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Telugu, the pioneer of

Dravidian Family:
Latest Observations in
Afro Asiatic Linguistics


Dr. G. V. Purnachand
http://drgvpurnachand.blogspot.in/


The 21
st
century is the time of great Comparative Linguistics, a study of the Afro-Asiatic
and Dravidian families, discussing their locations, origins and migrations, sub-groupings and
characteristics. Research in comparative Linguistics gained new dimensions and relates Dravidian
Languages with Saharan, Sumerian, Elamite etc.

The goal of research is to reconstruct the parent of the contemporary Dravidian Languages
from their shared native words and grammatical features, which show regular patterns of
correspondence across languages. The scientifically reconstructed parent is the proto-Language
called Proto-Dravidian.

The Dravidian Languages are mainly spoken in southern, Eastern and Central India as well
as certain areas in North Eastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, parts of Afghanistan and
Iran, and in overseas such as the UK, US, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore. They are numbered
around 85 languages spoken by about 200 millions of people. Written Evidences are available from
6
th
century BC onwards regarding the existence of theses languages, though their ancestry goes
back to many Centuries before. (1).

Early migrations and formation of language groups

Edo Nyland proposed one Hypothesis that the highly developed languages on earth might
have been developed from the original Saharan Language, during the Neolithic Age. In his view,
the ancient and oldest Saharan has remained relatively unchanged and stable and is still spoken as
Dravidian in India (170 million speakers), as Ainu on the island of Hokkaido (18,000 speakers in
2005) and as Basque in Euskadi, Spain (800,000 speakers in 2005) (2)
It must have been a calamity of an unprecedented scale, which might drive out a large number of
people from their homes in the once well populated Sahara. Some of the Saharan tribes migrated
and settled along the Atlantic, Mediterranean and shores of Indian Ocean, in about 10,000 B.C.
They had developed excellent skills in boat building, sailing techniques and star navigation. This
specialized knowledge was carefully guarded by their generations involved.

The appearance of the Neolithic Culture in Southern India was a continuation from the
earlier Paleolithic culture. Some objects discovered in the prehistoric huts round the Deccan have
their parallel in Pakistan Neolithic cultures of the third millennium before the establishment of the
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Indus Civilisation. Indus was a continuation of the ancestors of the Dravidians in southern India in
the second and first millennia BC(2)

Prof. Nyland said that Major advances in the fields of agriculture, metallurgy, astronomy
etc. caused the female-based religion weakened and male domination arrived. It might happen in
3,000 BC. in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, and about 1,500 BC in India. Living in New styles,
eating of new food material, and inventing new utilities etc., were adopted. New comers brought
along with them learned priesthoods who proceeded to invert all aspects of the old religion, society,
language, legends etc. (2)

These new professionals for thousands of years have been creating Languages silently and
injected them into each large area and placed under the control of a king. Sumerian and Acadian
Languages in Mesopotamia, Old Egyptian in Egypt, Sanskrit in India, Hebrew in Palestine, Hittite
and Lucian in Anatolia etc. are the best examples of them. All these were the products of formulaic
distortion and scholarly manipulation of the original Saharan language. (2)

Telugu Land as the first domiciled region
of Proto Dravidians
The origin of the parent Dravidian Language in India and its speakers is a question that
defies consensus among scholars. The Proto-Dravidian Language speakers were whether indigenous
inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent or migrants in pre-historic times are also an unanswered
question.

In the absence of contrary evidence to nativity, leading International Linguist, Prof.
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti stated very clearly that the all the Dravidian Languages were native to
India. In case of their coming from another region in Asia, Africa or Europe, then their migration
must took place much before the arrival of the speakers of Proto Indo Aryan Language (3)
It is, however, a well-established and well supported hypothesis that Dravidian speakers
must have been widespread throughout India including the northwest region before the arrival of
Indo-European speakers. (4)

Sir Arthur John Evans (18511941), an English Archaeologist stated a Century ago, that
Southern India was probably the cradle of the Human race. Investigations in relation to race show it
to be possible. Southern India was also the passage ground by which the ancient progenitors of
Northern Mediterranean Races proceeded to the parts of Globe which they now inhabit. The people
who have for many ages occupied this portion of peninsula are a great people influencing the world,
not much perhaps by moral and intellectual attributes but to a great extent by superior physical
Qualities (5)

