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Archive 1Archive 2

Elamite

On the contrary, they are perhaps related to the Elamite language spoken in Iran before the invasion of the Persians. I believe, though I can't claim any sources, that the current theory is that there was an Elamo-Dravidian continuum stretching from the borders of Sumer/Akkad all the way to the tip of the Indian subcontinent before the Persians invaded.

See: http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_dravidian.html
and HistoricalLinguisticsorPhilology

--Ben Brumfield

How many words of Elamite are known, aside from a couple of dozen personal names? Such sweeping linguistic theories really do need more solid backup than http://www.krysstal.com is offering. Wetman 20:32, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Have a look at David W. McAlpin's Toward Proto-Elamo-Dravidian in Language, Vol. 50, No. 1. (Mar., 1974), pp. 89-101. Elamite has a written corpus comprising of thousands of words. --Imran 21:43, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Isn't 'arasu' Tamil for 'king' or 'government'? (c.f. Singapore, which in Tamil is Singapura Kudiyarasu) --Xiaopo's Talk 20:30, Jan 2, 2004 (UTC)

It is. -- Sundar 10:35, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Past Dravidian Languages

Indeed, it has been suggested that the language of the Indus Valley Civilization was Dravidian, but I don't know that anyone denies the possibility of other languages in the area of modern India. The widespread view that the language of the Indus Valley civilization was not Dravidian also needs coverage. --Xiaopo's Talk 08:43, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)

When the script of the Indus Valley is eventually deciphered, opinions pro or con will have the beginnings of some substance. No one has the least idea of what phonemes go with what symbol, at present (Scientific American July 2003) Wetman 20:32, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Rewrite

I rewrote this page because it was amazingly un-NPOV. The claim that Dravidian was the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages is believed by a very small minority, and I know many linguists who would go farther and call it a "crackpot theory". It obviously deserves mention, but NPOV allows less popular views to get less space, and this one deserves a few sentences detailing its claims and the response of the mainstream community -- certainly not the large portion of this article as well as another. These views were also mentioned on Aryan invasion theory as fact, in an extremely NPOV paragraph I rewrote. I moved some of the examples from Indo-European Dravidian words since those were greatly representative of the bunch. Also (almost done, promise!) let me present a page[1] showing that chance resemblances amongst unrelated languages are indeed quite likely. Last, but not least, these repeated dismissals of mainstream linguists as having "only a passing familiarity with Dravidian languages" and citing an author's only qualification as being a native speaker of a Dravidian language don't mean much -- f'rinstance, I'm a native speaker of a Dravidian language and I believe these claims are rubbish. :-) Suggested reading for Codebytez: Comparative method and sound change. --Xiaopo's Talk 06:44, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)

Deleted

I deleted Marathi from the list of literary Dravidian languages. It's so obviously wrong! It seemed like somebody was just trying to mess around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.235.26.180 (talk) 14:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


Some comments

We should really be discussing this on Indo-European dravidian words, but since we have started here, lets rock :)

  • Applying the principle of regular sound change, the reconstructed proto-Dravidian word for "one" is *oru. English "one" on the other hand can be traced back to Old Germanic *ainaz and Proto-Indo-European *oynos.
    • Actually, dravidian has two words for "one". onnu which is used in the abstract numeric sense and *oru used for person. onnu corresponds to the IE root oi-no.
  • Interesting that in all my years of speaking Kannada and Tamil I've never heard of these two words for "one" then. Nor can I find them in any grammars of the language. Since you marked *oru with an asterisk and not onnu, I presume onnu is a form in one of the modern Dravidian languages, and not a reconstructed form? Which language, then?
    • oru is used as an adjective indicating a single item or person in Tamil. onnu seems to be a slang for the number one, the more classical for being onRu (in Tamil), (and ondhu? in Kannada). -- Sundar 10:32, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
    • "Onnu" is Malayalam for "one", not slang. "Oru" is an indefinite article in Malayalam, same as Tamil. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.202.97.221 (talk) 16:57, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
  • English "attic" comes from Greek Αττική (Attiki), the name of a region of Greece (see: Attica, Greece). It has changed meaning over the years, and it is thus pure coincidence that its present meaning and pronunciation bears resemblances to the Tamil form.
    • I've heard about the above etymology and also at least another for attic: ut- [IE root for up] with the -ic suffix, literally upper. This sounds more probable than attic being named after a region of Greece simply because places named after things are common, things named after places are rare. It only happens when a new item is introduced by traders from a foriegn land. E.g. Indigo from India, Hamburger from Hamburg. However, in such cases, there is always a native word for the item. I could not find any non-tangential synonyms for attic. [If someone knows, please let me know]
      • Attic is a shortened form for 'attic storey,' attested in 1724. Another form attested in 1696, 'attic order,' refers to "a low decorative facade above the main story of a building." 'Attic' before this date refers to a type of column often featured in Classical architecture inspired by the Greek region Attica, a word attested in 1599. Before this, there is no written record of 'attic' in the English language. Please do not make generalized statements about Indo-European linguistics before you do basic research, especially if you're going to make things up to support your flimsy argument. Your fanciful derivation is laughable. 'Ut-' is not even the IE root for 'up.' It isn't a reconstructed root at all.
  • The etymology I suggest is well-documented and appears to be accepted by virtually everyone, see [2] [3] and [4]. "Late 17th century. Via French attique “Atticâ€? from Latin Atticus (see Attic). The word originally described a decorative structure (in the Attic style) above the main façade of a building." In fact, I can't find any source (reputable or otherwise) that suggests your etymology. Maybe you could help me out here? :-)
    • I'm dropping vocare and yellow (also other weak cases) and list only ones that have a solid IE root. Please understand that the page is still being worked on and I will attempt to rewrite in accord with Comparative Method.
  • The thing is, the view of the vast majority of linguists is that there is no such thing as "Indo-European Dravidian words". Thus having a whole article for it wouldn't be NPOV. The NPOV policy states that we don't need to discuss minority views and beliefs in the field as much as majority opinions, and this theory is certainly believed by few enough people to not deserve an article of its own; in fact, it would mean the minority view gets more time and explanation than the majority. Not to mention that the very title, "Indo-European Dravidian words" is a viewpoint.
    • I understand you do not agree with the above theory, but Vfd'ing a new user's page that is in the process of heavy editing without comments on the page itself or at least some talk is just ... sad ;)

Codebytez | Talk 10:27, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

  • Sorry if I made it seem personal or something, it's not. :-) This isn't meant to belittle your skills as a writer or Wikipedian, and you certainly can write well. I just don't think a page like "Indo-European Dravidian words" has any place in the NPOV policy. (Also, you're right, I should have left a note on Talk:Indo-European Dravidian words saying discussion was over here, sorry!) --Xiaopo's Talk 16:21, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)


  • Xiaopo: How would you feel if we do this:

I summarize and move contents of Indo-European Dravidian words into this page as a paragraph (fewer examples, will use only word for word equivalents). Then we kill the other page. If you still believe that Indo-European Roots and matching dravidian words/roots constitutes flawed methodology, we can paraphrase your lengthy analysis with a sentence or two. I can understand your argument about yellow/haladi, but would you still hold the same belief for IE root to Dravidian word/root matching? Given that no consonants are changed and the vowels are practically the same, they are practically the same word with the same meaning. -- Codebytez | Talk 22:30, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)


I took a look at the page [5] and trust me, its flawed. The math is OK, but the basic assumption of roots starting and ending in one consonant and having only one vowel in between is a major flaw. As you already know, roots can start and end with vowels and diphthongs. Consonants can flow to another consonant without a vowel in between. And roots that start in consonants can have diphthongs following them. The ending does not have to be a consonant. The model used by the paper would for example, leave out a vast number of the known IE roots and Dravidian roots/words. Developing independent models for different language groups and calculating the probability of the same word with the same meaning is a complex math problem.

The chances of two root words that sound exactly the same and mean exactly the same thing are RARE in languages that belong to different language groups. If you can find 25 root words that sound and mean the same among two unrelated language groups with no variations except the ending, I'd be mighty impressed. Indo-European and Dravidian pair is the only exception. Surely, they could be related? The requirement for 90% of roots to be the same is just a little too much. If they do, they are probably dialects :)

--Codebytez | Talk 05:31, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It might be that theer is authority for draavida meaning south in Sanskrit, but the standard word for south is dakshina. draavida has other derivations related to the name Tamil, and the meaning 'south' is probably derivative. Imc 22:25, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Agrees. Dravida is a word that means Southern, the context being anthropological (refers to the Southern culture and people) and not the direction.
It may be derivative, but I'm not sure. Do you know any place where we can look it up?
And Chancemill (who wrote the comment above mine), it's not always anthropological. c.f. Jana-Gana-Mana: "Punjaba, Sindhu, Gujarata, Maratha, / Dravida, Utkala, Banga" where it's obviously used in a geographical context. --Xiaopo's Talk 22:38, Jan 29, 2004 (UTC)
The online dictionary at http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/indologie/tamil/mwd_search.html provides no authority for draavida meaning south, either from English or from Sanskrit. So it would probably be safe to rewrite the article to say that the name Dravidian was derived from a word connected to 'Tamil', in this case meaning the south of the country. Imc 13:12, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The original Prakrit term for Dravida is Damida, which has a dravidian etymology. Two possible derivations are Tamila -> Damida -> Dravida and Damida -> Tamila and also Damida->Dravida. Damida is a dravidian palindromic word, so its possibly an older form of both Tamila and Dravida. Codebytez | Talk
Is it related to theRku (meaning South in Tamil) ? -- Sundar 10:32, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Xiapo: I know you went to a lot of trouble to investigate my word list, but it so happens that every word you have chosen was given as an example only by me. I am not aware of any other occurance of these four examples. You really should find other words incorrectly believed by lay people to be cognate. Also what shall we do about the many roots that are identical in PIE and Dravidian? Also, what reference do you use for the proto-dravidian language? Codebytez | Talk

Not much trouble, actually, some of the flaws in your examples were obvious at first glance. I don't see how we can give examples usually presented by lay people, since most lay people who comment on the subject (like you) create their own wordlists. Regardless of where you got yours, I think it's safe to say the examples I used are representative of the level of scholarship of such hypotheses.
If we really want to decide what goes in here, I would suggest that we have about a sentence or two pointing out that some people disagree with this classification. After all, we see far less discussion on Korean language as to whether Korean is an isolate, and yet that's far more controversial than whether Dravidian is related to IE! It is not our place to decide whether these theories are true or false, simply to represent the opinions of the people in the field -- and the consensus is overwhelming, this issue isn't even very controversial in linguistic circles.
If you're referring to *oru, I originally got it from here. IIRC, however, it was mentioned in one of your Levitt articles as well.
--Xiaopo's Talk 03:19, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)
I would prefer attic/atta, kill/kollu, chill/chali. Sound and mean almost the same but have different etymologies. Actually, it would help to know the etymologies of Dravidian words to make the point solid.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to find any reference on a reconstructed proto-dravidian reference/dictionary. I read somewhere on the internet that proto-dravidian has never been reconstructed. If anyone has an online or book reference to a complete proto-dravidian dictionary/reference, it would be of immense help.
Also I noticed you deleted the reference to Dravidian contribution of retroflex L to Sanskrit when you reverted. Was it accidental?
Codebytez | Talk
I actually think our purpose is not to go into length presenting arguments from either side, but just to include a sentence or two that this classification is disputed.
I don't know about any reference dictionaries; however, your Levitt article referenced several proto-Dravidian forms.
Whoops, yeah, that last bit was accidental. Erk, sorry. --Xiaopo's Talk 19:28, Mar 3, 2004 (UTC)

Australian Aboriginal languages

I'm quite surprised to find that there is no mention at all to the old, now discredited theory that Australian languages were related to Dravidian. When you read about Australian languages this is one of the first things you learn. Apparently it is the phonology and probably also the agglutinative qualities of the languages which once gave this impression. Maybe it's missing from this page because the perspective is reversed. Australian language literature always mentions Dravidian but I guess Dravidian language literature doesn't mention Australian. — Hippietrail 09:49, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I removed this pair of statements from the article:

The former claim that Dravidian and Indo-European share a common ancestor is generally based on more rigorous methods comparing Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Dravidian, and is generally held in higher regard by the mainstream linguistic community. This is statement is clearly false. I do not know of any mainstream linguist who has supported this. Refer to Bhadriraju Krishnamurti's recent book on Dravidian Languages.

