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Revision as of 20:10, 16 December 2005

Sri Aurobindo

I'm sorry by I cannot accept this paragraph:

"However, other notable scholars, such as Sri Aurobindo, have demonstrated that there is no such an ethnic or linguistic division between the north Indians and the south Indians. Max Muller's theory was officially supported by the British colonian authorities, who adhered to the "divide and rule" principle."

Firstly Aurobindo is a religious scholar, not an expert on genetics, ethnicity and and linguistics. He has not 'demonstrated' anything on this issue, he simply had a pan-Indian belief system.

I agree; I will change the above sentence to say that Aurobindo believed that there is no ethnic distinction, rather than say that he demonstrated it. However, several historians have put forth the theory that there is no ethnic distinction - see Aryan Invasion Theory for sources. I will add a sentence to that effect too. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Secondly 'Max Muller's theory' was not officially supported by by the Britrish government. Show me any document in which the government 'officially' supports the theory for political reasons.

Agreed. Several British historians adhered to the theory, but it is not right to say that the British government "officially" supported the theory. I will remove that sentence. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The divide and rule argument is absurd. Since the Aryan/Dravidian distinction is about two separate areas of the land they are already divided. I can't see how Speaking of this ethnic distinction would in any way make British rule easier.

Personally, I don't think the divide and rule argument is absurd, and I do see how instilling a belief that there is an ethnic distinction would help the British rule - but whether they did it or not is POV, and has already been dealt with in Aryan Invasion Theory. I will just add a link to that article here and remove that sentence.--ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I accept that 'absurd' is OTT, but I have never seen any evidence for this so-called 'divide and rule' strategy, nor do I understand how the claim that there is a racial difference between Dravidians and Aryans would assist British rule. Historically India was divided into different kingdoms, so such divisions already existed. Now the idea that the Indian upper castes were 'Aryans' could indeed help British rule, by allying the native Indian ruling classes to British rule on the ideology of pan-Aryanism. But the ethno-linguistic distinction between Aryan and Dravidian peoples would alienate South Indians, including their leaders. Overplaying the Aryan idea would be threatening to British rule. For this reason, though Aryanism was indeed part of the culture of British imperialism, I've found no evidence that it was ever a tool of policy. Unlike the Nazis the British were far too canny to let their ideology rule their practical policy..--Paul B 23:11, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So essentially, the whole paragraph can be removed. In fact, the whole article looks pretty lame to me, but I will see what I can do to clean it up. --ashwatha 01:18, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've removed the claim that Max Muller first used the term Dravidian race. I can find no evidence of this. Indeed Muller was not a race-theorist or a Dravidianist. I've tried to make a more general summary of the role played by race in the modelling of Indian populations by the British. ..--Paul B 18:04, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There is nothing 'POV' about saying that Tamil is the 'most important' of the Dravidian languages. The point not that it's a better language in some way, but that it is the most widely spoken and has the largest literature. It's necessary to introduce Tamil at this stage so that an uninformed reader will understand that 'Tamils' - referred to later in the article - are the principal sub-group of Dravidian speakers. Still, I shall try to rephrase it. Paul B 02:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, the re-phrasing reads well. I agree that is is certainly the best-known of the Dravidian languages. --ashwatha 02:49, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To Anon user

"Telugu and Kannada have some striking similarity to Sanskrit, while Tamil is the least affected by Sanskrit. Telugu is over 70% Sanskrit."

Does this mean Telugu vocabulary is over 70% Sanskrit? Telugu grammar? Without more context, I think it is safer to say that Kannada and Telugu resemble Sanskrit more than Tamil does.

Also, most of the information in the "Dravidian languages" section seems to belong in the Dravidian languages article, not in this one. --ashwatha 00:11, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Possible Copyright violation by User:4.250.33.254

I will remove a large bulk of text, because it is copied from this site and a copyright violation is likely: Apart from this, there may also a POV problem, since it only cites two older studies with the same POV.

Telugu/Kannada Aryans?