Dr. Asko Parpola (University of Helsinki) as well as Father Heras (1930), the noted Indus
expert Iravatham Mahadevan and Walter A. Fairservis Jr. and others state that the Indus sign system
represented proto Dravidian Language. Russian Linguist M.S. Andronov puts the split between
Tamil (a written Southern Dravidian language) and Telugu (a written Central Dravidian language)
at 1,500 BC to 1,000 BC.

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In this context, the findings of Franklin C. Southworth, Professor Emeritus of South Asian
Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania must be carefully considered. As far as my knowledge goes,
Prof. Franklin C. Southworth is the First Historian who identified the earliest presence of the proto
Dravidian Culture in Telugu Region and therefore the Telugus owe a Special gratitude to him.(6)

1. Prof. Southworth identifies late Proto-Dravidian with the Southern Neolithic culture in the
lower Godavari River basin of South Central India, which first appeared 2,500 BC, based
upon its agricultural vocabulary.

2. Languages of all the above three subgroups (North, Central, Southern Dravidian
Languages)are found in eastern central India, in the lower Godavari River basin, and it
would be most economical to assume that Proto-Dravidian was spoken somewhere in that
region.

3. He further states that, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in a wider area, extending
perhaps into Central India or the western Deccan, which are now occupied mainly by Indo
Aryan Languages like Marathi and Hindi. Furthermore, other forms of early Dravidian
pre-Proto-Dravidian, or other (at present unknown) branches of Dravidian may also have
existed in these same areas.

4. The most promising Archaeological Complex which might be connected with the Dravidian
Languages is the South Indian Neolithic Complex, which made its first appearance in the
mid-third millennium BC.

5. The first presence at Gulbarga, Raichur, and Bellary Districts of Karnataka, and Kurnool
District of Andhra Pradesh, and there after, judge by similarities in pottery styles, house
construction, plant remains, and other features at a very vast area from the Krishna-
Tungabhadra in the north (or if we include the evidence from Daimabad on the Godavari) to
the Kaveri in the south, and from the Krishna-Godavari mouths in the East to Dharwar in the
West (Sankalia 1977:142). (Ref: F.C. Southworth, "Proto-Dravidian Agriculture" 2006) (6)

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6. Note that the core area is located in the vicinity of the upper Krishna River, not far from the
area assumed on Linguistic grounds to be the home of Proto-Dravidian.

7. Though the close match between Proto-Dravidian and the Southern Neolithic may be
gratifying to the researcher, in a sense there was no need to prove that this Archaeological
complex is connected to Dravidian, since there are really no other likely candidates.

8. The Dravidian loanwords in late Vedic Sanskrit may be explained as the result of northward
expansion of Dravidian speakers from the peninsula.

9. A number of the Sanskrit words attributed to Dravidian are also represented in the
Kafir/Nuristani languages, spoken mainly in what is now northern Pakistan, and generally
regarded as a separate third branch of the Indo -Iranian family (see Morgenstierne 1973,
Degener 2002, Southworth 2005b).While this evidence could potentially push the period of
Dravidian-Indo-Aryan contact back to a pre-Vedic period. (6)

Prof. Southworth suggests a dialogue between Archaeologists and Historical Linguists. If what
Linguists say makes sense to Archaeologistsand I hope this is the case with at least some parts of
this paperthen the door is open for conversations about the ways in which the two disciplines can
serve to support, supplement, and question each others conclusions. If Linguists can produce
rigorous reconstructions which provide close matches to archaeological findings, then Prehistorians
will have more reason to trust Linguistic reconstructions of more intangible things, such as social
structure and ideology. Such a dialogue may well lead to further refinements in methods of
reconstruction which will produce even better matches with the archaeological record(6)