I think dialogues like this belong on the Talk page, not in the article, until they are resolved. --Heron 14:23, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

so Dravidian is a separate language family? Indo-Aryan is related to Dravidian but not related to Indo-European? is that confirmed? and is Indo-Aryan related to Dravidian by contact or by common innovation?CuteHappyBrute (talk) 05:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Dravidian is certainly a separate language family. It has borrowed/ absorbed a lot of Sanskrit words, idioms, and even grammar, but it is distinct. Sanskrit is a very old Indo-European language.

Theories on the derivation of Dravidian languages

The "mainstream" theories are better dealt with in the "History" section, as I have now done ("History" should really discuss the history of the family, not just the history of its discovery). I don't know what to say about this section. Perhaps we could substitute this section with a new section (or separate article) dealing with the relationship between Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages? That section could deal with issues such as the mutual lexical and structural influences, as well as the theories about the common descent of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian and the objections to these theories. ---- Arvind 17:15, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have removed this section -- I read like an argument which shouldn't be presented to the reader. The relevant points in the arguments are already here on the talk page. Edinborgarstefan 21:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe removing the whole section was a bit drastic but this debunking of an arbitrary word list needs some context to make sense. Is there some external source for this list? - Haukur Þorgeirsson 21:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

List of Dravidian languages

I'd like to redo this list, so as to add information about the sub-groups and sub-sub-groups within each broad group. This could be done as a nice png tree, or through a multi-level list. Any suggestions as to which will be better? My impression is also that the South-Central and Central groups are considered to be two-subgroups of a broader Central group (the differentiation being broadly comparable to that between Tamil and Tulu). The Britannica agrees, but are there linguistic sources which indicate otherwise? ---- Arvind 17:27, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

lack of language specifications

Dravidian_languages#Grammar lacks specifications of the languages of the examples!--Imz 20:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The article attempts to impose the English grammar on the Dravidian languages, which will lead to wrong conclusions. Take the following statement: "The main (and probably original) dichotomy in tense is past:non-past. Present tense developed later and independently in each language or subgroup". The source is not quoted. I am a native speaker of Tamil, and I have some knowledge of its grammar, and I can assure that even the oldest grammar work in Tamil, Tolkappiyam, clearly states that the tenses are three, not two. Past-non past is not known at any time in Tamil; and Tamil is almost 90% Proto-Dravidian. The modern Indo-european has Present- non Present structure; it seems someone has mistaken this for a feature of the Dravidian languages. Tamil grammar clearly classifies the words (சொற்கள்) into four: பெயர்ச்சொல், வினைச்சொல், இடைச்சொல், உரிச்சொல்; applying any other classification, whether Sanskrit or English, will certainly lead to wrong conclusions. - Gopalan evr (talk) 17:59, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Reversal Property

This sounds an awful lot like folk etymology, and no sources for either the supposed property in general or for the specific examples is given. I've found no reference to this in either overviews of the Dravidian family (such as in Steever) or of the grammars of specific Dravidian languages (such as Arden on Tamil).It was also originally added to the article with other assertions that were clearly incorrect. If someone has info showing that it is or was a productive derivational technique in Dravidian languages, insert it again with a reference. Ergative rlt 23:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed Tamil=Proto-Dravidian coalesce

I have removed sentence that said Tamil is in fact closest to the Proto-Dravidian. From the article written by E. Annamalai is former Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore,

This conservative nature of high Tamil aids the political construction of the popular belief that Tamil is the mother of all Dravidian languages, making Tamil and Proto-Dravidian coalesce. Tamil in fact, as the book demonstrates, has lost some features of the parent language

and

To know about the origin, one would like to know the languages that are not Dravidian, but are related to Dravidian in a distant past. Among the living languages, genetic relationship has been suggested with far-flung languages like Basque in Europe, Japanese in Asia and Wolof in Africa. Their comparison with Tamil, not with Proto-Dravidian (indicating the mistaken coalescence mentioned above in the scholarly world also), is methodologically faulty given the time scale of any possible relationship. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:M_arpalmane (talk • contribs)

This is not an insurmountable problem; Proto-Dravidian can be reconstructed; and, after reconstruction, one may compare it to the present day languages and find how much they deviate from the prototypical language. Now, let us hear from someone who has done some reconstruction of the Proto-Dravidian - Gopalan evr (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Dravidian and Uralic

An editor made changes to this article on 13 July with the description: "Removing nonsense"(diff). The sentence removed was a statement that Dravidian displays "striking similarities" with Uralic and Altaic, which suggests the possibility of prolonged contact in the past, and it was replaced by a sentence that "the majority of specialists" reject areal or genetic connection. The original claim came from Kamal Zvelebil's article on Dravidian languages in the Britannica. It is, of course, possible that Kamal Zvelebil (or the Britannica) are wrong, but the EB is a reliable source and Zvelebil is a reputed authority on Dravidian, so it'll take more than a mere claim that they're "talking nonsense" to rebut what they've said. I've restored the original statement until someone cites a source demonstrating that the majority of Dravidian linguists are dismissive of Zvelebil's theory. -- Arvind 18:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

As a Uralic comparative linguist by profession, I can say that the suggestion of a Dravidian-Uralic connection is absolutely bizarre; no Uralic comparative linguist has ever advocated such an idea. In fact, I doubt that anyone of them has even heard of it, except as a joke on par with Uralic-Egyptian. As the whole idea involves Uralic as much as Dravidian, and Uralic comparative linguistics is just as established and advanced a field as Dravidian linguistics is, this should suffice as a criterion for classifying it as nonsense. Please see also my comment in Talk:South India. Of course, you are right that I should have explained the deletion on the talk page. I will delete the reference again. --AAikio 19:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
While it's a (very) minority opinion, there has been real work trying to link Uralic and Dravidian, mainly among Nostraticists. It's been published in journals, so it's just not a kook website thing. I'll try to dig up some citations. CRCulver 19:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Nostratic itself is a fringe theory rejected by the majority of comparative linguists, even though it should be acknowledged as fully legitimate science, of course. But what the article said was that there was a specific areal connection between Uralic and Dravidian, whereas it's a different matter whether Uralic and Dravidian are related via some hypothetical higher-level grouping. --AAikio 06:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Hello Ante. Would you be happy with a formulation along the lines of: "Many Dravidian linguists have argued that Dravidian languages display linguistic affinities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past, but these hypotheses have been rejected by the majority of specialists in Uralic languages." The article, as presently worded, gives the impression that the majority of scholars both in Dravidian and Uralic linguistics disagree with the hypothesis, which isn't exactly correct - it's a situation where the position taken by most scholars in Dravidian linguistics disagrees fundamentally with the position taken by most scholars in Uralic linguistics. -- Arvind 23:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
This looks like a good suggestion to me, if you remove "majority of". Now the wording suggests that there would be a minority of Uralic scholars after all who sympathize with the idea of a Dravidian connection - but there are none.
As a side note, it is really interesting to hear that this idea has been widely accepted by Dravidian specialists, whereas Uralic specialists have hardly even heard of it. I'd really like to know what peer reviewed publications this is based on (if any?). I have a strong suspicion that there is some kind of misinterpretation of Uralic data behind this, so I'd really like to check it sometime. If anyone can help me with finding the relevant publications, I'd be really glad if they gave me a hint on my talk page.
--AAikio 06:59, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Arvind added the above-agreed version and someone else reverted that. Perhaps we should address the allegedly weasel "many" by adding references. I could find this one. I'm sure there would be others. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem with the word "many" is it tends to suggest near-universal agreement in the mind of the reader, even if it doesn't say so outright. Were references added, I've have no problem with the theory mentioned, provided that it were emphasized that not all, or even most, Dravidian linguists believe in close genetic relationship. CRCulver 11:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The sentence I added said "contact", which clearly suggests an areal rather than a genetic relationship. As for it being a fringe theory, here are the references I provided AAikio:
  • Tyler, Stephen (1968), "Dravidian and Uralian: the lexical evidence". Language 44:4. 798-812.
  • Burrow, T. (1944) "Dravidian Studies IV: The Body in Dravidian and Uralian". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11:2. 328-356.
  • Mikhail Andronov has also written widely on this topic, but I don't have any of his papers with me at the moment. Zvelebil gives a more complete bibliography in Comparative Dravidian Phonology (Mouton, The Hauge: 1970) at p. 22 which, I think, also includes papers skeptical of any connection. (I'm told he has updated this somewhat in Dravidian linguistics: an introduction (Pondicherry, Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture: 1990), but that's not a book I've read).
I'm planning to buy the latter and would add citations then. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 14:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
AAikio has in response said that Tyler's work is methodologically flawed. That may well be the case, but for crying out loud work done by linguists like Thomas Burrow (who Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford for over 30 years) and Kamil Zvelebil is not a fringe theory, and the Uralic affinity hypothesis is considered a mainstream theory in Dravidian linguistics even if not everyone agrees with it (Krishnamurthy in his Dravidian Languages at p. 43, for example, points out that there is a methodological problem with comparing reconstructed proto-languages rather than showing parallels between features in existing languages). But if it is so patently wrong, then perhaps some Uralist needs to write a work blowing the theory out of the water and publish it in JOAS or some such journal dealing with South Asian languages and finally put it to bed, but until that happens it's wrong to call it a fringe theory. -- Arvind 12:31, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

We already have a sentence stating that links between Dravidian and several other language families have been suggested, but that these arguments are inconclusive. The connection between Dravidian and Uralic also seems to be inconclusive. Is there any reason to single out this theory and thereby suggesting that it is more probable than the theory connecting Dravidian and Korean, say? If not, we should just add Uralic to the list of inconclusive connections. Stefán Ingi 11:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Brittannica, see [6] written by Kamil V. Zvelebil, says that Dravidian is an isolated language family, but that the most pormising hypothesis of a linguistic relationship is with the Uralic and Altaic families. This seems in line with our current text so I have answered my own question. Stefán Ingi 14:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
The Britannica was expressly cited as a reference in a previous version, which was reverted. In my opinion, the present wording of the article is misleading because it suggests that the majority of Dravidian linguists also reject the theory (which is not true) and that both areal and genetic relationships are suggested (the mainstream theory today only focuses on a possible areal relationship). I suppose Wikipedia can live with a slight inaccuracy, though, it's not a very major one. -- Arvind 14:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Language order