I found it's strange that author has mentioned Telugus/Kannadigas having Aryan(whatever that means) admixture based on Sanskirt words in those languages. Believe it or not, it's not Kannada or Telugu but Malayalam which has the highest percentage of Sanskrit words. All these languages follow Sanskrit grammar. But it has more to do with Brahmin dominance in these regions than any Aryan mixture. I suppose it's obvious when education/knowledge was a complete Brahmin phenomemon in the past the languages were also developed according to their discretion. Also, even Buddhists and Shaivites also made Sanskrit as the language of the religion further paving way for Sanskrit words into these languages. --Manjunatha (17 Aug 2005 14:17 IST)

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Page move

I think this page should be moved to Dravidian, Dravidians or Dravidian people. The term "Dravidian Race" is an 19th century invention, while the term Dravidian itself has a long and probably complex history that is not really mentioned in the article. Somebody really should write something about the history and etymology of the term Dravidian. And "Dravidian Race" could still be a section in the article. --Batten8 10:22, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The article was originally intended to be about the 19th century concept of a "race". The editor who created it evidently intended it to parallel the Aryan race article. It has now evolved into something different, so yes, Dravidian people or Dravidians would be better. The letter currently rediects to Dravidian, which is a disambiguation page, and I think should remain so. Paul B 10:35, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

If nobody objects, somebody should move the article to Dravidians or Dravidian people then. --Batten8 11:15, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Since consensus was apparently reached here for the move -- but never enacted -- I, random passerby, have completed the move. Xoloz 05:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't someone delete the page Dravidan race and change all the links to point towards Dravidian people since the two pages are identical?... PostEDIT- nevermind, it hanppened even as I was typing.

The unsortened exerpt version reads

"Morphologically the people of India may be broadly classified (Malhotra, 1978) into four types --- Negrito, Australoid, Mongoloid and Caucasoid. The Negrito element is characterized by short stature, fizzly hair, fine hair texture, brachycephalichead, dark complexion, short and protruding face, broad nose and thick and everted lips. They are now confined to the Andaman Islands and Nilgiri Hills. Some anthropologists believe that they may have had a wider distribution at one time. The Australoids are characterized by short stature (althoughtaller than the Negritos), wavy to curly hair, hyperdolichocephalic todolichocephalic head, dark complexion, stout brow ridges, sunken nasalroot and abundance of body hair. They are chiefly distributed in central and southern regions of India. The Mongoloid element in India is primarily found in the north-east and the sub-Himalayan regions of India. They have short stature, broad shoulder, scanty facial and body hair, brachycephalic head, flat face, prominent cheek bones, flat nose and epicanthic fold. Mostof the tribal groups of India belong to one of these three fairly distinct morphological types, although it must be emphasized that within any of these types there is a considerable amount of variability. The Caucasoid element in India is the most widespread. They are characterized by a taller stature, dolichocephalic to brachycephalic head, light complexion, straight to wavy hair, lighter eyes, arched forehead, long face with well-developed chin,narrow and prominent nose. ... How are populations from various Indian regions genetically positioned relative to one another? Using the data on allele frequencies at 10 loci presented in Roychoudhury (1977), a single-linkage dendrogram (Figure 2) was constructed. From Figure 2, it is seen that the populations of southern India stand apart genetically from the populations of north, west, east and central India." WAS 4.250 20:23, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, I've removed this passage again because its footnote links to a non-existent page. We need to know who said this and when. Paul B 21:11, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Southern Indian Australoids

On a purely visual basis, there is a strong similarity between the people of southern India and especially Sri Lanka. Sri Lankans are often mistaken for Aboriginies in Australia. Research has apparently not only found genetic similarities between these people and the Australian Aboriginies, but also close genetic similarities between native dogs in both areas.

The striking visual similarity does not exist with other people from the Indian subcontinent.

If you want to go by genetic studies then majority South Indians show unique haplogroups like L and H, very rarely occuring outside India. So which genetic similarity you are talking about? Which Srilanakans are you talking about? If it's Sinhalese then they exhibit Haplogroup R1A in high frequenc which is supposed to be an Indo-Aryan identifier(still controversial). Phenotypes are not good indicators of similarities. Sinhalese are dark because of geographical reasons.

