:Dravidian peoples/Archive 6

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Sri Aurobindo

I'm sorry by I cannot accept this paragraph:

"However, other notable scholars, such as Sri Aurobindo, have demonstrated that there is no such an ethnic or linguistic division between the north Indians and the south Indians. Max Muller's theory was officially supported by the British colonian authorities, who adhered to the "divide and rule" principle."

Firstly Aurobindo is a religious scholar, not an expert on genetics, ethnicity and and linguistics. He has not 'demonstrated' anything on this issue, he simply had a pan-Indian belief system.

I agree; I will change the above sentence to say that Aurobindo believed that there is no ethnic distinction, rather than say that he demonstrated it. However, several historians have put forth the theory that there is no ethnic distinction - see Aryan Invasion Theory for sources. I will add a sentence to that effect too. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Secondly 'Max Muller's theory' was not officially supported by by the Britrish government. Show me any document in which the government 'officially' supports the theory for political reasons.

Agreed. Several British historians adhered to the theory, but it is not right to say that the British government "officially" supported the theory. I will remove that sentence. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The divide and rule argument is absurd. Since the Aryan/Dravidian distinction is about two separate areas of the land they are already divided. I can't see how Speaking of this ethnic distinction would in any way make British rule easier.

Personally, I don't think the divide and rule argument is absurd, and I do see how instilling a belief that there is an ethnic distinction would help the British rule - but whether they did it or not is POV, and has already been dealt with in Aryan Invasion Theory. I will just add a link to that article here and remove that sentence.--ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I accept that 'absurd' is OTT, but I have never seen any evidence for this so-called 'divide and rule' strategy, nor do I understand how the claim that there is a racial difference between Dravidians and Aryans would assist British rule. Historically India was divided into different kingdoms, so such divisions already existed. Now the idea that the Indian upper castes were 'Aryans' could indeed help British rule, by allying the native Indian ruling classes to British rule on the ideology of pan-Aryanism. But the ethno-linguistic distinction between Aryan and Dravidian peoples would alienate South Indians, including their leaders. Overplaying the Aryan idea would be threatening to British rule. For this reason, though Aryanism was indeed part of the culture of British imperialism, I've found no evidence that it was ever a tool of policy. Unlike the Nazis the British were far too canny to let their ideology rule their practical policy..--Paul B 23:11, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So essentially, the whole paragraph can be removed. In fact, the whole article looks pretty lame to me, but I will see what I can do to clean it up. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the claim that Max Muller first used the term Dravidian race. I can find no evidence of this. Indeed Muller was not a race-theorist or a Dravidianist. I've tried to make a more general summary of the role played by race in the modelling of Indian populations by the British. ..--Paul B 18:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is nothing 'POV' about saying that Tamil is the 'most important' of the Dravidian languages. The point not that it's a better language in some way, but that it is the most widely spoken and has the largest literature. It's necessary to introduce Tamil at this stage so that an uninformed reader will understand that 'Tamils' - referred to later in the article - are the principal sub-group of Dravidian speakers. Still, I shall try to rephrase it. Paul B 02:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, the re-phrasing reads well. I agree that is is certainly the best-known of the Dravidian languages. --ashwatha 02:49, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To Anon user

"Telugu and Kannada have some striking similarity to Sanskrit, while Tamil is the least affected by Sanskrit. Telugu is over 70% Sanskrit."

Does this mean Telugu vocabulary is over 70% Sanskrit? Telugu grammar? Without more context, I think it is safer to say that Kannada and Telugu resemble Sanskrit more than Tamil does.

Also, most of the information in the "Dravidian languages" section seems to belong in the Dravidian languages article, not in this one. --ashwatha 00:11, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Possible Copyright violation by User:4.250.33.254

I will remove a large bulk of text, because it is copied from this site and a copyright violation is likely: [1] Apart from this, there may also a POV problem, since it only cites two older studies with the same POV.

Telugu/Kannada Aryans?

I found it's strange that author has mentioned Telugus/Kannadigas having Aryan(whatever that means) admixture based on Sanskirt words in those languages. Believe it or not, it's not Kannada or Telugu but Malayalam which has the highest percentage of Sanskrit words. All these languages follow Sanskrit grammar. But it has more to do with Brahmin dominance in these regions than any Aryan mixture. I suppose it's obvious when education/knowledge was a complete Brahmin phenomemon in the past the languages were also developed according to their discretion. Also, even Buddhists and Shaivites also made Sanskrit as the language of the religion further paving way for Sanskrit words into these languages. --Manjunatha (17 Aug 2005 14:17 IST)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs changing, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit any article by simply following the Edit this page link. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to...) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or try out the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 09:03, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

The claim that "[a]ll these languages [i.e., Kanada, Telugu, Malayalam, etc.] follow Sanskrit grammar" is wholly inaccurate. While it is true that the _vocabulary_ of some dravidian languages has borrowed heavily from Sanskrit, it is certainly not the case that the _grammars_ are that similar. There is a myriad of differences: the agglutinative nature of case markers, the presence of inclusive and exclusive first person pronouns, etc.