I've sorted the lists alphabetically, with the one exception that national languages of India come first. Hopefully, this will stop people changing the order to place their favoured language on top. -- Arvind 14:59, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The languages are not in alphabetical order. I am making a change that would atleast account for a population (that speaks the language ; a rational metric) based ranking.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.189.126.234 (talk)
Yes, they are - the scheduled languages are in alphabetical order, followed by the other languages in alphabetical order -- Arvind 10:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Sanskrit Text

Since the term "Dravidian languages" was derived by Caldwell from the Sanskrit term "drāviḍa bhāṣāḥ" used by Kumarilabhatta in his Tantravartikka, it seems to me that the Sanskrit text ought to be allowed to stand in the first sentence. I don't propose to be dragged into an edit war over this, but I would like to know why its insertion was reverted. -- Arvind 01:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

there are any number of words in indian languages and also in english that find their roots in sanskrit. that is no reason to insert devanagari in all those articles where we come across these words. or else ta.wiki, kn.wiki, te.wiki and even en.wiki for that matter would be teeming with devanagari transliterations. curiously enough, why doesnt ta.wiki page for "dravidian" have the sanskrit transliterations in that case? give me an answer other than saying that you didnt edit those ta.wiki pages. Sarvagnya
I'm not wedded to Devanagari - I also had a transliteration of the word using ISO 15919, and having that alone would be perfectly fine. The reason I placed the Sanskrit term here was this Wikipedia guideline:
"English title terms with foreign origin can encode the native spelling and put it in parentheses. See, for example, I Ching (易經 pinyin yì jīng) or Sophocles (Σοφοκλης)."
Since it's a policy here it seems to me that we should follow it, regardless of what the policies on Indian language wikipedias are (I'm not active on any of them, so I really don't know what the policies are). And yes, I think that all articles where the title itself is a Sanskrit word (or Kannada, or Tamil, or Urdu) should have the name in the original language immediately thereafter. Obviously, this only applies to the title and not other words. -- Arvind 22:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Also, and again, just because the title word is rooted in Sanskrit does not mean we need Sanskrit transliterations. So many names of people for example, are rooted in Sanskrit. By your logic, we should have Sanskrit transliterations for them too. Srinivasa Ramanujan for example, is a name with Sanskrit roots. Should we have Sanskrit transliterations there also? Param Vir Chakra is rooted in Sanskrit, if not Sanskrit itself. Should we have Sanskrit transliterations?Sarvagnya
Wikipedia follows a different policy for personal names, which should be in the person's mother tongue, and names of things and concepts, which should be in the language they are derived from. In the case of Param Vir Chakra, the name is actually Hindi (which is why it isn't Parama Vira Chakra), so it should have a transliteration of the Hindi name, in my opinion. -- Arvind 23:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
If 'Param' derived from 'Parama' is not Sanskrit, 'Dravidian' derived from draaviDa/draviDa is not Sanskrit either. Also btw, SRamanujan and PVC were just examples plucked out of nowhere. Am sure we can find better examples.Sarvagnya
I should have been clearer. What I was trying to say that the English name "Param Vir Chakra" comes from the Hindi name "Param Vir Chakra", just like the English name "Dravidian" comes from the Sanskrit "Dravida". Does that answer your point? -- Arvind 00:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
  • And why does it have to be devanagari? Sarvagnya
It doesn't. If you look at the start of my previous comment, I said that an ISO 15919 (IAST) transliteration was equally fine. -- Arvind 23:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The languages are not in alphabetical order. I am making a change that would atleast account for a population based ranking.

Proposed merge with Proto-Dravidian

See Talk:Proto-Dravidian#Proposed merge with Dravidian languages.--Imz 15:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed mention of Telugu as the most widely spoken language..

Allthough a geuine fact, a typically good wiki article only mentions top rankers in terms of language, race, ethinicity in a region if there is a clear step function. Telugu with 80 million is marginally above tamil at 74 million (at which point your pretty much dealing with noise). An equally appropriate (and factually true) statement could include the top 2,3,4... languages. I felt it was unnescessary and completly misleading in terms of the diversity in dravidian languages

OR tag on List of Dravidian languages

I found an article in Encyclopedia Britannica website discussing 'Dravidian langiages' extensively (9 pages). The list of dravidian languages given there are same as the list given here. I am removing the OR tag on this section after giving the citation. Note: I am not removing the OR tag on lemuria section. Praveen 17:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Dravidian languages spoken in UK, US and Canada?

This seems a bit odd, which Dravidian languages are spoken in the Uk, the US and Canada, or is this perhaps some mistake? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.51.125.126 (talk) 19:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

They're obviously not native languages, but many immigrants from Southern Asia live in the UK, US, and Canada.

that's stupid, that would mean pretty much every language is spoken on every continent, we are pretty globalized these days. I think it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.121.103 (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Classification section is missing

Every other Language page I have seen on wiki hasd a classification section with theories on relationships between the language (family) being discussed and another language (family). Can someone fix this here please? Thank you. 82.6.114.172 17:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Dravidian civilizations

Wiki Raja 08:16, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ten vowels?

"Proto-Dravidian had ten vowels: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, e, ē." What are the other two vowels? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.180.160.128 (talk) 19:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably o and ō, which also exist in modern Dravidian languages.--Kannan91 (talk) 08:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
the original ten vowels in Tamil are: அ (a) , ஆ (aa), இ (i), ஈ (ee), உ (u), ஊ (oo), எ (e), ஏ (ae), ஒ (o) , ஓ (O) . ஐ (ai) and ஔ (au) are recognized as later additions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopalan evr (talk • contribs) 18:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Moved comment (1)

The following comment was moved from the article section See also:

I would like to add, supplement and respectfully beg to differ on the content of the following sentences: ".......similarities between Elamite and Harappan script as well as similarities between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian indicate that these languages may have interacted prior to the spread of Indo-Aryans southwards and the resultant intermixing of languages. Erdosy (1995:18) states that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned".

-149.168.204.10 (Talk)
Joshua Issac (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

classification

What is the source of the classification used? I had to "correct" it when converting to the cladogram, but don't know what I was supposed to be correcting it to. Branches were misaligned, subgroups contained supergroups, etc. It was starting to become a mess. Hopefully the cladogram will be easier to read and therefore to verify, but it's harder to maintain than a bulleted list. kwami (talk) 23:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

please un-remove "proto-dravidian = tamil coalesce"!

insofar as the very concept of a "dravidian language group deriving from proto-dravidian" is a ludicrous western invention which apparently the politically correct (western influenced) academic in india have latched onto anyone with even a moresel of common sense can see that the "dravidian language group" in toto originate in local dialect of tamil.

http://tamil.berkeley.edu/Tamil%20Chair/TamilClassicalLanguage/TamilClassicalLgeLtr.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reetside (talk • contribs) 16:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but jingoism has no place in an encyclopedia. The idea that all Dravidian languages derive from Tamil is just silly. kwami (talk) 21:04, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

More Dravidian Languages?

Konkani (Goa and some coastal Karnataka), Lambani (central Karnataka) and Havyaka (central and coastal Karnataka) doesn't seem to be in the list. Anybody have any idea about those languages? 122.173.176.70 (talk) 17:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)Adi

Yes. Konkani and Lambani are Indic, not Dravidian. Havyaka is a dialect of Kannada. kwami (talk) 20:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Missing footnote about numerals

Look at this:

The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian languages.

Number Kannada Tamil Malayalam Tulu Telugu Kolami Kurukh Brahui Proto-Dravidian
1 ondu onru onnu onji okaṭi okkod oṇṭa asiṭ *oru(1)
2 eraḍu iraṇṭu raṇṭu raḍḍ renḍu irāṭ indiŋ irāṭ *iru(2)
3 mūru mūnru mūnnu mūji mūḍu mūndiŋ mūnd musiṭ *muC
4 nālku nālu, nālku, nānku nālu nāl nālugu nāliŋ nākh čār (II) *nān
5 aidu aintu añcu ayN ayidu ayd 3 pancē (II) panč (II) *cayN
6 āru āru āru āji āru ār 3 soyyē (II) šaš (II) *caru
7 ēlu ēẓu ēẓu yēl ēḍu ēḍ 3 sattē (II) haft (II) *eẓu
8 eṇṭu eṭṭu eṭṭu edma enimidi enumadī 3 aṭṭhē (II) hašt (II) *eṭṭu
9 ombattu onpatu onpatu ormba tommidi tomdī 3 naiṃyē (II) nōh (II) *toḷ
10 hattu pattu pattu patt padi padī 3 dassē (II) dah (II) *pat(tu)
  1. This is the same as the word for another form of the number one in Tamil and Malayalam. This is used as an indefinite article meaning "a" and also when the number is an adjective followed by a noun (as in "one person") as opposed to when it is a noun (as in "How many are there?" "One").
  2. This is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning of "double" in Tamil and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20, literally meaning "double-ten"), iravai (20 in Telugu), or "iraṭṭi" ("double") or Iruvar (meaning two people).

What happened to the footnote for "3" (occured in Kolami from 5 to 10) and the "*" (occured in Proto-Dravidian)? --Elijahhee (talk) 11:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Proto-Dravidian dating

In this article there is such information:

Proto-Dravidian is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, Proto South-Central Dravidian and Proto-South Dravidian around 500 BC, although some linguists have argued that the degree of differentiation between the sub-families points to an earlier split.

However, when you go to the Linguistic history of India then you may find hypotheses that proto-Dravidian could have existed as far back as the second millenium BC. Could somebody please explain this and/or clear this up? Kkrystian (talk) 07:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I mean the information there was about Telugu which is a part of the South-Central Dravidian language family, so the information above would make it very improbable. Kkrystian (talk) 07:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what this is ... the grammar is terrible, and the opening paragraphs contain glaring errors. HammerFilmFan (talk) 05:17, 13 June 2011 (UTC) HammerFilmFan

One Wikipedia article cannot be used as a source for another Wikipedia article

The comment about Telugu having the most speakers must be removed until it has a source other than another Wikipedia article. It is rather unnecessary anyway, but is being pushed by a hyper-nationalist Telugu editor. (If you think this is an unwarranted personal attack, just read the text of this barnstar to a blocked user.) --Taivo (talk) 18:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

taivo i hope the new citaion is good enough Revharder (talk) 19:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
That is an acceptable source. The list of languages should remain in alphabetical order. --Taivo (talk) 20:15, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Dravidian substratum influence on Sanskrit

This section needs to be completely rewritten. The issue is highly contested, with various arguments pro and contra, as even a short glance at the article on substratum influence on Sanskrit, which is even referred to, shows (even though this article too is by no means exhaustive - and cannot be). What we have here, by contrast, is not an overview, but the singling out of a few opinions to put across a certain view. 87.174.245.143 (talk) 13:32, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Branches of Dravidian Family

The Dravidan language family is very diverse. Perhaps to do it justice, there should be articles on the 4 major branches of this family. One article just can't cover this. cheers, Bruinfan12 (talk) 02:57, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It's pretty well developed the way it is now. We can always split it if it gets too long, of course, but one problem with that is that it would introduce POV problems. You say there are 4 branches. Currently we list 3. That differs between researchers; the branches are not well defined the way the family as a whole is. (We can write an article about proto-Dravidian, but I don't know if we could write articles about the proto-languages of the branches.) I personally don't see what benefit there would be in dividing up the article. — kwami (talk) 04:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
More research may be needed, but at some point the article may need to be divided.

