An apparent sprinkling of Altaic words in a Dravidian language (Kannada). Possible historical significance for South Asia

Abstract

Modern Kannada, a Dravidian language of great antiquity, possesses several words which bear a striking similarity, in sound and meaning, to words in modern Turkish. Another apparent common feature is ‘agglutination’, with several suffixes being nearly identical in the two languages. These may indicate that early Altaic (the basis of Turkish) was spoken in the Indian sub-continent prior to the arrival of the Indo-Iranian peoples. It appears that the languages of the sub-continent may have evolved from early forms of Altaic, Indo-Iranian and Dravidian. If borne out by further study, these preliminary findings would be of immense significance to the cultural and linguistic history of the south Asian region.