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Navigating the Dravidian Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5741 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 1 of 19 08 December 2011 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'd like to take a closer look at the Dravidian languages, and possibly even devote myself to learning one. The most important ones are Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu. As far as number of native speakers go, Tamil and Telugu lead the pack. Tamil seems to have a significant literature, but suffers from a crass case of diglossia. What other information would be useful to someone deciding whether to learn a Dravidian language? What might attract someone to learning one of these languages? What are the pitfalls?
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| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4553 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 2 of 19 08 December 2011 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm not an expert, but from what I've heard Tamil is much more purist in its vocabulary than the other three and has much fewer loanwords from Sanskrit, Persian and other Indo-European languages. So, on the one hand if you are already familiar with a northern Indian language learning Tamil vocabulary won't be as easy as the other three, but on the other hand knowing both Tamil and Sanskrit or Hindi would make the other Dravidian languages much more accessible in the long run.
Economic factors probably won't do much to attract learners. While South India is relatively successful economically and socially, especially in comparison to much of the Hindi belt, the Indian business world tends to value English much more highly than any of the native languages. Although it seems like the Tamils have quite a lot of linguistic pride, so they might be an exception. If we talk about pop culture, the South Indian states have prolific film industries, with many iconic Bollywood stars, from Aishwariya Rai to Kajol, having debuted there. However, if you find Bollywood films too cheesy and unrealistic, then Kollywood (Tamil) and Tollywood (Telugu) films will show you that you ain't seen nothing yet! I've heard that Mollywood (Malayalam) films tend to be more serious though. Edited by vonPeterhof on 08 December 2011 at 9:19pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4530 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 3 of 19 11 December 2011 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Malayalam is the only Dravidian language without diglossia (so written and spoken language are not distant). As a result, Malayalis love to read. Kerala is the Indian state with the highest literacy figures (95%).
Tamils generally don't like to read in Tamil because it's all written in very formal language. That's why translations of books like Harry Potter failed...Youngsters opted for the English original instead. On the other hand, most foreign literature is translated to Malayalam (Paulo Coelho, Harry Potter) because they are book-crazy. Tamilians are so proud of their language that they let so many students get away with not learning Tamil at all! Since Tamil is not compulsory subject in Tamil Nadu, and pupils can choose English education instead, many urban Tamils cannot read the written Tamil in a satisfactory way: that's why not many books published in Tamil per 1000 inhabitants. Tamils can be outrageously purist. The Sri Lankan Tamil hasn't been artificially changed in the last 100 years, so it's full of Sanskrit words tho'. Indian Tamil say Sri Lanka Tamil sounds like Malayalam and not like Indian Tamil. For example, the word for THE MOON. In Sri Lankan Tamil i'ts Sandiran. If you use this word in Tamil Nadu, people will correct you saying ''Sandiran is from Sanskrit, you should use Niila''. But, Nilla is a Sanskrit word meaning blue (color) [in Malayalam and in Tamil]. So, they calling the Moon ''the blue'', but it's still Sanskrit. Stupid and useless purism. In Sri Lanka people are not ashamed to use Sandiran. Learning Tamil is like learning Arabic. The written language hasn't changed from the 13th century while colloquial language changed a lot. Sri Lankan Tamil is closer to the written language, but the Indian Tamils say it sounds like Malayalam! That means they don't even know they own formal written language. :) Edited by Camundonguinho on 11 December 2011 at 3:01pm 10 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nunoxic Triglot Newbie India Joined 4516 days ago 17 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English, Hindi, Marathi* | Message 4 of 19 11 December 2011 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Are you taking up the language for a reason or just for fun?
If yes, then realize the following: Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) - Telugu Bangalore (Karnataka) - Kannada Madras/Chennai (Tamil Nadu) - Tamil Kerala - Malayalam (+ Sri Lanka/Singapore?) Depends on where you wish to visit. It is entirely possible to live in Bangalore with English. Trying to do that in Chennai might give you "WTF" expressions. (My observation) Now, I am about to make a generalization which is true most of the times: there are 2 groups of languages among which it is *possible* to understand the other. Tamil - Malayalam Telugu - Kannada (- Tulu?) A Tamil speaking person *might* understand Malayalam and vice versa. However, people from different groups will NOT understand each other. Is travel your chief goal or literature? About literature, I can't be too sure. Edited by nunoxic on 11 December 2011 at 4:08pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4553 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 5 of 19 11 December 2011 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're confusing it with Tamil. Malayalam isn't official anywhere outside India.
Malayalam separated from Tamil around the 9th century, before that they were dialects of the same language, usually called Middle Tamil. I don't think Telugu, Kannada and Tulu are that close to each other Edited by vonPeterhof on 11 December 2011 at 4:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5741 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 19 12 December 2011 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't have any particular goal in mind. Just trying to figure out the overall economic, political, and cultural significance of these languages. And also gather any other information that might entice or put off a language learner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7004 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 7 of 19 12 December 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Camundonguinho: Where do you get your information regarding the state of Tamil literacy and publishing? Because it completely contradicts the sources I've seen (http://prayatna.typepad.com/publishing/india/page/2/ uses data from 2004, but according to it Malayalam and the other living Indian languages lag well behind Tamil in books published per capita, not including whatever Tamil books might be published in Sri Lanka), unless things have changed drastically in the last couple years.
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| nunoxic Triglot Newbie India Joined 4516 days ago 17 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English, Hindi, Marathi* | Message 8 of 19 13 December 2011 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oops. My bad. I meant Tamil. Telugu Kannada and Tulu aren't that close but the script is fairly similar and the effort required to learn either if you know one is substantially lower. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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