language language language

This is the English wikipedia, not the Basic English wikipedia. I am unsure why perfectly cromulent English words like dialect and tongue are inappropriate for the lead. Linguistic family is not some sort of derogatory term. The lead should be written in good English style, and that includes not repeating the word language (or spoken) multiple times in the same sentence. There is no reason given for unending reversions of attempted improvements of the lead. Let's have some explanations first, please. μηδείς (talk) 21:23, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

All because of precision. Professional style actually means that a word should be reused when reusing it is the most accurate option. --JorisvS (talk) 22:02, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
I will take no response as an indication that you do not have a counterargument and hence revert. --JorisvS (talk) 22:55, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Recent changes

I noticed slight criticism on the IVC sentence in the lead. Anything else?-- Dravidian  Hero  09:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Is this all there is in the way of actual discussion on the recent reverts by Kwamikagami? I'm no expert but the additions of Dravidian Hero seem at first sight to be valuable, reasonable and consistent with sources provided. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Let's see: He changed a customized map of Dravidian languages to a generic map of Asia. He said Drav langs are mainly spoken in South Africa and around the world. (Though he did delete the part about tribal peoples "living beyond the mainstream", which was an improvement.) He said a language spoken mainly in India is spoken exclusively in Nepal. He implies the main interest in Drav langs comes from attempts to decipher the Indus script. And that's just in the lead. — kwami (talk) 09:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  1. the map has been reused in the Classifocation section, where it belongs to.
  2. "The Dravidian languages are a primary language family spoken mainly and natively in South Asia." My version doesn't even mention Nepal you (personal attack removed). It's your own crappy version.
  3. "Enhanced interest", not main interest.
    -- Dravidian  Hero  09:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
the edit does show Kwamikagami adding back Nepal
Kwami, you are edit warring. You are evidently not taking time to read, consider, discuss, therefore I will revert your edit and you can use the time to discuss here.
Dravidianhero, please don't call people "liar" even when they are making incorrect comments, it is more likely carelessness. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:09, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
That was too harsh. Am still not happy about this incident.-- Dravidian  Hero  10:26, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I found a major problem with Kwamigami's conduct. He has clearly abused the Twinkle tool: Wikipedia:Twinkle#Abuse: "should not be used to undo good-faith changes unless an appropriate edit summary is used"
  1. my edits were of best faith possible
  2. the edit summary he provided, did not adress any potentially relevant problem.
This should be actionable enough for any admin. -- Dravidian  Hero  11:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
This is something that you two should be able to talk out. I'd say it's to everyone's interest that you stop trying to get an admin involved (again). — Lfdder (talk) 11:35, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
You say that, because your work isn't affected by this nonsense in any way.-- Dravidian  Hero  11:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Several of your statements have been nonsensical. For example, that I abused a twinkle tool, which would be an amazing accomplishment since I don't use twinkle. The logic of some of your edits to the article is comparable; you've called me a liar, apparently because you're unaware of the things you've said. Please read WP:BOLD: You are proposing the changes, so it's up to you to justify them. Some of them are undoubtedly improvements. I reverted you for the ones which aren't, but it's quite likely I wouldn't have trouble with others. And if you can convince the other editors here, then it would be a group decision, not mine. — kwami (talk) 19:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Set aside, for a moment, Kwami's methods. He is on the right track here. Dravidian Hero is making some sweeping changes and according to WP:BOLD it is up to him/her to justify those changes on the talk page (since they are challenged) before being re-added. Especially troublesome are the edits linking Dravidian with the Indus Valley Culture which borders on WP:FRINGE. The page should remain at the consensus version (i.e. the version before the changes) until discussion is complete and the matter is resolved.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 19:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Fine, here is my proposal: User:Dravidianhero/Dravidian_languages

Edit summaries for all proposals are available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dravidian_languages&action=history
Further reasonings available here: User_talk:Kwamikagami#Dravidian_languages_.2F_Your_revert
Open for discussions.
Please use following Format:
  1. Which Statement?
  2. Why is it wrong?
  3. Sources
  4. Evidence of credibility of the source
Images can be discussed separately. My point for the images are:
  1. The main image should show the family as a whole, not its submembers or even languages.
  2. The currently used picture qualifies for subgroupings as demonstrated in my version
  3. The Proto-Dravidian template is not flexible. I would like to prepare a decent image
  4. I want an image for the language tree as well. It's plain ugly. I want to draw a real tree with language peers

Yet to come proposals on sections:

  1. Grammar
  2. Relationship to other language families
  3. Phonology
  4. Dravidian substratum influence on Sanskrit
  5. Stability and continuity of Dravidian

but these can wait.

As most of the content has been approved by 1 independent reviewer I give two days for more constructive criticism. Any other attempts to sabotage a possible fruitful outcome will be reported. Thanks. -- Dravidian  Hero  20:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually didn't revert Kwami yesterday, as I said but have done it now, because I don't see any improvement in discussion here and also Kwami was factually wrong in his justification above (on Nepal). That doesn't mean however Dravidianhero that you don't need to accept some wind back of some of these individual edits and I suggest Kwami do that by inline tags on specific content. In ictu oculi (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I have reverted In ictu oculi, please wait for the discussion to conclude. Dravidianhero's edits appear to have taken the uncertainty regarding origin of Dravidian languages out of the article. While Dravidian hypotheses of IVC script generally has more acceptance, for every Parpola who supports the Dravidian hypotheses there is a Farmer or a Rao who have a different take on it. I also don't understand why Telugu was moved to the top of the Distribution table. The languages are arranged by their classification, not by the number of speakers. Other changes were alright, but clearly a blanket reversion to Dravidianhero's version is inappropriate without further clarification. Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 04:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay provided there actually is some discussion. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:38, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Even if there is not. It's up to the proposer to justify their edits. — kwami (talk) 05:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

CorrectKnowledge, The uncertainty on the origin IS mentioned there (I left it there): Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, nothing definite is known about the ancient domain of the Proto-Dravidian people. Regarding classification arrangment, it was a 3rd party change, not me. I changed it now in my version-- Dravidian  Hero  09:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

If there's nothing else to be addressed, I support reinstating Dravidianhero's changes. — Lfdder (talk) 09:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to— "Enhanced interest in Dravidian linguistics came through studies on the Indus Valley Civilization, where Dravidian languages are extensively used in attempts to decipher the Indus script.", a sentence two editors before me have objected to. For starters, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the body. Besides, Dravidianhero might be right in saying that the article still mentions the uncertainty in the body, but this sentence in the lead seems to suggest the exact opposite. If at all connections to IVC or Proto–Dravidian language appear in the lead, they should better reflect/summarize existing information in the article. Other than this, the addition of image, reorganization etc. appear to be helpful. Apologies for missing out that the modification to the table was done by an IP. Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 12:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
People objected to this sentence: Enhanced interest in Dravidian studies came through the identification of a Dravidian authorship of the Indus Valley Civilization by leading scholars which I changed to Enhanced interest in Dravidian linguistics came through studies on the Indus Valley Civilization, where Dravidian languages are extensively used in attempts to decipher the Indus script. So where is the problem with the new version? It doesn't state or suggest, that the IVC was 100% Dravidian at all. Rao, Farmer and Co have no credentials in Dravidian linguistics, it would be undue giving them any importance in this article. Also, Farmer et al are challenging the Indus script itself, which is a huge difference to what you are trying to suggest. Here is a reference for my version: gbooks: Dravidian studies + Indus Valley International interest in Dravidian studies increased considerably in the 20th century after the great Indus vally civilization was unearthed and investigated. Handbook of Universities, 2006 -- Dravidian  Hero  13:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the exact page is hidden in my Google Books preview. But that is not a problem, I am taking it on good faith. I am afraid you've missed my major point here. Lead should not contain non–trivial information which is not discussed in the body (per MOS:LEAD). Even when something is discussed in the body, the lead is still "written at a greater level of generality than the body". Basically, Proto–Dravidian, which is discussed at length in the article, doesn't find a mention in the lead, while the relationship between Indus script and Dravidian languages, which is so far not mentioned in the body, finds a place. Farmer, Rao etc. are not relevant right now, but if you plan on adding content pertaining to IVC, you will have to give alternate POVs some weight (not sure how much) unless they are fringe (which is probably not the case here). Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 15:00, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I should add content about the connection in accordance to NPOV. But that's not on my main agenda right now. I want to expand the History section with more info about Proto-Dravidian itself, subgroups, and only then bring IVC in a short summary as a separate header like I did for "Studies".-- Dravidian  Hero  15:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
In that case, I support reverting to your version without IVC in the lead. You can add it to the lead once you are finished with the article. That was what I generally do, leave the lead section for the end. Correct Knowledge«৳alk» 15:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Fair enough. Agreed.-- Dravidian  Hero  15:22, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

What's wrong with the map? — Lfdder (talk) 20:31, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

(was considered a personal attack)-- Dravidian  Hero  20:33, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Of course. It must be some personal defect of his rather than any failing of your edits. After all, it's not like other language-family articles have maps of the language family in the info box. — kwami (talk) 00:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I was gonna say how I feel about this whole farce but I think I'd rather just fix some typos or something elsewhere on second thought. — Lfdder (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Just do it! edit: I mean the second part....-- Dravidian  Hero  20:56, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Dravidian, WP:NPA. The appropriate map for the infobox is one which shows the language family, not some map where Dravidian is a small colored blob down in the lower right corner. --Taivo (talk) 02:39, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC regarding language family map