Dravidian = Tamil

The following passage was taken from the book "Tamil Language - A brief review of its history and features", written by Prof. M. Varadarajan

"The term Dravidian, which refers to the language of South India, is of a later origin. Originally it was derived from the word tamil /tamiz> . This word in course of time changed into dravida after undergoing a series of changes like tamiza, tramiza, tramiTa, trapida and travida. At one time the languages spoken in the regions of Karnataka, Kongu and Malabar were respectively known as Karunaattut-tamil, Tulunattut-tamil and Malainattut-tamil. Today however, these regional languages are classified under the blanket term 'Dravidian family of languages'. "

The language known as Derivada can also be reffered to as Tamil. The Tamil language spoken in the ancient times is not different to the tamil language known today. The old texts can still be read and understood by educated tamilian. The book known as "Tholkaapiam", one of the oldest tamil text still in existance was writen in the ca 300BC - 3000BC (The exact date can not be determined due to lack of evidence) and is accepted as the oldest grammar book in any language. This book can be read and understood by any who has studied tamil. It does not require any special training.

Telugu -Italian of the East

I found it's too insulting to a self-respecting Telugite that his language has to be compared to some European language. Being part of Dravidian family of languages, it has its own identity. I suppose such POV identity links are not required for Misplaced Pages. --Manjunatha (22 Oct 2005)

Merging Dravidas into this article

The article "Dravidas" appears to be about this same subject (either an alternative spelling or a wrong one). It contains little information that this article does not already have (it does mention the Vindhya Range, which this article apparently does not). I have tagged it to be merged into this one. --Joel7687 01:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Unnecessary efforts In "Dravidians"

Recently a lot of discussions and corrections are going in this topic.But If view differently, its not much useful for that topic or interest.In the past there were no records like wikipedia now.If we had such system of records, today we dont need these arguments. The reason for saying this is, I didn't saw much contraversy in "Aryans".It suppose to be the case. May Be we can post our input whether towards,or against.But remember to keep the evidences.

For example, 10th planet recently discovered, Until we get official acceptance, still our textbooks reads " ... 9 planets.)

if we consider "dravidian" as a belief then there will be no question.Untill we get the breakthrough by science we all input our findings / opinions. 218.186.66.245 15:48, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Propaganda

I'd like to bring to attention the huge amount of negative propaganda that makes up the bulk of scholarly work on anything Dravidian. The founder of the modern Dravidian movement, Bishop Caldwell, did it to try to convert Tamilians to the Protestant faith. The man who excavated the Indus Valley sites, such as Mohenjo-daro, perpetuated the theory that the Aryans conquered the Dravidians of the Indus Valley to illustrate the superiority of a white race as opposed to a black race.

Now that the Indus Valley civilisation has turned out to be one of the greatest of the ancient world (bronze age) the same people are revising their opinions to make it seem as if the Indus Valley Civilisation was Aryan. I don't know the truth exactly, but from the objective evidence, it seems Indus was Dravidian. The great majority of modern Indians also have traces of Dravidian stock, though the Tamilians would be the purest genetically as they retained a separate identity.

All I'm saying is that when I put up my findings from the internet onto this article, I did it so that people would understand some of the legacy of the Dravidians, the Tamils. If you look as I have from outside of India, you find no mention of Tamilian discoveries or achievements in history, though they echo even now in science and mathematics. One of the wonders of the world lies in Tamilnadu, the great temples of southern India, yet the only structure that is ever shown to outsiders, be they Japanese or French, is that of the Taj Mahal. It is saddening that propaganda detracts people from revealing the truth.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.167.180 (talk • contribs) Pjacobi 15:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Worthless Articles

This article is of very low quality and seems to be quite biased as well. I looks like it was written by a non tamil or non-dravidian with certain polictial goals. Someone please rewrite it or remove it.

Hahahahaha

"However anthropological evidence suggests that both the creators of the Indus valley civilization and the later Aryan invaders were from the Nordindid race." 

This article definitly needs to be removed. -

What evidence? What is this quote from? And why is the bizarre reference to Madame Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine in this article?

pedomorphous isn't a word

and were considered by some authorities as somewhat pedomorphous. oy vey... IMFromKathlene

"Aethiopians of Egypt"?

"Greek writers sometimes identified the Aethiopians of Egypt with the Eastern Aethiopians"

"Aethiopians of Egypt" is false, since "Aethiopian" was never used by Greek scholars to refer to the Egyptians, but rather to the people south of them, as well as to the people of South India, while drawing similarities in appearance between the North Indians and the Egyptians, and distinctions between the North Indians/Egyptians and the South Indians/Ethiopians . I will change this.