Dravidian (Tamil) Sanskrit relation

[aklujkar at unixg.ubc.ca]

On 8 March, <nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov (Ganesan)> posted two very useful
and balanced messages on the relation between Dravidian (Tamil) and
Sanskrit. In one of them, he  has, if I recall correctly, once again,
posted Prof. Hart's views. 

While I agree with the thrust (the two linguistic traditions are much
closer for a longer time than most introductory books depict) of Hart's
views, it seems important to me to bear in mind that much of recent
research points toward the desirability of assuming a 'linguistic area' in
India from a very early time -- an area in which languages belonging to
different families had begun to share each other's features. In this
situation, it is not as easy to determine syntactic borrowings and
borrowings of literary conventions as Prof. Hart seems to have assumed. 

An important article on the antiquity of relation between Tamil and
Sanskrit is: Sharma, K.V. 1983. "Spread of Vedic culture in ancient south
India." Adyar Library Bulletin 47:1-14.