There is an edit war going on regarding the infobox map shown at User:Dravidianhero/Dravidian_languages. A user in the discussion above found the Dravidian part inappropriate, it was a "small colored blob down in the lower right corner." What is your take on it? Thanks for comments.-- Dravidian  Hero  04:43, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Look at all the other language families with maps in their infoboxes. That is the established consensus on WP. You may want to change the consensus, but that will require some discussion. Personally, I think your map looks unprofessional. — kwami (talk) 05:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I looked at all language families, and all seem to be different from one another:
Indo-European - they have a map, where the correct family boundaries are not even considered. majority of a country is IE, so country is IE
Afro-Asiatic - "let's break those subgroups up for the main article" *very clever*
Niger-Congo , now to something completely different.....
Well established wikipedia standards indeed! See you at the next ANI. And I feel sorry for the guy you have insulted the most right now, from whose work I created the map-- Dravidian  Hero  05:21, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Unprofessional, uninformative. The proposed map is not an appropriate map for a language family info box compared to the map that is presently in the infobox. WP:OTHERSTUFF is a clear policy that states that comparing this article with other articles is not an valid argument. What is valid in this case is that the map that is currently in the infobox is highly informative and much more professionally executed than the proposed map, which does not show the constituent languages of the family, but simply shows a large swath of Asia with a blob of color in the lower third that is supposed to inform readers about Dravidian. Other than locating the language family in the bottom half of India, which the present map also does, the proposed map contains no further information whatsoever. The current map is far superior in execution and in the amount of useful information which it conveys. --Taivo (talk) 05:54, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
South East Asia has atleast 2 Million Dravidian speakers Singapore Tamils, where the language is official, and Tamil Malaysians. They have the same right to be represented in the map as Brahui Dravidians of Pakistan/Iran border. I don't support any discrimination in that regard, especially because of Singapore.-- Dravidian  Hero  06:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
You don't seem to understand the nature of language maps. If you look at your proposed map, you will see that you have colored a relatively large section of Malaysia red as if it were the majority language of an area in exclusion to the dominant Malay language. The Dravidian expat population of Malaysia is not spoken in any area of the country as a majority language of that region and has not replaced any native Malaysian language in any significant area of the country. There are far more Chinese speakers in Singapore than Tamil speakers. So your map is erroneous in that regard. You need to learn how to present accurate and factual information in a map if you want to be taken seriously. I sense that this map is a vanity project for you. Get over it. It is a bad map, it carries no accurate information that the present map does not already convey, and it contains an inaccurate and false assessment of the extent of Dravidian speakers in Malaysia. --Taivo (talk) 06:13, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Show me a map, which is 100% correct? The map should indicate where Dravidian languages are spoken.-- Dravidian  Hero  06:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Then, by your own logic, your map should be a map of the entire world with red dots in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, South America, etc. In which case, the map becomes useless as an aid in presenting any information whatsoever other than "Dravidian speakers have emigrated around the world". --Taivo (talk) 08:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not my logic, that's your logic. I explicitly cited 2000000 Dravidians in Malaysia and Singapore, which is a very small area on the map. You don't find such a concentration anywhere in the western hemisphere and it's still in the scope of historical India, just like Brahuis.-- Dravidian  Hero  08:50, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
It's still ridiculous logic since Dravidian speakers do not comprise a majority of the population in Malaysia or Singapore, whether it is in the scope of "historical India" or not. Dravidian presence in those areas is a phenomenon of recent history and that is still not their ancestral home. It is an expat community, and, as such, not relevant to a map of the Dravidian languages. --Taivo (talk) 09:52, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Dravidian languages are not the majority of India and Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Your suggestion is therefore utter rubbish, not even remotely acceptable. Even in Lanka you get people saying the Tamils there were "recent immigrants". I know, you try to push your map regardless of discussion, just to prove you were right, but this will never be the case. First you started with "uninformative" map, now you lament about the level of detail. We both and probably all people reading this, know, who's right and wrong. And let's not forget, that I am the Dravidian, not you, therefore a more sensible approach by you would be more appropriate. Cheers for this useless dialogue. -- Dravidian  Hero  10:32, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Of course they are not majority languages on a national scale. I make no such assertion. But they are majority languages regionally, in their natural homelands. And your argument that "you are the Dravidian" is utter rubbish in Wikipedia. My adult daughter is an American, but she's utterly unqualified to edit English language. And I made no such comment that your map is too detailed. Your map is simply rubbish for the purposes of this article. It does one thing and one thing only that the existing map doesn't do--if you look at that tiny dot in Singapore long enough you might notice that it's colored Dravidian. Period. That's all your map does and it's an issue that is needless to mention because 1) it is mentioned (or should be) in the body of the article and 2) Dravidian languages in Singapore are minority languages even within the small area of Singapore--they are majority languages only in their home regions in southern India and Sri Lanka. The existing map does so much more than your little art project. Measuring the amount of information your map conveys (virtually none) compared to the amount of information that the existing map conveys (a great deal) is not even a close contest. --Taivo (talk) 14:28, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
This "little art project" is derived from the ultra important main article Language family with minor changes, how ridiculous! It's the only freely available map I found, which actually shows language families only, without any sort of corruption found in so many articles, like here. And back again to the so bad Dravidian people of SEA. I repeat, they number 2,000.000 people, which is the only countable measure for "notability", and this number equals the Brahui speakers in Pakistan/Iran. It's extremely unfair to leave them out, just because you don't like the map. They are more educated and much more "Indian" in culture than a Brahui could ever be. They live and feel like Indians and these sentiments must be taken into account and need to be respected. And it's not like they live there since yesterday. They live there for over 200 years, brought there as "workers" of the British empire. In Singapore, they have official language status. Dravidian diaspora is something completely different and found scattered around in western and Gulf countries, who actually went there on their own will. What's your purpose of all this nonsense? someone of your age should know all this.-- Dravidian  Hero  15:15, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Sadly, you just don't get the point that everyone else is trying to make to you. Your proposed map is unacceptable because aside from the fact that a nearly invisible red dot is placed over Singapore, it is inferior to the existing map in every way. --Taivo (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Still not resaon to revert all his changes. — Lfdder (talk) 16:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
When an editor makes it impossible to revert individual changes by piling them up one upon the other, then a mass revert is the only possibility. If there are non-controversial changes mixed in with the unacceptable ones, then Dravidian can present them here one-by-one, get a quick consensus if they are acceptable, and then add them. Dravidian made the mistake of getting into and edit war over the map and then before coming to a consensus over the map, started adding more and more information to his edits, some of which was acceptable and some of which was not. But when an editor continues to mix acceptable and unacceptable information outside of consensus, it's his/her responsibility to separate the two. --Taivo (talk) 16:19, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
"Dravidian made the mistake of getting into and edit war over the map and then before coming to a consensus over the map, started adding more and more information to his edits, some of which was acceptable and some of which was not."
I hadn't noticed. — Lfdder (talk) 16:28, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I created the map long before Kwamikagami reverted everything (without any reasoning of img). I later replaced the picture from the "random Asian map", as he called it, to a more India-centric one. see file history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dravidiantoothers.png And he reverted again without reason, with Taivo reverting again citing the map in the edit summary.-- Dravidian  Hero  16:45, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
As you know, sometimes it's possible to separate Edit A from Edit B and revert only the first and not the second, but depending on the number of reversions and the interactions between the edits and the reversions, it's not always possible. --Taivo (talk) 16:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
As you can see, Dravidian, there is rather consistent opposition to your map. So if the other information is important to you, then you might find a better use for your time in working on that material and abandoning your map. --Taivo (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
One independent person has written in the RfC. I wonder what all the Tamil wikipedians have to say about the current map without Singapore and Malaysia. The article is sadly less frequented by them.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
The first Tamil colleague I asked agreed with me already, a very decent person and acclaimed young writer User:Kailash29792. That's a good sign for a more inclusive map, I suppose, going by chances for more support. What you say Taivo. Fear the Tamil support? Then let it go. -- Dravidian  Hero  18:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
He didn't even comment on the map. — Lfdder (talk) 18:57, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I just asked for support on the SEA Tamil issue. Yes or No. And he said Yes. I agree, that my map is not good looking, but Taivo declines any SEA mapping.-- Dravidian  Hero  19:05, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
(ec)Right now, there are three who disagree with your map--Kwami, myself, and Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 (I don't think that Lfdder has expressed a view). You stand alone, Dravidian, in your support of a map that puts a tiny red dot on Singapore to make some Tamils happy, but eliminates 50 times as much information on the current map. And, by the way, Tamils are not the only speakers of Dravidian languages. --Taivo (talk) 19:09, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
This RfC is not a voting. It should clarify, what people think about the map. And I condemn the racist attack on Tamils.-- Dravidian  Hero  19:22, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I think it has clarified very well what people think about your map. Aesthetically, it is very unprofessional-looking and encyclopedically, it is so uninformative as to be almost useless. The current map does a more than adequate job of reflecting the locations where Dravidian languages are spoken natively. (btw, I don't see any "racist attack on Tamils". Stay focused on the map please.)--William Thweatt TalkContribs 19:55, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, but then there is a caption required, which clearly speaks of native territories.-- Dravidian  Hero  20:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
"Racist attack on Tamils"? You don't seem to have any idea what a "racist attack" is. I said nothing disparaging against Tamils, only against your continuing remarks that mention only Tamils and no other Dravidian groups. Read a dictionary of English. You clearly don't know what the phrase "racist attack" means. You need to read WP:NPA again. --Taivo (talk) 19:48, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
You said "to make some Tamils happy", which clearly ridicules the character of Tamil people. And yes this is not an "attack" but a "remark" if I'm right.-- Dravidian  Hero  20:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
If I said "to make Dravidianhero happy", is that also a "racist attack"? It's an utterly ridiculous claim on your part to call that a "racist attack". As I recall, you are also Tamil, so if your skin is so thin as to take that as a "racist attack", then perhaps you shouldn't be talking to anyone but other Tamils. --Taivo (talk) 21:03, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
No, that wouldn't be racist, but a personal "attack".-- Dravidian  Hero  22:02, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
LOL. Clearly you know neither the meaning of "racist attack" nor "personal attack". What a joke. --Taivo (talk) 22:08, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Agree with Taivo et al, though I'm not too fussed, this map isn't an improvement. If we want to change the map and can agree on the format, I'd be happy to make a vector map. — Lfdder (talk) 20:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
On a sidenote, could you draw a map of IVC based on this sites List of Indus Valley Civilization sites ? That would be fantastic for the IVC article.-- Dravidian  Hero  22:09, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
I'll take a look. — Lfdder (talk) 22:26, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Internal classification

How secure is the internal classification of the Dravidian languages? So, to what extent is this map (N)POV? --JorisvS (talk) 12:39, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

That is something to expand in section subgroups. There are some differing views, but I think the main subgroups as shown in this map have consensus.-- Dravidian  Hero  12:50, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
That is a nice improvement to the map in the article. --Taivo (talk) 13:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
That's what I was thinking, too. I brought it up to make sure it is NPOV. I have put it into the article. --JorisvS (talk) 13:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Needs a key. — Lfdder (talk) 13:12, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea why this was placed in the infobox. It makes zero sense. If someone wants more specific information on DR they should go the specific section.-- Dravidian  Hero  13:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The map gives the same information as the one it replaces plus more. Keeping the old map just means that that info is presented twice, without any additional value. --JorisvS (talk) 13:44, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize key facts in the article in which it appears. The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance. -Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes Subgroups don't summarize the article appropriately.-- Dravidian  Hero  13:54, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
For a very small caption, the map is improved very nicely. Good idea, JorisvS. Dravidianhero, you're still just trying to justify your poor map. The consensus was clearly against it. --Taivo (talk) 14:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I'm not justifying my map. I've just cited the wikipedia standard for infoboxes. I agree, My map would be elligible for this purpose, but it is not on the table.-- Dravidian  Hero  14:39, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Many sources use the 4-way subdivision into North, Central, South-Central and South (e.g. the Routledge survey edited by Steever, ISBN 978-0-203-42435-3). Krishnamurti (2003) says the South-Central group was separated from Central in the mid-70s; he treats South and South-Central as branches of a larger South group (and suggests that the primary branching is between North and the rest). Nevertheless his map on p.18 distinguishes the four subgroups. I propose the variant map File:Dravidian subgroups.png showing these four subgroups, which remain valid even if higher-level groupings are superimposed. Kanguole 09:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I support you, what you write is correct, but this would be also a "random" grouping level. How would you describe the picture in the infobox?-- Dravidian  Hero  09:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
The four-way grouping is, indeed, more common in the literature and perhaps it is a better map to reflect the overall state of the field. Krishnamurti, while important, isn't the only voice. --Taivo (talk) 10:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Classification tree

I created a new image, based on the existing tree. I would welcome Feedback, error reports: User:Dravidianhero/Dravidian_languages#Classification-- Dravidian  Hero  19:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

It's difficult to navigate. I think it'd be better to make whatever changes to the existing HTML tree. — Lfdder (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
seriously? I have to scroll three times with the clade thing to see everything.-- Dravidian  Hero  20:03, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but it's a lot easier to follow and to visualise (at least for me). — Lfdder (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Malayalam isn't descended from Tamil. Badaga isn't a descendent of the Kannada language; it's descended from the Kannada subgroup. Kodava is gone? It looks like you've merged synonymous languages and branches into one. — Lfdder (talk) 20:26, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

