Hubballi: Recent research at Indus Valley Civilization sites in Pakistan has confirmed the linguistic connection of Kannada with the languages spoken by the people in that ancient period. The book ‘Brahui Bhasha: Past, Present and Future’ published by the Brahui Academy in Pakistan has identified Kannada words such as ‘Kallu (Khal in Brahui)’ which remain in currency in far-flung Balochistan. A research paper has shed light on several words from the Dravidian languages that were used in the heyday of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Sikandar Brohi, who edited the book in 2018, pointed out that even in 1911, the language spoken by the majority of Balochistan was Brahui, but in 2014 it was declared ‘threatened’ by UNESCO. An international conference in 2014, and several scholars from around the world including India presented papers at the event. Indian scholars traveled to Pakistan, despite struggling to obtain funds for the trip, and the obstacles that stood in the way of obtaining visas to the country, given the prevailing tensions between the two countries. We have compiled all those papers, and published a book on Brahui language, which strengthens the linguistic ties between Brahui and South Indian languages, including Kannada,” Brohi told TOI.
In his paper published in the book, Brohi writes, “Brahui belongs to the North-Western group of Dravidian languages, and is apparently closely related to the languages classified under the Northeastern group. The latter includes Malto, Kurukh, among others. Brahui is more distantly related to the Gondwana group of languages, which includes Kui, Krawi, Monda, Penga, Konda and Gondi, and even more distantly to the central group of languages, which includes Pargi, Gadaba, Kolami and Naiki. The languages spoken in the southwestern region of India – for example Telugu – and the languages classified under the Southern group, which include Kuruba, Kannada, Kodava, Kota, Tamil and Malayalam, are all distantly Brahui. are related to.”
Brohi quotes extensively from Ferdinand Bork’s German-Brahui dictionary, which contains the meanings of Brahui words in addition to German, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. The book highlights the similarities between the words for the eye (Kannu in Kannada is khan in Brahui), feet (Kalu in Kannada; Kaal in Brahui) and mouth (‘bai’ in Kannada, for which the Brahui equivalent is ‘ba’). Is).
In another paper titled ‘Ancestral Dravidian Languages in Indus Civilization: Ultra Conserved Dravidian Tooth-Word Reveal Deep Linguistic Ancestry and Support Genetics’, an independent researcher and an independent researcher, published in the journal Nature Group under the category ‘Humanities and Social Communication’, Bahata by Ansumali Mukhopadhyay. . In this paper, it is recognized that the Dravidian languages, including Kannada, although mainly spoken in South India, were represented in the north-western, northeastern and central parts of the Indian sub-continent.
Delhi-based Kannada scholar Purushottam Bilimale said that both papers supported the hypothesis that speakers of Dravidian languages were once spread across north-west India. “Thus, before the arrival of the Aryans, a form of Proto-Dravidian or Proto-North Dravidian would have been spoken extensively in North India. Apart from the surviving Dravidian languages in some islands, they also followed a period of bilingualism, before the Christian era. later made way for the Aryan languages, which would have lasted for many centuries,” said Bilimale.
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