Now Some More Pedestrianism on "Dravidian Linguistics"

 

Now Some More Pedestrianism on "Dravidian Linguistics"

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

The ball having been set rolling by none other than the Indian PM, now we can expect a flood of pedestrian "scholarly" articles on "Dravidian languages and linguistics" exuding childish views. The following article, "Korean, Hebrew and Tamil: why the global history of our Dravidian past is unexplored" appeared yesterday (18-7-2023) in the Indian Express, signifying this new trend. The article is of course to be treated as a "scholarly" one, since we are told that "The writer is a journalist and human rights activist from Kerala. His autobiography, ‘News Room’, recently won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award", and the article ends with a pompous homily not borne out by the ignorance and careless lack of knowledge displayed in the article: "Truthful and meaningful studies can only take place in a climate of intellectual honesty".  

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/korean-hebrew-and-tamil-why-the-global-history-of-our-dravidian-past-is-unexplored-8846533/

This article not only mouths the usual AIT crap: "During the colonial period, British and other European scholars had established the connection between Sanskrit, which the Aryans had brought to the subcontinent, and major European languages", but also brings in the DIT (Dravidian Invasion/Immigration Theory) idea with an air of "intellectual honesty": he refers to the Dravidian language speakers as members of a "Mediterranean race" and writes "The Mediterranean origin of the Dravidians points to the possibility of affinity between Tamil and the languages of the Middle East …… For its own reasons, the Dravidian political movement will also not be enthusiastic about studies that may show that their ancestors, like the Aryans, came from outside the subcontinent", and even introduces an Evangelistic thrust: "One scholar speculated that the language of that region which is closest to Tamil is Aramaic, believed to be the language Jesus Christ spoke"! The AIT is buttressed, in the minds of ignorant Indian mental sepoys posing as well-read scholars,  by the fact that Indo-European languages are indeed at least found far outside India; but the fact that no trace of any Dravidian language has ever been discovered anywhere outside India does not deter them from touting a DIT as well!   

This scholarly author's basis for connecting Dravidian with Hebrew in particular is based on three words, the words for "father", "mother" and "rice": "1. Father: Ebba (Hebrew) Appa (Tamil). 2. Mother: Emma (Hebrew) Amma (Tamil). 3. Rice: Riz (Hebrew) Ariss (Tamil)". That the words for rice in a large number of languages to the west outside India were actually taken there from India along with rice itself in the ancient past is a fact not known to this scholar.

And about words for "mother" and "father", most languages of the world have words containing the labial sounds "m" and "b/p/f" because parents (especially the mother) are the first and most intimate persons or earthly objects encountered by a new-born child, and labial sounds the first sounds to be uttered. The Arabic words are "al-umu" and "al-ab", and the Chinese words are "mu-qin" and "fu-qin". No historical linguistic connection is needed for these similarities. Usually "m" and "mother" are associated (since they are the first sound uttered and the first and closest person in life respectively), but the opposite can sometimes prevail: in Tulu, amme means "father" and appe means "mother".

The article abounds in such ignorant and unscholarly claims. Just two will suffice (in any case it is not a very long or detailed article):

1. "the Korean language, like Japanese, has a pictorial alphabet.": actually both have phonetic alphabets of two totally different kinds (I have already written an article on the Korean alphabet), although Japanese in particular makes liberal use of Chinese "pictorial alphabet" signs as well.

2. "Before the arrival of the Aryans, the Dravidians lived in the northern region. The Brahuis moved into the area at that time. They interacted with their Dravidian neighbours and picked up their language. When the Dravidians moved south under pressure from the Aryan migrants, the Brahuis stayed put and they continued to use the language they had acquired from them.":  unfortunately for this ignoramus. almost all AIT scholars (including Witzel and Hock) have now accepted that Brahui is in fact a migrant to the northwest from South India!

Now we can expect a flood of such nonsense in the media and social media.