What's the difference between Kannada and "Kannada languages"? It's just a grouping based on descendence of Kannada, not a different language, right? I really would like to know this.-- Dravidian  Hero  20:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Kannada languages share a common ancestor that's not today's Kannada. — Lfdder (talk) 22:03, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I checked the html tree again and found that several languages have been unreasonably classified. I searched in google books and I found nothing about the direct ancestor of Kota. Apparently the language has been grouped with Toda on the mere basis of their cultural closeness with the Toda people. Is there any source which claims that Kota descendent from Tamil-Kannada or "Toda-Kota"? I fear the html tree is becoming a hoax problem. What an article! -- Dravidian  Hero  21:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

These were probably taken from Ethnologue. Apparently? How did you even come to that conclusion? — Lfdder (talk) 22:03, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed. Krishnamurthi assumes, that Kota and Toda derived from a Tamil lineage, after the Tamil-Kannada language broke up into Tamil and Kannada... and he did not club Toda and Kota together either. these languages would have broken up one by one from the Tamil lineage. I guess, it's hoax busting time. 8) -- Dravidian  Hero  22:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
I've just corrected a quarter of my tree (Southern South Dravidian), going strict after Krishnamurthi. The Ethnologue tree is total rubbish. I needed to correct almost everything. Ethnologue places languages very inaccurately or tries to make the impression that everything is satisfactionally classified. I can say right now, that Ethnologue needs to be anned from wikipedia as an unreliable source.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
You don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Ethnologue. I assume that when you talk about "Krishnamurti" (you should spell it correctly, by the way), you are following Krishnamurti (2003), page 21? --Taivo (talk) 01:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
p21 and all other sites related to SSD. Don't tell an Indian how to spell an Indian name plz, you may be aware of that Indians use own scripts. Wait a second, this article doesn't mention scripts, alright.-- Dravidian  Hero  02:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
In English, this is the English Wikipedia and Krishnamurti's 2003 source is in English. Krishnamurti 2003 we will then take as the basis for a revised genealogical tree. --Taivo (talk) 05:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

User:Lfdder/sandbox/Dravidian_family_tree. Ok to include? — Lfdder (talk) 13:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

sorry to say that, but that's a very wrong mapping -- Dravidian  Hero  14:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Are you kidding me? That's exactly the family tree in Krishnamurti 2003, p. 21. — Lfdder (talk) 14:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Right, it looks like I've inadvertently removed some clades cleaning up. — Lfdder (talk) 14:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I'm not kidding you. You also need to read the related content in the book. It's not that easy.-- Dravidian  Hero  14:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I've read as much as Google will let me. Check now. — Lfdder (talk) 14:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
There are so many problems. For instance he writes Koraga would be an offshot of Tulu. That's not reflected in your mapping.-- Dravidian  Hero  14:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
He's obviously not talking about Tulu as it is spoken today. It would be inappropriate to branch Koraga off modern Tulu. The chart reflects their common ancestry. — Lfdder (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
nowhere he speaks of a "Tulu-Koraga" or "Koraga-Tulu" parent language, but a stage of Tulu only.-- Dravidian  Hero  15:03, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Discussion is irrelevant. Is the chart faithful to the original? If yes, then our work here is done. — Lfdder (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
No, your work is truely in opposition of the original. You don't give a damn, what Krishnamurti writes. Which language in the 8-9th century, when according to him Malayalam split from the branch, was it? Middle Tamil. And what is Middle Tamil? Tamil! Not a different language, right??-- Dravidian  Hero  15:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
No, not right. Middle Tamil is a different language. — Lfdder (talk) 15:42, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Really.. and where is your source for this statement?-- Dravidian  Hero  15:49, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
This is obvious bias. If both languages emerged from Middle Tamil, then why is Tamil Tamil, but Malayalam not Tamil? i.e., why is Modern Tamil a continuation of Middle Tamil, but Malayalam isn't ("split off")? — Lfdder (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Malayalam underwent structural changes while Tamil continued the Tamil tradition. That's why Malayalam is called Malayalam and not Tamil or Tamil II. It's like, when the Anglo-Saxons left their homeland for England. That doesn't mean Anglo-Saxons in their homeland changed their language like their English counterparts. I don't why you want to de-Tamilize Tamil, but it's a bit irritating to be honest.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:10, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Both languages are sufficiently different from Middle Tamil. The Tamil tradition? Language change doesn't abide by any "tradition". No, that's not why Malayalam is called Malayalam. There's no direct correlate between mass migration and language change if that's what you're trying to get at. This has nothing to do with "de-Tamilizing Tamil". Right, this is boring. Let's just get you to read cladograms properly. — Lfdder (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I have uploaded a more accurate map of Krishnamurti. Please report errors. Many languages in Ethnologue have been classified as languages, which are definitely not, but mere dialects. Gondi for instance has only 1 dialect which might be not mutually intelligible per Krishnamurti.-- Dravidian  Hero  14:07, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Then it's not a dialect, is it? — Lfdder (talk) 14:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't know, but Ethnologue categorizes all Gondi dialects as separate languages.-- Dravidian  Hero  14:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
We stopped talking about Ethnologue, Dravidian, so your comment is irrelevant. Lfdder's mapping is a faithful reproduction of Krishnamurti 2003. Some of your comments are rather odd linguistically, Dravidian, and while you have read Krishnamurti's comments, you don't seem to have understood them in a linguistic sense. Lfdder has accurately produced a clade that represents Krishnamurti 2003 (and I have it open on my desk right now and am looking at it). If you have specific qualifications or concerns about that clade, then please mention the page number and paragraph and I will look at Krishnamurti's actual comment and see what he's actually saying. --Taivo (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Central Dravidian tree, Parji is nowhere mentioned as ancestor of the other two, but he doesn't subclade Malayalam to Tamil, which he writes (I know how to read those lines. I'm not stupid).-- Dravidian  Hero  16:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Where do the trees differ? — Lfdder (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Page numbers, Dravidian, so that I can see how you are misinterpreting Krishnamurti. And, as Lfdder keeps telling you, the node from which both Tamil and Malayalam diverge doesn't need to be named "Tamil" since it is not "Tamil". It is the common ancestor of both Modern Tamil and Modern Malayalam. The same for all the other "unnamed" nodes. The name of the node is neither one branch nor the other, but the common ancestor of both. That's why most clades feature names like "Tamil-Malayalam", to give equal weight to both daughters and not to imply that one daughter evolved from the other. --Taivo (talk) 17:34, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
This is utter bullshit. Tamil-Malayalam is a transitional language of Middle Tamil to Malayalam. In other words Modern Tamils spoke Middle Tamil and modern Malayalam speakers Tamil-Malayalam.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't matter. We're replicating Krishnamurti's tree, and he's not got either on it. Does my tree deviate from his? — Lfdder (talk) 19:00, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Is this a serious question? -- Dravidian  Hero  19:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it's a serious question. — Lfdder (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I thought you were pro-Ethnologue and see Krishnamurti as just another source? Regarding your clade, I have expressed my reservations regarding Tamil-Malayalam, Tulu-Koraga, Parji-etc, Kannada-Badaga, in much detail. It can't even remotely pass the Krishnamurti test. You failed miserably.-- Dravidian  Hero  19:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I've the impression you're looking at the wrong tree. There's two on that page I linked, Krishnamurti's is 2nd. Also, I'm not pro-E. Whatever are you on about? — Lfdder (talk) 19:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I've looked at the second tree only. The first one is from a RS, right? -- Dravidian  Hero  19:31, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Lfdder, are you proposing to add both clades to the article or just Krishnamurti's? Yes, Dravidian, the first clade is a compilation of reliable sources such as Ethnologue, Ruhlen, Steever, etc. --Taivo (talk) 19:52, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Both. Frankly (and assuming good faith), I think confusion here is reasonable. This is the first time I see a language family tree as a cladogram. And it's absurd. — Lfdder (talk) 20:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. I've looked in my sources for trees that reflect Krishnamurti's clade, but haven't found any. All the traditional trees in reliable sources reflect what you have. As linguists get more and more excited about wave models and dialect chains, the traditional tree becomes more and more difficult to draw and build consensus on. --Taivo (talk) 20:08, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Disputed tag

If this is about the tree, Ethnologue is a RS. — Lfdder (talk) 18:01, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Ethnologue is a RS, just using a different source than Krishnamurti. Dravidian, you seem to believe that Krishnamurti is the only reliable source. He isn't, but we can simply choose to rely on his tree. That doesn't mean that other trees are wrong, it just means that other trees are not Krishnamurti's. --Taivo (talk) 18:05, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Ethnologue is a "Christian NGO" per self definition. Now that appears not very reliable, going by Christian history related to science in general.-- Dravidian  Hero  18:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

It's becoming really ridiculous. Now you guys support Christian fundamentalists(?) to prove some point. I stopped contributing to this article as soon as I realized who were responsible for the state of the article. I'm pretty sure in near future my page will have more hits than this crap.-- Dravidian  Hero  18:29, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Dravidian, but your comment is completely idiocy. Ethnologue employs trained linguists, most with PhDs, to edit and maintain Ethnologue separate from any missionary activity. Ethnologue is completely non-sectarian and your anti-Christian bias is coloring your ability to look at objective linguist facts and analysis. You don't know what you're talking about. As far as this thread is concerned it is finished. You dislike Ethnologue because it is loosely associated with other branches of SIL's operation that support missionaries, despite the fact that it is non-missionary and religiously neutral itself. You're showing your unscientific bias. --Taivo (talk) 19:50, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

roflmao @ "completely non-sectarian":

Fredrick A. Boswell, Ph.D. candidate

Executive Director

Ph.D. (candidate) Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam M.A. Biblical Literature, Oral Roberts University (1981) B.A. New Testament studies, Oral Roberts University (cum laude) (1979) This is biggest crap possible and not reliable-- Dravidian  Hero  20:09, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