The kinship between Dravidians
and Melano-Africans

Language never colonizes itself and also it doesnt extend itself; Language migrates along
with the people-says Bernard Sergent. He is a French Historian and comparative Mythologist. In
his book Gense de L'Inde, Sergent stated that the Dravidian populations are not autochthonous but
of African origin. The kinship between Dravidians and Melano-Africans is demonstrated by
numerous ethnographic parallels both Linguistic and Cultural, like Existence of matrilineal
filiations in Dravidian country as well as several African People (7)

Afro-Asiatic is a large Language family with the great diversity. At the same time, linguistic
similarities such as vowel changes help show relationships among languages. The main quality of
Afro-Asiatic is that it cuts across the racial boundaries. (Ref: The Afro-Asiatic Language Family by
Meredith Holt) (8). In African Languages spoken in the entire Sahel belt, from Sudan to Senegal,
numerous semantic and grammatical elements are found which also exist in Dravidian. The
similarity with the Uralic languages (Finnish, Hungarian, and Samoyedic) is equally pronounced.
Sergent offers the hypothesis that at the dawn of the Neolithic Revolution, the Dravidians left the
Sudan, one band splitting off in Iran to head north to the Urals, the others entering India and moving
south. Excavations of Jean-Francois Jarrige at Mehrgarh revealed that agriculture is almost as old in
north-western India and the Near East, dating from the eighth millennium. Bernard Sergent argues
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that what agricultural Civilisation started at Mehrgarh, continues without interruption up to Indus.
These findings clearly exhibit that Indus Civilisation belonged to Dravidian speakers only.

C. A Diop laid the foundations for the modern Afro centric idea against the earlier euro
centric thought of the 20
th
century. He concludes that Egypt has played the same role as that of the
Greco-Latin civilization played in the West. The African cultural facts will only find their profound
meaning and their coherence in reference to Egypt. (9)

The presence of the intergenic COII/tRNALys 9-bp deletion in human mtDNA in 646
individuals from 12 caste and14 tribal populations of South India and compared them to individuals
from Africa, Europe, and Asia. The 9-bp deletion is observed in four South Indian tribal
populations, the Irula, Yanadi, Siddi, and Maria Gond, and in the Nicobarese. Length
polymorphisms of the 9-bp motif are present in the Santal, Konda Dora, and Jalari, all of whom live
in a circumscribed region on the eastern Indian coast. Phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA control
region sequence from individuals with the 9-bp deletion indicate that some are likely to be of Asian
and African origin, implying multiple origins of the 9-bp deletion in South India. By this report we
are given to understand that African people were settled in Telugu region much before the
Historical Period. (10)

From Nile to Krishna

King Ka was a Pre-dynastic pharaoh of Upper Egypt and was the first and earliest known
Egyptian king with a serekh, inscribed on a number of artifacts. Ka (Sekhem Ka or Ka-Sekhem)
ruled over Abydos in the late 32nd or early 31st century BC, and was buried at Umm el-Qa'ab. His
tomb was excavated in 1902, where burial goods were found with the pharaoh's name on them.


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The people of Ka Dynasty might have commenced their migration and reached ultimately
the Krishna Valley as observed by Sri Tekumalla Ramachandra Rao, one of our earliest scholars, in
his Article Akhila Andhravaniki toli rajadhani Srikakulam- Srikakulam the earliest Capital of
entire Andhra Pradesh. Ka people established Kakula Dynasty with kakulam (Present day
Srikakulam) as their capital. Srikakulam is situated in Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh in the
mouth of River Krishna. Their principle Deity was Kakuleswara. They might have spoken proto
form of Dravidian Language that resemble present day Telugu he said.

In the much later period, Andhra Vishnu, the son of Koundinya Suchandra, defeated this Ka
Dynasty and established his rule. Andhra Vishnu might unite the Telugu and Andhra Languages
and Tribes. Thus the present day Telugu Language would have evolved.

Along with them, the earliest priests would have migrated and merged with local people (the
Ka people), the satapatha Brahmana narrates that sage Viswamitra cursed and abandoned and
they migrated into Andhra region. Scholars are of the opinion that this event dates to 1200 BC, and
those migrants might have been part of the priests that came down to Krishna valley.