I agree that there are distinct grammatical constructs within these languages. However, the grammar was modeled after Sanskrit grammar.

Manjunatha (22 Apr 2006)

Page move

I think this page should be moved to Dravidian, Dravidians or Dravidian people. The term "Dravidian Race" is an 19th century invention, while the term Dravidian itself has a long and probably complex history that is not really mentioned in the article. Somebody really should write something about the history and etymology of the term Dravidian. And "Dravidian Race" could still be a section in the article. --Batten8 10:22, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The article was originally intended to be about the 19th century concept of a "race". The editor who created it evidently intended it to parallel the Aryan race article. It has now evolved into something different, so yes, Dravidian people or Dravidians would be better. The letter currently rediects to Dravidian, which is a disambiguation page, and I think should remain so. Paul B 10:35, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

If nobody objects, somebody should move the article to Dravidians or Dravidian people then. --Batten8 11:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Since consensus was apparently reached here for the move -- but never enacted -- I, random passerby, have completed the move. Xoloz 05:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't someone delete the page Dravidan race and change all the links to point towards Dravidian people since the two pages are identical?... PostEDIT- nevermind, it hanppened even as I was typing.

The unsortened exerpt version reads

"Morphologically the people of India may be broadly classified (Malhotra, 1978) into four types --- Negrito, Australoid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid. The Negrito element is characterized by short stature, fizzly hair, fine hair texture, brachycephalichead, dark complexion, short and protruding face, broad nose and thick and everted lips. They are now confined to the Andaman Islands and Nilgiri Hills. Some anthropologists believe that they may have had a wider distribution at one time. The Australoids are characterized by short stature (althoughtaller than the Negritos), wavy to curly hair, hyperdolichocephalic todolichocephalic head, dark complexion, stout brow ridges, sunken nasalroot and abundance of body hair. They are chiefly distributed in central and southern regions of India. The Mongoloid element in India is primarily found in the north-east and the sub-Himalayan regions of India. They have short stature, broad shoulder, scanty facial and body hair, brachycephalic head, flat face, prominent cheek bones, flat nose and epicanthic fold. Mostof the tribal groups of India belong to one of these three fairly distinct morphological types, although it must be emphasized that within any of these types there is a considerable amount of variability. The Caucasoid element in India is the most widespread. They are characterized by a taller stature, dolichocephalic to brachycephalic head, light complexion, straight to wavy hair, lighter eyes, arched forehead, long face with well-developed chin,narrow and prominent nose. ... How are populations from various Indian regions genetically positioned relative to one another? Using the data on allele frequencies at 10 loci presented in Roychoudhury (1977), a single-linkage dendrogram (Figure 2) was constructed. From Figure 2, it is seen that the populations of southern India stand apart genetically from the populations of north, west, east and central India." [2] WAS 4.250 20:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I've removed this passage again because its footnote links to a non-existent page. We need to know who said this and when. Paul B 21:11, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Southern Indian Australoids

On a purely visual basis, there is a strong similarity between the people of southern India and especially Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans are often mistaken for Aboriginies in Australia. Research has apparently not only found genetic similarities between these people and the Australian Aboriginies, but also close genetic similarities between native dogs in both areas.

The striking visual similarity does not exist with other people from the Indian subcontinent.

If you want to go by genetic studies then majority South Indians show unique haplogroups like L and H, very rarely occuring outside India. So which genetic similarity you are talking about? Which Srilanakans are you talking about? If it's Sinhalese then they exhibit Haplogroup R1A in high frequenc which is supposed to be an Indo-Aryan identifier(still controversial). Phenotypes are not good indicators of similarities. Sinhalese are dark because of geographical reasons.

These studies are not accurate, I have even read that some europeans share characteristics with Aboriginies. So this will lead us into a circle of contradiction. Suffice to say, we should leave the genetic studies out of this one.