You are a fool, Dravidian, if you think that just because the "director" is a Christian that the linguistics of the classification have any religious content whatsoever. Am I supposed to viscerally oppose anything Krishnamurti does because he is Hindu? What would you say if Krishnamurti's science was dismissed because of his religion. Point to a single, solitary case where the religion of Ethnologue's director has any influence on the actual classifications or linguistic information within Ethnologue. Show me one single solitary case of a "Christian" classification in Ethnologue. You are ignorant of that organization and the way Ethnologue operates and builds its information base. --Taivo (talk) 20:14, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
And, Dravidian, you have posted the vita of the SIL director, NOT Ethnologue's director. Ethnologue, like the SIL 639-3 authority, is only loosely a part of SIL. Unless you actually know anything about Ethnologue's operations and leadership, then you are simply talking from your hatred of Christianity and have no basis in scientific fact. Where is the "Christian" part of Ethnologue? --Taivo (talk) 20:18, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
And, Dravidian, if there are mistakes in Ethnologue (whether you think they are religious errors or linguistic errors), you can send them a correction. I have corrected information in Ethnologue on many occasions. They are very polite and very happy to respond to your suggestions, as long as they are backed up by reliable linguistic sources. Give it a try. --Taivo (talk) 20:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
In other words: It's crap.-- Dravidian  Hero  20:29, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
E attempts to document all the languages in the world. It can't be avoided that there'll be errors from time to time. Be reasonable. — Lfdder (talk) 20:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
woow really, as if there were no experts for this kind of stuff. Noone of them would cite Ethnologue for their classification for sure and that's enough to be qualified as unreliable at wikipedia, unless they have a quasi official mouthpiece like Taivo.-- Dravidian  Hero  21:07, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
You are simply ignorant of the issue, Dravidian. Ethnologue is an encyclopedia, like Wikipedia, and does not publish original research. They are a compendium of learning, so, of course, people writing original research do not cite Ethnologue--Ethnologue cites them. However, you will find many linguistic encyclopedias that use on Ethnologue's information where appropriate and cite it. For example, The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Oxford). That is what Ethnologue is--nothing more, nothing less. Encyclopedias contain errors. Instead of vomiting nonsense, why don't you suggest corrections? You are just an anti-Christian biased fool if you have nothing concrete to offer either Ethnologue (in terms of corrections) or concrete examples where Ethnologue has allowed religious bias to cloud the linguistic information. --Taivo (talk) 21:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
You missed the point. That thing is totally uncalled for. People come and create professional hoaxes, where your Christian bible "linguists" would be trapped. Combined with their own POV, such projects become totally useless. It's like wikipedia, which noone of serious interest would go for, because people like you endorse this kind of idiocy here-- Dravidian  Hero  22:28, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I didn't miss the point at all. You don't know what a reliable source is and is not. You don't know what Ethnologue is and is not. And you are an anti-Christian bigot by your own admission. Simple. I don't care that Krishnamurti is a Hindu. I don't care that the editors of Ethnologue are Christian. I don't care that the editors of the Encyclopedia of Islam are Muslim. But you do. Scientific information doesn't have a religious tag. But you value science only if the scientist conforms to your religious bias. Shame on you. --Taivo (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Again, if you cannot name a single case where Ethnologue's information is a "Christian hoax", then shut up. --Taivo (talk) 22:45, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
You shut up. I wouldn't accept any work of any other religious organization either, be it Hindu, Muslim or Ancient Aliens. Give me a single Dravidianist, who cites from Ethnologue to prove your point per Wikipedia:Reliable sources One can confirm that discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse by checking the scholarly citations it has received incitation indexes.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:22, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Cite a single, solitary instance where Ethnologue's information is a "Christian hoax". --Taivo (talk) 23:30, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I never said, that was a fact, but a possibility, and now show your evidence.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
If you can't prove that Ethnologue has a single instance of a "Christian hoax", then you can shut up now. This isn't about me, Dravidian, you are the one who started writing with a venomous anti-Christian bigotry and did not let up. As I said before, but you apparently don't understand, Ethnologue is an encyclopedia, meaning that it's not original research, but a compilation of information from other reliable sources. Thus, original researchers would not cite it, but other encyclopedias and summaries of the field do cite it. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics; Merritt Ruhlen, A Guide to the World's Languages: Volume 1, Classification (Stanford); Anatole V. Lyovin, An Introduction to the Languages of the World (Oxford); Bernard Comrie, The World's Major Languages (Oxford). And that's just what is sitting on my shelf within reach and not having to look too hard. --Taivo (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
So you admit, that there is no discussion of the source has entered mainstream academic discourse? -- Dravidian  Hero  23:48, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Are you so scientifically ill-informed that you don't understand the difference between research compilations (encyclopedias) and original research? Your credibility in this article started taking a nosedive once you began to expose your bigotry, but as you have continued to act more and more ignorantly and stubbornly, you're at about a zero in the credibility factor now. I just cited several academic works that cite Ethnologue. --Taivo (talk) 23:52, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I asked for a Dravidianist, not random editors of encyclopedias. Remember, this article is about Dravidian languages? -- Dravidian  Hero  23:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
And I asked for a single, solitary instance of Christian bias in Ethnologue. I'm done with dealing with your bigotry and complete ignorance about sources. Ethnologue is a reliable source. Period. You have not proven otherwise and will never be able to. --Taivo (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

What are these other issues? — Lfdder (talk) 23:19, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Not so fast. One by one.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:23, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Waiting. --Taivo (talk) 23:30, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
You need to be in a position to explain why you {{disputed}} tag an article when you do. From its doc: First add a new section named "Disputed" to the article's talk page, describing the problems with the disputed statements. Then place {{Disputed}} at the top of the disputed article. — Lfdder (talk) 23:32, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
The dispute discussion was already going on. Nothing to document here extra.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Wow, you're really putting some effort into trying to annoy me. Do you not like to make friends? — Lfdder (talk) 23:45, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
At this point, the only issue that you have consistently "disputed", Dravidian, is Ethnologue's summary classification. That's not worth a "disputed" tag. A disputed tag is for large-scale problems with POV or data in an article, not for complaining about whether Toda and Kota share a node or not (like they do in multiple sources). --Taivo (talk) 23:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm miffed about dialects being handled as separate languages.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
Since there is no hard and fast rule about separating languages from dialects, there is no hard and fast listing that everyone will agree on anyway. There is a gray area between the two and every single language family deals with the same issue. Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 uses a very flexible definition so that there are more languages listed. Other sources use a very tight definition so that there are fewer languages listed. Some sources only include languages with a literary tradition, so that some things that are listed as "dialects" are actually separate languages when literary tradition is excluded. Other sources use a politically-based listing so that some languages are relegated to dialect status for political reasons and some dialects are elevated to language status for political reasons. Actual linguists like myself realize this flexibility and don't consider it fatal in any listing if the edges of what we consider to be languages are different than the edges we'd draw if we were making the same list. So just because you don't like X list of languages doesn't make the article "disputed". It simply means that one source says X and another source says Y. That's not "disputed". --Taivo (talk) 23:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
So it's finally come to this; dialect v. language. Well, 'bout time I hit the ol' dusty trail. — Lfdder (talk) 00:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
It's still just Dravidian's religious bias against Ethnologue, just trying to paint the turkey red instead of orange. --Taivo (talk) 00:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
There is no religious bias from my side. Last warning WP:NPA.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Stop warning people and start discussing things like a decent human being. — Lfdder (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm definitely not in the mood so, when people deny that the article contains disputed content. Ethnologue is nowhere cited by Dravidianist nor does any Dravidianist recognizes these dialects as languages. You guys make me insane with your constant bullshitism.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:26, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Wanna say Ethnologue has equal authority to the likes of Krishnamurti again? Good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available, helps prevent NPOV disagreements. Try the library for reputable books and journal articles, and look for the most reliable online resources. If you need help finding high-quality sources, ask other editors on the talk page of the article you are working on, or ask at the reference desk.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Ethnologue does not do research; it's an "encyclopedia" with very limited scope. It has no less authority than the sources that it cites. If E were to cite Krishnamurti, would Krishnamurti lose in credibility? Yes, there's sometimes erroneous info, but this is most likely 'cos their source is dated or 'cos of a genuine mistake. There's never been any indication whatsoever that E wants to misinform. What is so difficult about this to understand? — Lfdder (talk) 00:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I have tried to explain that to Dravidian multiple times above, but he appears to be unwilling to hear anything that disputes his own biases. Dravidian, no one said that Ethnologue is "equal to Krishnamurti as a Dravidian source". What we have said is that Ethnologue is a reliable source for a summary of Dravidian classifications. Guess what? Krishnamurti is neither the first nor the only linguist to have worked on Dravidian classification. I know that is news for you, but it's true. Ethnologue is a summary of prior classifications, it is not an original source. But as a summary it is a reliable source, nonetheless. You confuse "original research" with "reliable source". They are not synonymous. If you don't finally get the distinction, then we will have to start ignoring you. You're proving to be a biased and unreliable editor with a serious POV axe to grind. Unless you are willing to recognize that scientists can have differing points of view and that Wikipedia must present the range of scientific opinion, then you are worthless as a Wikipedia editor. --Taivo (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Taivo's comments of 6 May 2013 @ 23:57 pretty much says perfectly what I had intended to say here. I would also add that perhaps DravidianHero may want to look at WP's discussion of primary, secondary and tertiary sources in the Reliable Source Guideline. Specifically:

"Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. While they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution :in order to avoid original research. While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. :Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must :be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors."

