Tamil Language & Culture

Heritage of the Tamil Language

The Indus valley civilization dates back to 3,000 BC. Researchers likeFather Heras, Asko Parpola of Finland, Iravatham Mahadevan andMadhivaanan have determined that the inscriptions found in the Indusvalley definitely belong to the Tamil people. Referring to this,Sanskrit professor Bandarkar states: "It is indeed strange how the Aryans failed to supplant the Dravidianspeech in the Southern part of India, though it most successfully did inNorth India, where I have no doubt the Dravidian language prevailedbefore the advent of Aryans. This will be seen from the fact thatBrahui, the language of the mountaineers in the khanship of kelat inBaluchistam (in present day Pakistan), contains not only some Dravidianwords, but a considerable infusion of distinctively Dravidian forms andideas? It is also a well-known fact accepted by all scholars that thereare many Sanskrit words which are all Dravidian and this will confirmthe conclusion that the Dravidian tongue was prevalent in North Indianbefore the Aryans came and occupied it. The same conclusion is forcedupon us by an examination of all vernaculars of North India." Lecturesin the Ancient History of India on the period from 650 to 320BC,delivered in 1918 by M.D. Bandarkar, M.A. Professor Ancient IndianHistory, Calcutta University.

As noted above, people in India were speaking only Tamil before theinvasion of Aryans. Afterwards, Tamil was gradually shrunk, and it ispresently confined mainly to Tamil Nadu in the Indian subcontinent.When the Aryans came to India, their language did not have any script.Therefore, Tamils called the Aryan's language "scriptless language". Itwas during the Gupta period (5th century AD) that a script wasformulated for Sanskrit, and later on the development of literature tookplace in that language. There is an abundance of evidence that theSangam literature of Tamil was written during the period 5th century BCthrough the 2nd century AD.

The Aryan Invasion Theory is heavily being questioned now. Takeany search engine and search for Aryan Invasion Theory for furtherreference.

Sanskrit was not spoken by the masses in the North. People spoke onlyPrakrit, which was a mixture of Tamil and Sanskrit. That was why LordBuddha required that his teachings must be conveyed to the people inPrakrit (which was spoken and understood by the masses) and not inSanskrit. Any one who translated Buddha's teachings in Sanskrit wasremoved from Buddha Sangh.

There are theories saying Tamil is a derivative of Sanskrit. (Even thoughI don't buy those theories, I just make a mentioning.) I saw an UGCProgram on 'linguistics in India' in which tamil had 3rd place in the ladder,Saying some language was derived from sanscrit from which tamil evolved.Similarly the above could also be a "theory".