Original Dravidian Homeland

[N.Ganesan]

 > I (being a Hungarian speaker) thought over the suggested connection
 >between Dravidian and Finno-Ugoric languages. The idea is correct,
 >not too naive, but very far from proven.

See Elli Marlow, More on the Uralo-Dravidian relationship: A
comparison of Uralic and Dravidian etymological vocabularies, PhD
thesis, UTexas, Austin, 1974 [Advisor: A. F. Sjoberg]

Sjoberg, The Dravidian contribution to the Development of Indian
civilization: A call for a Reassessment,
Comparative civilizations review, 23, Fall 1990, p. 40-74,
On p. 47 "[Dravidian] languages may be connected with Elamite,
which was once spoken in the area of present-day Iran. However
there is stronger evidence  linking the Dravidian languages with
Uralic in northern Asia (an parts of Europe) and to some extent
Altaic in central and eastern Asia. Caldwell advanced this thesis in
1856, but it was not taken seriously for more than a century. Then a
few scholars began to add to the data, and in the past decade or two
the theory has truly been revived. In 1968 Tyler listed some important
Dravidian-Uralic cognates in root words. But the salient work in this
field is the unpublished dissertation of Marlow (1974), who presented
data that are powerful enough to bring many skeptics around to this
view. Trained in Dravidian languages she was also a native speaker
of Finnish who was able to make extensive use of the Etymological
Dictionary of Uralic, which is in the Finnish langauge. She then
systematically  compared the root words therein with those in
Burrow and Emeneau's A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (and
Supplement) (1961, 1968). Tyler (1986) in a recent unpublished paper
seems persuaded by Marlow's data. And he speaks of " an unbroken
chain of interconnected cultures stretching from Central Asia
to Central India" If correct, this would reduce the importance
of the geographic distance between Dravidian and Uralic as the main
stumbling block to acceptance of the possibility of relationship
between the two linguistic groups".

Sometime in 1998, Arthur Karp wrote about Dr. Jan Braun, Professor
Emeritus from the Ancient Studies Dept., U. of Warsaw who worked
on the genetic relationship between Elamite and Dravidian.
May be Dr. Braun from Poland can be persuaded to publish his findings.

Regards,
N. Ganesan






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