Dravidian

In the strictest linguistic sense, the word
Dravidian is the name for a particular
family of languages in which the primary
members are the four southern Indian
languages: Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, and
Malayalam. Aside from these four languages, all located in the southernmost
part of the subcontinent, another language in the Dravidian family is Brahui.
This is spoken by a small and fairly isolated population in modern Pakistan, far
from any other Dravidian language
speakers, and completely surrounded
by people speaking Indo-Aryan languages. One theory to explain this irregularity is that the Dravidian languages
were originally spoken all over the subcontinent, but were gradually displaced
toward the south as Indo-Aryan language speakers—better known as the
Aryans—came into India. According to
this theory, the Brahui-speaking community is an isolated remnant of that
earlier time, which somehow managed
to remain intact.
This notion also affects how southern Indians form their identities. The
word Dravidian can be used to denote a
southern Indian or any person whose
mother tongue is one of the four primary
Dravidian languages. For southern
Indians with a strong regional identity, it
is a way for them to distinguish themselves from northern Indians and the
“imperialism” of northern Indian culture. It is also used with an underlying
tone of pride, that as Dravidians they are
descendants of the subcontinent’s original inhabitants.