Total population | |
---|---|
approx. 250 million | |
Languages | |
Dravidian languages | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Hinduism, Dravidian folk religion and others: Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism |
Part of a series on |
Dravidian culture and history |
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Portal:Dravidian civilizations |
The Dravidian peoples are an ethnolinguistic supraethnicity composed of many distinct ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia (predominantly India). They speak the Dravidian languages, which have a combined total of about 250 million native speakers.[1] Dravidians form the majority of the population of South India and Northern Sri Lanka.[2]
They are also natively found in other parts of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan,[3] Bangladesh,[4] the Maldives, Nepal,[5] and Bhutan.[6] And are citizens in Singapore, Mauritius, Malaysia, France, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through recent migration.
Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium BCE",[7] after which it branched into various Dravidian languages.[8] South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.[9]
The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate".[10] Some evidence suggests the language family developed on the Indian subcontinent,[11][12][13] but the language family may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from Western Asia, specifically from the Iranian plateau.[14][15][16][17][18] Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the Indus Valley Civilisation,[10][18][19] hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE,[20][21] some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers,[22] with whom they intensively interacted.[23] Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily "Iranian" hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers are primarily composed of ASI ancestry formed by the admixture of indigenous South Asian hunter gatherer groups and the Indus Valley Civilisation people, but also carry a small portion of Western Steppe Herders due to minor admixture with Ancestral North Indian groups formed by admixture between the Steppe herders and the IVC people.[24][25][26]
The third century BCE onwards saw the development of many great empires in South India like Pandya, Chola, Chera, Pallava, Satavahana, Chalukya, Kakatiya and Rashtrakuta. Medieval South Indian guilds and trading organisations like the Ayyavole of Karnataka and Manigramam played an important role in the Southeast Asia trade,[27] and the cultural Indianisation of the region.
Dravidian visual art is dominated by stylised temple architecture in major centres, and the production of images on stone and bronze sculptures. The sculpture dating from the Chola period has become notable as a symbol of Hinduism. The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple located in Indian state of Tamil Nadu is often considered as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world. The temple is built in Dravidian style and occupies an area of 156 acres (631,000 m2).[28]
Dhangar Oraon people of Nepal speak Kurukh, also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw, as their native language. Which is a Dravidian language
Oraon people of Bhutan speak Kurukh as their native language. Which is a Dravidian language
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