Dear Herman,

In 1981 the late David McAlpin had said the following.

“D2. (R)AE kuti- to carry (away), bear, uphold, kutira bearer (PFT).

“PSDr *kutiray horse:

Ta. kutirai horse. Ma. kutira id. To. kïθïr-, id. Ka. kudire id. Kod. kudïre id. Tu. Kudarè id. Te. kudira id. (<SDr). (DED(S,n) 1423)

“This term is the normal and widespread word for ‘horse’ in South Dravidian languages. However, except for loans (cf. Telugu), it is restricted to South Dravidian. Telugu normally has gurramu

which attests the Central Dravidian form. Burrow(1972: pp. 18-25) has shown convincingly that the word for horse in Proto-Dravidian is attested only by Old Tamil ivuli and Brahui hullī (Den S²9A). This matter can be clarified by the history of the domestication of the horse. Only one horse, the onagar (Equus hemionus), is native to South Asia. The domesticated horse (E. caballus) is native to the Eurasian steppes and was not introduced into South Asia until after 2000 B.C. Thus, any Proto-Dravidian term must refer to a wild horse (presumably E. hemionus) and this is undoubtedly what PDr *ivuli referred to. With the introduction, of the already domesticated E. caballus to South Asia, new terms in each branch of Dravidian came into use. Only Brahui kept the old term with a new meaning. SDr *kutiray and CDr *gurram almost certainly have nothing to do with one another.

“The word kutiray has been a problem in South Dravidian for many years. It seems to be composed of a stem kuti- with an ending -ray. The stem kuti- is no great problem since it exists as a verb meaning ‘jump, leap, frolic’ (DED(S,n) 1419) which could be connected with a horse. However, -ray has been a problem. It means nothing and has no connection or parallel in a highly agglutinative system where everything should have a meaning. Proto-South-Dravidian admitted no nouns in final -a (as Tamil still does not). Any loan noun would automatically have changed such an ending to -ay or -am. Thus, kutiray is precisely the form which would be expected if South Dravidian borrowed Elamite kutira. If they were cognate, they could not be so close in form. Given the meaning, which is ideal for the domesticated horse, and the phonology, as well as the archaeological evidence, there is little doubt that kutiray is an Elamite loanword into South Dravidian.

“These two loanwords seem to point to a connection, either direct or indirect, of the second millennium B.C., there is no reason not to accept the direct sea trade connection. That such a trade is likely to have existed is one of the interesting and significant results of this work.”

“Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its Implications,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 71, Part 3, 1981, pp. 147-48

Later in 2015, David McAlpin postulated that Brahui did not really belong in Dravidian and is part of an Elamitic branch of the proto-Zagrosian family which included Dravidian and Elamitic subgroups.

See “Brahui and the Zagrosian Hypothesis“, Journal of the American Oriental Society 135.3 (2015), pp. 551-86. He does not seem to discuss the etymology of ivuḷi or hullī.

David’s papers are available at https://independent.academia.edu/DavidMcAlpin.

Regards,

Palaniappan

From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> on behalf of Indology List <indology@list.indology.info>
Reply-To: "Tieken, H.J.H. (Herman)" <H.J.H.Tieken@hum.leidenuniv.nl>
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2026 at 7:18 AM
To: Indology List <indology@list.indology.info>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Burrow on Tamil ivul̥i, "horse"

I would like to thank my colleagues who have helped me with tracing Burrow's article on the words for "horse" in the Dravidian languages, Jean-Luc Chevillard, Appasamy Murugaiyan, Victor Davella, Christophe Vielle and Narenthiran (IFP).

I am not convinced by Burrow's conclusion that Tamil ivul̥i would be the most probably candidate for the original Dravidian word for horse because of its relationship with Brahui (h)ullī, Tamil and Brahui being found at the opposite ends of the area covered by the Dravidian languages (comparable with Sanskrit and Irish) and the instances of the word in Tamil being old (which they are not). Moreover, if Brahui has arrived only late in the Northwest, could its speakers, living somewhere in central India, have been familiar with horses?

Herman  

Herman Tieken

's-Herenstraat 66

3155 SL Maasland

The Netherlands

00 31 (0)10 7617502

00 (0)6 14652798

website: hermantieken.com

The Aśoka Inscriptions: Analysing a corpus, New Delhi: Primus Books, 2023.

https://primusbooks.com/ancient/the-asoka-inscriptions-analysing-a-corpus-by-herman-tieken/

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