Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/232

 220 INDIA (RACKS AND LANGUAGES) western side of tbe Ghauts, between Manga- lore and Trivandrum. The fifth and least rep- resented language is Tulu or Tuluva, formerly spoken in Canara, now only in the vicinity of Mangalore, and rapidly dying out. The speech of the Todavars, Kotars, Gonds, Koos, and other races occupying the mountains, is ex- pected to show on further acquaintance an in- timate relation with these languages. Max Miiller considers the Dravidian languages as a branch of the Uralo-Altaic, Mongolian, or Turanian ; but Fr. Muller and other great au- thorities consider them a totally distinct and primitive division of human speech. These languages are written in peculiar graphic sys- tems, which are derived like those of the Aryan languages of India from the Devana- gari alphabet, but less directly, coming through the Kistnah and Nerbudda characters. The sounds may be grouped in Tamil as follows : Tamil. Surd. Gutturals ft , Palatals g= , Dentals 5 , Labials i_j p, f y, oo Z, Sibilant & s. 2^ a, Liquids. . Vowels. Sonant. & ff, - d, Sj d, LJ b, a v, % d, 2_ U, Nasal. CBBT n. <T3T ^5 n. LD m. rr r, yl. er The cerebrals are pronounced with a decided palatalization. The Tamil characters probably represent the oldest of the south Indian gra- phic systems. In all the Dravidian languages, but especially in Tamil and Malayalam, there is the peculiar law of beginning with surd sounds every word and syllable following one that is closed; and of beginning with sonants every syllable which succeeds another that is open, or that is closed with a nasal or a liquid sound. Tamil adds to this the difficulty of employing the same sign either as a surd or a sonant, leaving it to the reader to decide how it is to be pro- nounced. Another difficulty arises from the fact that the Dravidian languages absorbed many Aryan words belonging to different pe- riods of the ancient and modern Indian lan- guages. Some of these words were appropri- ated without alteration, called tatsama by na- tive grammarians, and others have been assimi- lated with Dravidian forms, called tadbhava. As the Dravidian alphabets do not represeat all the Indian sounds, it was found necessary either to invent others, which was done in Telugu, Kannadi, and Malayalam, or to change the words so that the alphabet would suffice, which is done in Tamil. Originally, therefore, the Dravidian languages made use only of the number of characters still employed in Tamil ; but at present Telugu, Kannadi, and Malayalam have a system of signs which represent also the sounds of the Aryan languages, and which may be grouped in a similar manner. Canarese characters are similar to the Telugu ; hence we subjoin only the latter and the Malayalam : Tc, Telugu. IcJi, * g, d, d, J, $ th, X5 ph, f, a ) gh, fc- . ?A, r3 n. dh, jC n. &^, % in. v. 8, &*r~t A. Malayalam. CLJ M., 00 ff, J gh, 03 n. Gutt. < Pal. QJ ^, Liq. (2/ y, 1-1 v, Sib. and asp. 03 (, {" rtS^ a, Vowels ... 2., 3 Ih, fa ni. r, 1 I. g i, OfOO i, i5 e, OD , o, 65 ^ 6, These systems enable the Telugu, Kannadi, and Malayalam to give Indian words in their own orthography, while Tamil must transform them according to the necessities of its insuffi- cient alphabet. A sentence is in all the Dra- vidian languages an absolute whole. The words are closely connected, and the junction of vow- els or consonants, vowel and consonant, or con- sonant and vowel, at the end and beginning of two words, produces various euphonic changes. The accent, however, remains always on the root syllable, which is in all cases the first syl- lable of a word. The parts of speech may be reduced to only two groups of nouns and verbs. There is hardly what is called a gram-
 * , c<), ID h.