I don't see what is so controversial about Europeans sharing characteristics with Aborigins(which aborigins?). Is it surprising considering how closely related we all? Anyway, not all genetic studies have been used here. Studies dealing with Autosomal admixture analysis and HLA analysis are still controversial as they deal with alleles under selection. Therefore, those studies have not been included in the article. The studies that are used deal with male and female lineages, predicted using Y-chromosome and mtDNA Haplogroupss. Here, the genetic relatedness means if the populations in question share the same Haplogroups(lineages) or not. Also, the studies that deal with the traits under selection. Of course, all the time maintaining Homo Sapiens' common journey Out-of-Africa. New studies say, Homo-Sapiens might have mixed with previous two migrations(again Out-of-Africa). However, those studies are still in infancy. Though predominant genetic make up of Humans still belong to Homo-Sapiens and as such no male lineages found to belong to non-Homo-Sapiens.

Manjunatha (27 Mar 2006)

Dravidian = Tamil

The following passage was taken from the book "Tamil Language - A brief review of its history and features", written by Prof. M. Varadarajan

"The term Dravidian, which refers to the language of South India, is of a later origin. Originally it was derived from the word tamil /tamiz> . This word in course of time changed into dravida after undergoing a series of changes like tamiza, tramiza, tramiTa, trapida and travida. At one time the languages spoken in the regions of Karnataka, Kongu and Malabar were respectively known as Karunaattut-tamil, Tulunattut-tamil and Malainattut-tamil. Today however, these regional languages are classified under the blanket term 'Dravidian family of languages'. "

The language known as Derivada can also be reffered to as Tamil. The Tamil language spoken in the ancient times is not different to the tamil language known today. The old texts can still be read and understood by educated tamilian. The book known as "Tholkaapiam", one of the oldest tamil text still in existance was writen in the ca 300BC - 3000BC (The exact date can not be determined due to lack of evidence) and is accepted as the oldest grammar book in any language. This book can be read and understood by any who has studied tamil. It does not require any special training.

Telugu -Italian of the East

I found it's too insulting to a self-respecting Telugite that his language has to be compared to some European language. Being part of Dravidian family of languages, it has its own identity. I suppose such POV identity links are not required for Wikipedia. --Manjunatha (22 Oct 2005)

Merging Dravidas into this article

The article "Dravidas" appears to be about this same subject (either an alternative spelling or a wrong one). It contains little information that this article does not already have (it does mention the Vindhya Range, which this article apparently does not). I have tagged it to be merged into this one. --Joel7687 01:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Unnecessary efforts In "Dravidians"

Recently a lot of discussions and corrections are going in this topic.But If view differently, its not much useful for that topic or interest.In the past there were no records like wikipedia now.If we had such system of records, today we dont need these arguments. The reason for saying this is, I didn't saw much contraversy in "Aryans".It suppose to be the case. May Be we can post our input whether towards,or against.But remember to keep the evidences.

For example, 10th planet recently discovered,[3] Until we get official acceptance, still our textbooks reads " ... 9 planets.)

if we consider "dravidian" as a belief then there will be no question.Untill we get the breakthrough by science we all input our findings / opinions. 218.186.66.245 15:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Propaganda

I'd like to bring to attention the huge amount of negative propaganda that makes up the bulk of scholarly work on anything Dravidian. The founder of the modern Dravidian movement, Bishop Caldwell, did it to try to convert Tamilians to the Protestant faith. The man who excavated the Indus Valley sites, such as Mohenjo-daro, perpetuated the theory that the Aryans conquered the Dravidians of the Indus Valley to illustrate the superiority of a white race as opposed to a black race.

Now that the Indus Valley civilisation has turned out to be one of the greatest of the ancient world (bronze age) the same people are revising their opinions to make it seem as if the Indus Valley Civilisation was Aryan. I don't know the truth exactly, but from the objective evidence, it seems Indus was Dravidian. The great majority of modern Indians also have traces of Dravidian stock, though the Tamilians would be the purest genetically as they retained a separate identity.

All I'm saying is that when I put up my findings from the internet onto this article, I did it so that people would understand some of the legacy of the Dravidians, the Tamils. If you look as I have from outside of India, you find no mention of Tamilian discoveries or achievements in history, though they echo even now in science and mathematics. One of the wonders of the world lies in Tamilnadu, the great temples of southern India, yet the only structure that is ever shown to outsiders, be they Japanese or French, is that of the Taj Mahal. It is saddening that propaganda detracts people from revealing the truth.

^^ I second the above notion too. As an outsider to India, it is practically common sense that the Aryan civilisation could not have been the Indus Valley people, the oldest temples in the world are all in the south. The north of India (With the exception of the sikh kingdoms) has never been able to protect their temples let alone defend their lands from skirmishes. History seems to portray the Aryans as some white ancient race that dominated India, in Rushdie's latest book he makes use of research that points towards the some northern indian races (descendants of Aryans) as being refugees from europe and entering India fleeing troubles.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.89.167.180 (talk • contribs) Pjacobi 15:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC).