Krishnamurti's work that you mention, for example, would be a primary source that is not preferred over secondary (or, in some cases, even tertiary) sources.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 03:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand this very well, but there is a small problem. When you claim E would be a tertiary source, then there needs to be primary sources for their information on Dravidian languages. If there is no primary source for dialect=language, then it acts as a primary source itself right, which then would again require secondary, tertiary sources. Doesn't look like you understood the main problem here. -- Dravidian  Hero  10:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Languages in E are as they're defined in ISO 693. "Dialect" has no place in classifying language. But how these languages are perceived, i.e. to be dialectal, is worth mentioning on their pages. — Lfdder (talk) 10:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
ISO 693 seems to be managed by SIL, the same people who manage E though, hence E appears to be a mere copy of a primary source. Sec and Tert should be independent of this group.-- Dravidian  Hero  11:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
SIL aren't pulling languages out of their bum. If other reputable scholars have identified and mapped these languages, then why should we leave them out? This is WP:NPOV. — Lfdder (talk) 11:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Secondary and tertiary sources are required by reputed mainstream Dravidianists (many are listed in my article, so finding sources should be no problem), who could clarify whether SIL's language/dialect classification is relevant or just fringe.-- Dravidian  Hero  11:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Again, E is a RS. The onus is on you to check on their sources and see if there's any mistakes if you think there are. If you need help with identifying their sources, shoot them an e-mail. I'm sure that they'll be happy to help. — Lfdder (talk) 12:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Did you know there 19 German languages roflmao http://www.ethnologue.com/family/17-208 They simply don't distinguish languages and dialects. -- Dravidian  Hero  12:11, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing "roflmao"-y about this. It's not their place to distinguish btn language and dialect. See Taivo's and my replies above, and Dialect and A language is a dialect with an army and navy. – Lfdder (talk) 12:18, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Again, Dravidian, you don't seem to know the sources or have a grasp on either their origin or reliability. SIL 639-3 is an independent standard widely used both in the US and internationally as a coding system for all the languages, living and extinct, that have been recorded. As such, it relies on the judgments of independent scholars on what is and is not needed for the coding. The coding is used by libraries, funding organizations, and researchers around the world in order to prevent confusion on what language is being referred to when, for example, "Maya" is mentioned in a text. Many scholarly linguistic journals (for example, International Journal of American Linguistics) now require that the three-letter ISO code follow the first mention of any language name in the work. SIL 639-3 grew from -1 and -2 standards by adding Ethnologue codes about 8 years ago. Since then, scholars from around the world have been engaged in modifying the coding to make it more accurate in terms of listing languages, removing language names that were based on incomplete knowledge, etc. It is independent of Ethnologue and SIL. SIL pays the ISO 639-3 director and its staff, but has no control over it whatsoever. That was one of the preconditions for SIL taking over the administration of the ISO 639 standard about a decade ago and it has been rigidly enforced since then. It is NOT managed by the same people who administer the Ethnologue. In other words, Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 are far from being "fringe", but are part of the mainstream linguistic reference literature. Again, your bigotry against SIL is showing even though it is completely unjustified in reference to either Ethnologue or ISO 639-3. Unless you have actual proof that either Ethnologue or SIL 639-3 is inserting a "Christian bias" into their scholarly materials, you should simply shut up about it. Those language names listed in Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 were not invented, but have been found in works by specialists on Dravidian in the scientific literature. Until their precise nature or relationship to other Dravidian languages is specifically discussed in the literature, and some scholar passes that information on to the editors of both (they are not the same people), then those names will remain. If you have specific scholarly references that describe those "unclassified" Dravidian languages, then you can send the information on to Ethnologue and they will make the necessary corrections and then you can fill out the appropriate ISO 639-3 forms to make the corrections there as well. I have made corrections to both Ethnologue and ISO 639-3 and it is a fairly friendly process (although making changes to ISO 639-3 takes a little more paperwork than I'd like). You still don't know the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources Dravidian. You are demanding that we ignore Ethnologue simply because of your bigotry and for no other reason. --Taivo (talk) 12:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not against the codes or SIL now. I have no bias against ISO 639. I've learnt only now, that E terms everything as "language", regardless of if they are languages or dialects of a language. And apparently many of those Dravidian "language" articles are filled with a language informarion instead of dialect information based on the indiscriminative usage at E and unawareness of their true nature. Is there someone, who opposes my intention to correct this information in those articles? -- Dravidian  Hero  12:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that—at every step—you assume too much and you let your biases (we all have them) get the better of you. Take the time to read; to read about dialect and sociolinguistics and as much as you can about these languages. Then think about what changes you want to make and if they're appropriate. — Lfdder (talk) 12:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I will take the necessary time for it and I will try to be more open minded in future. :) -- Dravidian  Hero  12:51, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
And Ethnologue doesn't list "dialects". It only lists those entities that have been called "languages" by some reliable source in the past. At some point, in some publication, those Dravidian speech forms were listed as Dravidian languages by a specialist in Dravidian languages. That's the only way that information gets into Ethnologue; it's the only way information has ever gotten into Ethnologue. --Taivo (talk) 13:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
From where did you obtain this insider information. I can't find it on the website.-- Dravidian  Hero  13:24, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I have known about Ethnologue since its eighth or ninth edition (in the late '70s), when its goal was still to list all the languages of the world and determine whether they needed Bible translations or not. That's why census and usage data has been part of the listing. I have watched it grow over the years, move from print to electronic form, expand its role and the information it contains, and then eventually de-emphasize the religious aspects to make it more NPOV. That history is, as you say, not all available on the website. But I have watched the process, have known people who worked on it, and have submitted changes and corrections over the past couple of decades. I remember standing in a bookstore in Berkeley, California and perusing either the eighth or ninth edition to decide whether it was worth purchasing at that time (I was still a grad student doing fieldwork for my dissertation in western Nevada and decided to spend my limited book funds on something else). That was in the late '70s or early '80s if my memory serves me correctly. Ethnologue began in the 1950s and, in many ways, grew like Wikipedia grows--through gathering information from reliable sources and collating it into usable form. That means that there may be information that was gathered decades ago from reliable sources of that time, but that has not been further mentioned in print or corrected. These unclassified Dravidian languages listed in Ethnologue were, at some point, mentioned in publications by Dravidian specialists three or four (or more) decades ago, added to Ethnologue, and then left there because no one told Ethnologue that they were just dialects or that they were synonyms of some other named language. Ethnologue only employs a very small number of individuals and they cannot possibly keep up with the entire body of linguistic literature every year for every language family, especially if some of the research is published in Hindi or Tamil or Arabic or Chinese, etc. In areas of the world where SIL employs a large number of linguists, such as in New Guinea, the information in Ethnologue is kept quite up-to-date with the latest classification and communication from linguists in situ, but in areas of the world where linguists are less likely to communicate with Ethnologue, the information is sometimes out-of-date. --Taivo (talk) 17:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Very interesting story Taivo, thanks! Explains a lot.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
You obviously did not take take the time to read like you said you would. Special:Contributions/Dravidianhero — Lfdder (talk) 17:21, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I gave preference to the view of those, who didn't call those items "languages", in opposition to the ISO view, where clearcut dialects are classified as languages. I'm not against any view and I wouldn't oppose someone who would call those languages, but then we would miss the fact, that dialects can be very divergant to the extent a standard speaker couldn't understand it (easily), and still be from the same language. It is a very thin line and I think it's most reasonable, when the dialects are seen as not mutually intelligible instead of separate languages, when we have no academic consensus.-- Dravidian  Hero  17:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
A much fairer treatment would be: X is a Dravidian language of India. It may be regarded as a dialect of Y, e.g. by Krishnamurti (2003, p. 00). — Lfdder (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Why would this be fairer, when all up-to-date authorities don't write about a particular dialect as being a separate language? It would distort the general scholarly view. I looked at those German articles in wikipedia and, rightly, they don't even mention them as being possible separate languages. It's just a complete different worldview in linguistics and obviously most linguists don't adhere to it, because it has no tradition. -- Dravidian  Hero  18:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Unless you are actually a linguist (which I suspect you are not), then you don't have any actual knowledge about how linguistics operates and the definitions we operate under. These unclassified languages should not be simply dismissed out of hand. Ethnologue has references and current information on some of them, such as Allar. Just because Krishnamurti may not include them here or there does not mean that other linguists have ignored them. And the German Wikipedia means nothing on the English Wikipedia. --Taivo (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I meant the German dialect articles on EN, which are termed separate languages in E.-- Dravidian  Hero  18:20, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Some of them are separate languages under the classic definition because mutual intelligibility between dialects is limited in many cases. You clearly don't know how language operates in Germany. Speakers of these local languages do not talk to you in those dialects, they switch to Standard German. There is a difference between speaking the local language and speaking Standard German with a local accent. There is near universal diglossia in Germany. And here is a recent source that discusses Allar language as an example of recent work that recognizes some of these unclassified languages. But this all goes back to your limited understanding of the linguistic definition of "language" and "dialect" and the fact that linguists often use different boundary markers between the two. This is normal in linguistics and linguists accept the fuzziness of the definition. --Taivo (talk) 18:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
I didn't question the nature of a dialect/language. I do understand both worldviews. I hit the term in google books and looked who and how many used the word language instead of dialect or vice versa. So I came to the conclusion what to take in here. And it waa always clear withis method.-- Dravidian  Hero  18:34, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
This isn't WP:COMMONNAME or something. We ought to present both views if we're to be impartial. — Lfdder (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
The article is already called "X language", not "X dialect". Do you think that's a self runner?-- Dravidian  Hero  19:38, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
"Language" is only appended when there's a clash. What are you even arguing for now? Both views are reputable; we should have both. — Lfdder (talk) 19:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

DH, I've reverted most of your recent edits, as they were unsourced and introduced inconsistent claims between articles and caused navigation problems. I have no problem consolidating ISO "languages" into a single article (I've done it many times myself), but I think we should have some agreement as to how to go about it, so we don't end up contradicting ourselves. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

You need sources? Add a citation needed tag instead of reverting. Thanks.-- Dravidian  Hero  23:32, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not the only reason kwami rv'ed your changes. Goes without saying that you shouldn't add unsourced statements to articles on Wikipedia. You know a lot could've been done by now to improve all these articles if you didn't act this way. Talk page isn't for debating. — Lfdder (talk) 00:04, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Gimme a break. He reverted everything of this perfectly sourced, MOS conform version: User:Dravidianhero/Dravidian_languages. I never did anything wrong.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
That's not got anything to do with what we're discussing here now. I know it's frustrating to get a big edit rv'ed, but you need to be able to discuss things amicably. We're not doing it to piss you off; we're rv'ing your edits 'cos we honestly think that they're problematic. I like to think that my position's right, but it's not like my being wrong is an impossibility. I'm willing to accept that; you're not. Bottom line is nothing's gonna come out of this if you keep acting silly. — Lfdder (talk) 00:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Don't get personal again. I've just stated, why I don't accept his (and your) commandos. I'm not interested in any educational programs involving you for the same reason. Try to face me on a same level instead of flexing muscles for the next rev campaign.-- Dravidian  Hero  00:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
And I've no interest in educating you, nor do I assume that that's my place. It'd be brilliant if we could discuss things on the "same level". Stop with the theatrics so we might. — Lfdder (talk) 00:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
And if Ethnologue were not a reliable source, it would not form the basis of the language lists in International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (Oxford University Press). Isn't that Dravidianhero's whole contention? That no mainstream scholar uses Ethnologue as a reliable source? He's wrong. The editor of the IEL was William Bright, about as highly respected a mainstream linguist as they come. Bernard Comrie also used it as a source in The World's Major Languages (Oxford) and he's another highly respected mainstream linguist. Dravidianhero's wrong about ISO 639-3 usage among scholars as well. Mainstream linguistics journals are starting to require ISO codes after language names. I'm also fed up with his proof texting sentences out of context in Google Books. If that's the extent of his linguistic knowledge he doesn't belong here editing linguistics articles. --Taivo (talk) 04:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Forum shopping

Just so everyone here knows, Dravidianhero is doing a bit of forum shopping here. --Taivo (talk) 04:46, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Krishnamurti is more reliable source that one from the 19th century

Krishnamurti's 2003 treatment of the Dravidian languages is far superior in methodology and conclusions to anything written in the 19th century. If someone substitutes a Krishnamurti (2003) reference with a Caldwell (1896) [or whenever], I will revert it. No questions asked. --Taivo (talk) 14:31, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

If you look more closely, you'll see that Caldwell (1856) was being used only as a citation for a quotation of his words. Kanguole 14:47, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
You were replacing Krishnamurti's citation with a Caldwell citation. A citation from 1856 is really quite worthless in a linguistics article because the field has advanced far beyond the primitive nature of language study in the 19th century. The field of linguistics has moved so fast in the last 200 years that citing a source from 1856 is equivalent to citing Aristotle in an article on astrophysics. It might be quaint, but only in the sense of showing how wrong it might be. --Taivo (talk) 15:28, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
No, the article contains a block quotation of Caldwell's words from his 1856 book, and sources the quotation to Krishnamurti (2003), who quotes these words on page 1. The edit was to reference the original source of the quotation (and to correct a typo made by the editor who copied the text from Krishnamurti). You also reverted cleanups to the Dravidian studies and substratum sections. What were your objections to those? Kanguole 17:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
If the quote from Caldwell is actually relevant, then you should cite it from the place you got it--Krishnamurti, with a note that he was quoting someone else. Unless you have actually got the original source in front of you to check it, then it's always best to use the source where you actually got the quote. But I'm still not convinced that the Caldwell quote is even appropriate here. Krishnamurti was, as I recall, quite clear that "Tamil" doesn't come from the same source as "Dravidian". That should be the definitive statement. I'm also not convinced of some of your substratum statements. It's not at all definitive that the retroflex consonants of northern India have a Dravidian source. Indeed, many linguists are now doubting that previously assumed belief. --Taivo (talk) 19:28, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
The source of the Caldwell quote can be viewed here. But the quote and the other things you mention are irrelevant to the edits you reverted – they are still in the article now, even repeated, since the edits you reverted consisted of re-organization, trimming of repetition and removal of irrelevant quotes. But to consider them anyway:
  • The Caldwell quote was added to the article in January 2012 for the same reason that Krishnamurti gives it: it shows why he chose the name.
  • Krishnamurti says at the foot of page 2: "Sinhala BCE inscriptions cite dameḍa-, damela- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and Jaina sources used damiḷa- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil); damilaraṭṭha- was a southern non-Aryan country; dramiḷa-, dramiḍa, and draviḍa- were used as variants to designate a country in the south (Bṛhatsamhita-, Kādambarī, Daśakumāracarita-, fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134–138). It appears that damiḷa- was older than draviḍa- which could be its Sanskritization. It is not certain if tamiẓ is derived from damiḷa- or the other way round."
  • The cited sources, Subrahmanyam (1983), Zvelebil (1990) and Krishnamurti (2003) suggest the possibility of a Dravidian origin of the retroflex consonants. If there are sources that say differently, they should be added.
May I resume editing the article please? Kanguole 01:03, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
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