Andhras were nomads for several centuries. Says Sri yetukuri Balarama Moorty. He
further states that some tribes (classes) migrated and others who did not want to do so remained in
their older settlements. The tale of sage Apastamba explains that, some of these Andhra tribes
inhabited in the Salvadesa on the banks of Yamuna River during 700 BC. Apastamba Gruhya
Sootras have been widely in practice among Andhra Brahmin families even today. Andhra Tribes
established relationships with Naga, Yaksha, and Dravida tribes of Vindhya Mountains who already
were living there by that time. (11) The Smarta Brahmins of Andhra follow Apastamba Smriti or
Apastamba Sutra but not the Manusmriti. Apastamba was one of the earliest lawmakers of south
India who lived on the banks of the River Godavari. (12)

Meaning of Ka: Ka means "soul" in ancient Egyptian thought. The name of the king,
Ka is the symbol for the soul. The dead pharaohs spirit called his Ka was believed to remain
with his body and it was thought that if the corpse did not have proper care, the former Pharaoh
would not be able to carry his Duties. The Ancient Egyptians also believed that the Ka was
sustained through food and drink offerings. (13)

Meaning of Kakula: Sri Korada Ramakrishnayya explained the meaning of Kakula
Ka+kulam=Black+River=Krishnaveni (14)

Ka River: The Afro Asiatic source explains Kakula as Ka River. There is a River named
Ka (also known as Gulbin Ka River) in the northern part of Nigeria. Originating in Zamfara State, it
runs some 250 kilometers west into Kebbi State where it joins with the Sokoto River about 100 km
south of Birnin Kebbi, shortly before joining the Niger River.

Osiris-Ka (7000 B.C): Osiris-Ka was called "The Great Black". Ka denotes the Black
color in both of the Proto afro Asiatic and Dravidian Languages.

Kulam: Database query to Dravidian etymology gave the following meanings for the word
Kulam
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Proto-Dravidian: *kU- pond, vessel; to run, leak from a vessel
Proto-South Dravidian: *kU-
Proto-Telugu: *kol-
proto-Kolami-Gadba: *k
In the Online Dictionary DEDR1828 Kulam appears as river, tank or pond:
Ta: kuam tank, reservoir, lake
Ma: kuam tank
Ka: koa, koahe, koa pond
Tu: kua tank, pond
Te: kolanu, kolku, kolkuvu id (VPK) kollu deep pond dug or built near the outlet of a
tank, in which water is collected before supplying it to fields; kollu gua pond into which water
from irrigation wells is bailed out.
The words ka and kulam can also be found in Afro-asiatic etymology, Compiled by
Alexander Militarev, Olga Stolbova gave the following meanings:
Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *kur- Meaning: river, lake
Western Chadic: *kur- 'pond'
East Chadic: *kur-/Vy/ 'pond' 1, 'river' 2
Central Cushitic (Agaw): *kur- 'river'
Low East Cushitic: *kur- 'rivulet'
Eurasiatic: *k
Borean: KVLV
Indo-European: *gela-
Skt:. kla- pond, pool. DED(S) 1518.
Altaic: *kli; Uralic: *klV

Kakula Island in pacific: Just a five-minute boat ride north of fat Island in the Vanauatu
Archipelago, there lies the uninhabited Kakula Island has been called The Jewel of the South
Pacific

Kakula Port in North of Java: Mohammedan Traveler Ibn Batuta of India 1347 AD was a
travelling on a Chinese junk, which has just come from the port of Kakula, north of Java and
Sumatra and passed by Pangasinan on the way to Canton, China. (Ref: Urduja - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia-Ibn Battuta - Research - Urduja in popular culture - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urduja )
(15)
Ka in the word Africa: Gerald Massey, in 1881, derived an etymology from the Egyptian
af-rui-ka, "to turn toward the opening of the Ka". is the energetic double of every person and
"opening of the Ka" refers to a womb or birthplace. Africa would be, for the Egyptians, "the
birthplace (Ref: Nile Genesis: the opus of Gerald Massey) (16)

