Language

This impressive volume by Krishnamurti, one of the leading scholars in Dravidian historical linguistics, consists of a preface, acknowledgments, a note on transliteration and symbols, a list of abbreviations, 21 articles on comparative Dravidian linguistics written by K at the different stages of his long and fruitful career, a bibliography, and a detailed index.

Overall the book is a pleasure to read, and it will certainly be useful for generations of scholars doing comparative Dravidian linguistics or historical linguists who are involved in the study of other language families but who are interested in general issues of historical linguistics and applications of the comparative method. I, nevertheless, feel obliged to start with two general negative comments. First, the choice of title is misleading. One would expect (as I did, and undoubtedly many others who obtained the book will too) this to be a monograph comprising relevant chapters on reconstruction of phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax of proto-Dravidian. Instead, we have a collection of articles by K with only very loose connections or none at all among them. If there is a second edition, the book certainly should be renamed something like Studies in comparative Dravidian linguistics. Second, the subtitle, ‘Current perspectives’, does not reflect the contents of the book. Twenty of the 21 articles are reprints from journals or edited books. Three articles go back to the 1950s, three are from the 1960s, and five are from the 1970s. I wonder whether they all really reflect ‘current’ perspectives in the field. For example, Ch. 5, originally published in 1969, had to be supplemented with Ch. 14, published in 1985, since Dravidian comparative linguistics definitely made progress over these years.

To turn now from criticism to praise, K is to be commended for his remarkable resolve to stay within the limits of comparative Dravidian itself. He discusses only the issues relevant to the reconstruction of proto-Dravidian and does not go on a wild goose chase to discover the ‘distant relatives’ of proto-Dravidian or to ‘decipher’ proto-Indic script through the prism of Dravidian. Both such trends have become very fashionable, but they are worthy of the attention of journalists, not of serious linguists.

It is impossible to comment on all the chapters of this work in a short review, so I confine myself to just a few of them. In light of what is said above, I concentrate on the last chapters in the book that are K’s most current contributions.

The last chapter in the book, ‘Landmarks in comparative Dravidian studies in the twentieth century’, is the only one that has not been reprinted from somewhere else; therefore, it deserves special attention. It is a survey article, complementing two other earlier survey articles (Chs. 5 and 14, mentioned above). It is a wonderful outline of the history of Dravidian comparative studies in the last century, containing important information on the work accomplished by the major linguists in the field of comparative Dravidian. Anyone who wants to be engaged in research in this field should take advantage of this wonderful bibliographical guide. The chapter ends with a conclusion which is more like a guide for the next generation of scholars, directing them to yet unknown or insufficiently researched areas of Dravidian linguistics that are essential [End Page 638] for a comparative work. A very useful appendix in this chapter provides information on the numbers of speakers of different Dravidian languages as well as their localities, along with a revised family tree.

Ch. 18, ‘Patterns of sound change in Dravidian’, looks like a very controversial paper; here, K claims that areal changes in phonology (‘typological changes’ in K’s terminology) are more regular than diachronic changes (‘historical changes’ in K’s terminology). I am not fully convinced by his conclusions. First, the justification provided for the greater regularity of areal changes is too sketchy (no actual examples from Indo-Aryan languages are provided, and no rules are supplied). Second, Indo-Aryan influence is specifically mentioned in only two cases out of seven that are cited by K. Third, it remains unclear how some of the features K mentions could be attributed to areal influence (e.g. the loss of initial proto-Dravidian *y-). Fourth, some of the ‘irregular’ sound changes described in a much more detailed section on diachronic changes seem to be taken at face value (I suspect that at least some of the irregularities have a potential to be explained as interdialectal or interlanguage borrowing). In spite of its controversial character, I would still recommend this chapter both to Dravidianists and to general historical linguists. It certainly provides much food for thought and examines some of the problems of potential interest for general historical linguists.

Ch. 19, ‘Evidence for a laryngeal *H in proto-Dravidian’, may also seem very controversial as well, but I believe that K’s conclusion that proto-Dravidian had a laryngeal *H is right. One may think that his reasoning is influenced by the laryngeal theory that became very fashionable after the discovery of laryngeals in Indo-European. Indeed, many linguists have embarked on the search for laryngeals throughout the world’s languages since then. This is not the case here, however. K has presented a theory well-grounded both philologically and linguistically. In short, he reaches his conclusion on the basis of two independent pieces of evidence: philological evidence from Old Tamil, which had a special graphic sign for /H/, and comparative linguistic evidence from different Dravidian languages that demonstrates special reflexes of the proto-Dravidian *H. This is another chapter highly recommended for both Dravidianists and general historical linguists, and above all for researchers of laryngeals across the globe (one can only wish that they would be as successful as K).

Ch. 20, ‘Regularity of sound change through lexical diffusion: A study of s > h > Ø in Gondi dialects’, tries to explain this sound change as a gradual sound change within a framework of lexical diffusion rather than an abrupt sound change in the neogrammarian framework. K’s presentation is very detailed and meticulous, and I am inclined to agree with his findings as well as with his careful general conclusion that William Labov’s hypothesis about the complementary nature of both neogrammarian sound change and lexical diffusion requires further investigation. However, it seems to me that the particular type of change described by K, as well as Labov’s hypothesis, is due more to the exceptions than to the rules in historical phonology. Proving that the lexical diffusion model really works in Dravidian comparative linguistics would require a demonstration that it works across the board in Dravidian languages, not just in the case of a particular sound correspondence limited to just one Dravidian dialectal continuum. In spite of this reservation, K’s article is very interesting and thought-provoking. Again, it can be recommended to a wide audience of historical linguists.

That recommendation applies to the whole book, in spite of the fact that some parts of the book are to a certain degree outdated and can be no longer called ‘current’. K’s collection of articles is certainly worth reading. Although it deals directly only with issues of comparative Dravidian, it may as well be very useful for historical linguists engaged in the study of other language families. [End Page 639]