Page:An introduction to Dravidian philology.djvu/32

Rh newcomers (Dravidians, Aryans etc.,) Thus by the time proto history begins, the Dravidians could not have been in Southern India. And as this stratum of culture is widely held to be Austro-Indo-African, we cannot Assert that Dravidian affinities should be discovered among the people of this region

The term "Dravidian" has been & much abused word. Ever since Caldwell wrote his “Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages" a new turn has been given to its signification which has so much established itself in philological and anthropological discussions that there seems to be no chance at present for its being properly understood in its historical light. But from the earliest times, as the name of a set of languages or of a particular language, it was understood to constitute one of the Prakrit languages. It was con-