Veneration of Dead: The most original elements of the culture of southern India have their
parallel in Africa. Religious practices of the Dravidian and the African are alike. In India, the crow
is considered a spirit of the ancestors. Crows also feature in European legends or mythology as
portents (foretoken, Augury) or harbingers (Fore Runners) of death, because of their dark plumage,
unnerving calls, and tendency to eat carrion. They are commonly thought to circle above scenes of
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death such as battles. (Ref: Crow Systematics - Crows and humans - Evolution Behavior;
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow) (17)
Telugu word Kaaki(crow)and proto Afro-Asiatic and Semitic words resemble in phonological and
morphological structures.
Proto-Afro-Asiatic: *ar-Meaning: crow (also 'partridge; crane'?)
Semitic: *ri- partridge riy- kind of bird ariy crane arr- chicken *aayr-
*Vr- 'crow'
Berber: *-rVw-t 'raven'
Low East Cushitic:ur- 'crow' 1, 'kite' 2
High East Cushitic:ur(an-t)- 'crow':
Omotic: *ur- 'crow'

Similar Place Names:
El Kurru is the one of the place name of Napatas Kingdom (900-650 B.C.), Which closely
resembles the name of an existent Village in Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh, Yela Kurru was the
birth place of Sri kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao, founder of Andhra Patrika. Yelakurru is few
kilometers away from Srikakulam, the first capital of Ka (Telugu) people. Ellakaru is another place
name in Nellore District, A.P. where the evidence of Paleolithic and Neolithic occupancies and use
of black&redwsare were found. An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archeology(A. Ghosh-paage 81) gave
the details of theis Ellakaru site.

Many cemeteries in Sudan are characterized by the presence of some large conical-shaped
tombs. They are called as 'Qubba'. In Telugu, the words Kuppa and Gubba are very nearer
structures phonologically and morphologically to Qubba, denoting the conical or elliptical shape of
the Burials. The earliest surviving example of this type of structure is the Qubbat al-Sulaybiyya at
Samarra which is octagonal.



Qubba is a cubic volume covered with a dome or vault. This roof can be
simplified into a truncated octagonal pyramid carpentry, whose corners support
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four tubes or pendentives; or a hemiespheric shape carved in stone, brick or
wood; or can be covered with a polygonal or star dome.

In, DEDR-1731:
Te. Kuppa -heap, pile, collection, assemblage, (MBE 1978, p. 127) heap of dirt, dung heap;
guppu to place in heaps or lots;
abundance; in heaps, abundantly;
kopparamu, kopramu increase, rise, swell;
kopparincu to increase, rise, swell; kopparinta

DEDR-1174:
Te. Gubaka: knob, boss, stud; gubba id., protuberance, woman's breast; guburu
protuberance; kuppe knob.
Kona (BB) koparam hump of bullock.
DEDR-1655:
Te. koika hamlet; gui temple; guise hut, cottage, hovel. gu (Ph.) temple, (Tr.) tomb
(Voc. 1113). Kui gui central room of house, living room.

In the year 1969 Dr. V.V. Krishna Sastry, was deputed by AP state Archeology, to conduct
excavations at Peddabankur in Karimnagar District The excavations revealed two major phases of
human activity. The first phase was coeval with the Iron Age or the so-called Megalithic Period
marked by a number of elliptical or oval shaped houses and the other one coincide with Satavahana
period.

The above findings are suggestive of the affinity of ancient Egyptians with proto Dravidians
or Proto Telugu People.

Conclusion:
The new researchers of Dravidian Etymology at National or International level are severely
handicapped by the absence of reliable Telugu Lexicon. They even complain that they are unable to
have proper material in Telugu for research purpose because of this lacking of a Lexicon. The
available DEDR do not have so many Telugu words and meanings in it. The researchers are
compelled to move to Tamil, as the availability of Data is plenty in it. The researchers often take
Tamil as a fore most example and that in turn pushes back the justified Legacy of Telugu, as the
fore runner of the Dravidian family. It is therefore the immediate Historic need of all those working
in Telugu Linguistics to compile a comprehensive Telugu Lexicon. That alone would remedy the
misgivings and precisely prove that Telugu is the Most ancient Language in the Dravidian Family.