Worthless Articles

This article is of very low quality and seems to be quite biased as well. I looks like it was written by a non tamil or non-dravidian with certain polictial goals. Someone please rewrite it or remove it.

I agree with the above, this should be re-written as it seems to give a downgraded low reflection of the Dravidian people.

Hahahahaha

"However anthropological evidence suggests that both the creators of the Indus valley civilization and the later Aryan invaders were from the Nordindid race." This article definitly needs to be removed. - I agree. Further it is clear that the Dravidians originated in africa and spread throughout all of southeast asia through ausralia and south pacific....... There is plenty of documentation for this. The article is incredibly biased.

No there isn't. There are no "Dravidians" in Australia and never have been. Dravidians originated in Africa only in the sense that everyone did. The geographical origins of the Dravidian language are unknown. References to the "Nordinid race" have long gone, so you'll have to look elsewhere to justify claims that this article is "incredibly biassed". Paul B 18:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

pedomorphous isn't a word

and were considered by some authorities as somewhat pedomorphous. oy vey... IMFromKathlene

…but Pedomorphic is. (Not that that helps.) oy vey indeedeeoh //Big Adamsky 20:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

"Aethiopians of Egypt"?

"Greek writers sometimes identified the Aethiopians of Egypt with the Eastern Aethiopians"

"Aethiopians of Egypt" is false, since "Aethiopian" was never used by Greek scholars to refer to the Egyptians, but rather to the people south of them, as well as to the people of South India, while drawing similarities in appearance between the North Indians and the Egyptians, and distinctions between the North Indians/Egyptians and the South Indians/Ethiopians [4]. I will change this. --Jugbo

Aryan/Dravidian races

I don't know what the person means by race here. If it's genetic make up, please give the proper literature to support this. As far as I know, all Y-chromosomes and mtDNA found in South Indian caste population is common in whole sub-continent. It's not our problem if somebody can't or doesn't want to go beyond his/her skin colour/anthropometry views. Dravidian identity is wholly based on its unique languages and the culture developed by the people who speak those languages. It looks like too many people belonging to Nordicist, Dravidian movements and Dalitstan organization have vested interest in developing this article as a racial one.

Manjunatha (6 Feb 2006)

I think it's more likely due to the differing definitions of "race". In much of current Western thinking, race itself is seen as being non-existent outside of cultural perception. So the fact that some have traditionally and still do see the linguistic and cultural differences between the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian peoples as being "racial" means that by definition they qualify as differing "racial" types, at least from a certain point of view. That's how I read it, anyway. --Krsont 10:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The people who try to add 'nordindid' and 'varying racial types' donot hold your views, I'm afraid.

Manjunatha (8 Feb 2006)

I have also come across a study wherein the genetic differences increases as one goes further south. i.e. South Indians have a slightly different makeup of genes. The differences might only be marginal but the point is, yes, there are differences in genetic makeup if that's what you mean. I'll try to figure out where I can get a source on this, but that should not become the basis for turning this into a racial subject. It is only a secondary aspect and the real difference has a lot to do with many other aspects of life than this. tx Idleguy 10:22, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it little naive to believe 'race' is secondary aspect here? I'm not sure what do you mean by slightly different make up of genes? Is that autosomal admixture analysis or STR counts or HLA analysis? Do you reject people of common descent(Carrying the same Y-chromosomes) differ owing to geographical selection pressure? Do you reject people of common descent migrating at different points of time might also differ? Do you think that makes them different races? As far as I know, South Indian Y-chromosome Haplorgroup diversity is just a subset of North-Indian/Pakistani diversity. And that makes unique South Indian founding population irrelevent.

Do you believe people who want to put 'race' into article donot subscribe to skin tone prejudices and pseudoscience like anthropometry?

Manjunatha (9 Feb 2006)

If I can get that report I can add something on this issue. Until then, I reserve my comments. Idleguy 11:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted mediterranean Indo-Aryans. As far as I know, even that kind of racial categorisation is obsolete now. So I'm not sure how the present day geneticists support that theory.

Manjunatha (10 Feb 2006)

Dravidians, ancient people?

Somebody please explain why Dravidian people are considered as part of ancient people categroy. We are neither extint nor we are going to be extinct in any near future.

Manjunatha (13 Feb 2006)

Perhaps because Dravidian is considered an ancient master set, i.e. like Latin. The Dravidian texts are no longer spoken or read by a community as it once was. However, Dravidian has produced second generation civilisations such as Thamil.

Please don't add words like "dark skinned people founded great civilizations"(from your ip address I think you are the same person who added those "notes" in the article). We don't even know how many of the so-called whites were whites when the civilizations were built throughout the world. White skin among European population was selected and became widespread very quickly. So you don't have to play by some white racists' theories of skin colour correspondence to civilization.

Who knows, the ancestors of present day Dravidians might have spoken Munda, Burushaski during IVC. Some anthropologists even believe Dravidians were intruders/immigrants to Indus valley(Michael Witzel). The North Dravidian languages have sporadic distribution across Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, North-Central India, Bangaldesh and Nepal. However in relatively smaller South and Central India has two branches of Dravidian languages, viz. South and Central. Some people even classify it three South, Central, South-Central. Some present studies believe, South-West India(coastal Karnataka, where Tulu language branches earliest from Proto-South Dravidian even before Proto-Tamil-Kannada) might be the origin of Dravidian languages. How come North Dravidian languages even though widespread in such large areas are grouped under only one branch but South Dravidian languages have so many branches? Which is older? At present, most of the things are at best speculative. However, eventhough IVC could be remotely Vedic or Indo-Aryan there are very strong doubts it being Dravidian(I mean linguistically Dravidian) either.

Manjunatha (27 Mar 2006)

Dravidian societal distinctions?

Somebody please elaborate what one means by Dravidian societal distinctions. I have read that priests' position was low in the early Tamil society. Another division was left-hand and right-hand groups. However, it was more like mercantile/agrarian divisions(though not always following that pattern). Again, two big Dravidian states Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka donot show severity of those divisions. Therefore, I'm confused how caste distinctions follow Dravidian societal distinctions. Please clarify and add those words into the article.

Manjunatha (17 Mar 2006)

Muslim Indoaryans

I'm removing several sentences such as this one; 'Almost all of Karnataka Muslims are Indo-Aryans.' Pending some clarification or justification. Imc 20:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

They speak Indo-Aryan language Urdu. That is why they are Indo-Aryans. I hope you don't consider Indo-Aryans in any sense other than linguistic. Please revert back the editions. Thanks.

Manjunatha (18 Mar 2006)

First point. I'm afraid I do understand the term Indo-Aryan (without a qualifier) as primarily an ethnic term, and hence it is one that I'd feel more comfortable not being used. I appreciate that there is a non ethnic definition given atIndo-Aryans#Contemporary_Indo-Aryans, but without the qualifying word 'language' added to it, I suspect that it will be misunderstood.

Second point; are there justifications / references for the assertion that most Muslims are Urdu speakers? It may well be so in for the Muslim populations in the main Muslim cultural centers (e.g. Hyderabad, Mysore), but my impression is that rural Muslims tend to speak the same language that their neighbours do.

Imc 08:41, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure one has to accommodate people who misunderstand Indo-Aryan because of their ignorance. The very problem that they are going to misunderstand the term shows that they are still clinging onto some outdated theories.

Please find the following two article which puts Urdu speakers among Muslims in Karnatka and Andhra Pradesh at around 90%. In Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, Muslims speak Malayalam. Therefore, the percentage is down at 85%. Otherwise even in Karnataka it would be around 90%. Hope that helps.

http://www.languageinindia.com/dec2002/urduinkarnataka.html http://www.languageinindia.com/april2003/urduinap.html

Manjunatha (18 Mar 2006)

OK, I've put it back in, but only as a general reference at the base of the section, because I want to look for more detail. I've also added modified the term to be specific 'Indo-aryan languages'. Of course I cannot argue with census data, and if they say they are Urdu speakers, then it has to be reported as so. But frankly, I find the large scale identification of 'Muslim = Urdu speaker' somewhat difficult to believe. Despite the statement in '6. IS URDU AN ICON OF MUSLIM IDENTIFICATION?' in the first reference, I suspect that there is a considerable element of cultural identification in these figures. Imc 09:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I've changed your formulation. Most Muslims in Tamil Nadu and Kerala regard Tamil and Malayalam, respectively, as their mother tongues. Muslims in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh tend to treat Urdu (or Dakhani) as their mother tongue. This isn't as strange as you appear to think, if one keeps the history of the Deccan in mind. -- Arvind 15:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

True. I mentioned only Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh muslims as Indo-Aryans. Though I suspect, Muslims in Tamil Nadu might be eqully divided between Urdu speakers and Tamil speakers.

It's really disappointing when some people in their sense of fairness inadvertently play by the rules set by 19th century Eurocentric(racist) anthropologists.

We need some expert to write a section on skin colour, how it is positively selected. How valid it is to divide people based on skin colour(Isn't that origins of Dravidian race?).

Manjunatha (20 Mar 2006)