References & Notes:
1. Dravidian languages Wikipedia Article, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages)
2. The origin of Sumerian- Edo Nyland- Athenaeum Library of Philosophy
evans- experientialism.free webspace.com/ling_sumerian.htm.
Edo Nyland is doing research in the fields of Linguistic Archaeology, is digging artefacts
of Language. In his book Linguistic Archaeology: An Introduction, he lets us take part in his
adventures of recovering stone-age and medieval history by analysis of language. The efforts of
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Edo Nyland in translating ancient inscriptions have resulted in the development of Afro Asiatic
Family of Language.

3. The Dravidian Languages: Prof. Bhadriraju Krishnamurti; Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge (South Asian edition, 2003. Prof. Bhadrirju Kamrti is an eminent Dravidianist and
the most respected Indian Linguist of his generation. He was a former Vice Chancellor of the
Hyderabad Central University and was a professor of Linguistics at the Dravidian Department of
Linguistics at the Osmania University which he founded. His magnum opus Languages is
considered a landmark volume in the study of Dravidian linguistics. He was a student and a close
associate of Murray Barnson Emeneau

4 "Dravidian Languages." Encyclopedia Britannica - Online. 5 June 2008)

5. Dravidian India - T. R. Sesha IyengarAsian Educational Services 2001- page 60

6. F.C. Southworth, "Proto-Dravidian Agriculture" 2006
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~fsouth/Proto-DravidianAgriculture.pdf
F.C. Southworth - Professor Emeritus of South Asian Linguistics, University of
Pennsylvania. Proto-Dravidian Agriculture, is the paper from the 7th ESCA Round Table
Conference held at Kyoto in June 2005. He is mostly attached to SARVA (South Asian Residual
Vocabulary Assemblage) Project, a research tool in the form of an online, ongoing etymological
dictionary, whose ultimate goal is to assemble all words showing early language contact among the
(known and unknown) languages of the subcontinent, in order to provide data for the reconstruction
of the history of language contact in the region, from the time of the earliest knowable South Asian
linguistic strata, including inferences regarding the locations of these strata in time and space.
7. Bernard Sergent (born in 1946) is a French ancient historian and comparative
mythologist. He is researcher of the CNRS and president of the Socit de mythologie franaise.
- African origin of the Dravidians Excerpts on the origins of the Dravidians, from Bernard
Sergent's Gnse de l'Inde translated by Sunthar Visuvalingam. www.svabhinava.org/.../Sergent-
AfroDravidian-frame.php

8. The Afro-Asiatic Language Family by Meredith Holt, linguistics.byu.edu/classes

9. Prof. Cheikh Anta Diop; Civilization or Barbarism. Brooklyn, N.Y)
Cheikh Anta Diop born in 29 December 1923 in Thieytou, was a historian, anthropologist,
physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture. He
is regarded as an important figure in the development of the Afrocentric viewpoint, in particular for
his controversial theory that the Ancient Egyptians were Black Africans. Cheikh Anta Diop
University, in Dakar, Senegal is named after him.
10. American Journal Of Physical Anthropology 109:147158 (1999) Multiple Origins
of the mtDNA 9-bp Deletion in Populations of South India-W.S. WATKINS and others
11. Ancient History of Andhras-By Sri Yetukoori Balaraama Moorti - Andhrula
Samkshipta Charitra-English translation: PALANA (nparinand@cas.org)(13)

12. Telugu Brahmins- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telugu_Brahmins, Wikipedia
encyclopedia
11

13. Egyptian Pharaohs: Predynastic Egyptian Journeys 2003
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn00/03ka.html -

14. Ref: Krishna zilla Grama namamulu- Oka Pariseelana: Bharati, Feb. 1984, pp 72)

15. Urduja - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia-Ibn Battuta - Research - Urduja in Popular
culture - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urduja

16. Nile Genesis: the opus of Gerald Massey'". Gerald-massey.org.uk gerald-
massey.org.uk/massey/cmc_nile_genesis.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-18.

17. Crow Systematics - Crows and humans - Evolution Behavior; Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow