DRAVIDIAN LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION

DRAVIDIAN LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION AND INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF DRAVIDIAN LINGUISTICS

Nearly one-fourth of the People of India speak one or another Dravidian language. It is the major language family in the southern States, viz. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and in the Union Territories of Pondicherry and Lakshadweep Islands. Brahui, perhaps the oldest member of the Dravidian Family, is spoken by six hundred thousand people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran; 10,000 speak Jankar in Nepal; there are old and new migrants in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia and Africa. In fact, about 30 million Dravidian speakers are migrants and settled all over the world.

A "Call Notice" regarding the formation of an Association for the study of Dravidian languages, and all aspects of Dravidian culture and people, was issued jointly by Prof.. V.I. Subramoniam (Kerala University), R.C Hiremath (Karnataka University), and Mahadeva Sastry (SV University) on 15th March 1971. A two-day Conference was held at Thiruvananthapuram, presided over by S.K. Chatterji, the then doyen of Indian linguistics. The DLA was born, with Chatterji as its first President.

One of DLA's objectives was the academic function of research into the grammar, and other features of Dravidian Linguistics, and the culture and history of Dravidian speaking peoples. Fellows were appointed and placed in University centers.T.P. Meenakshi Sundaram was the Senior Scholar in Tamil, and K.N. Etuthaccan, in Malayalam. A grant of Rs. 40,000/-was received from the Govt. of Tamil Nadu, per year, thanks to the good offices of Prof. K.Ambazhagan, the then Minister of Health . A similar grant was sanctioned by Mr. Achyuta Menon, the then Chief Minister of Kerala.

In order to make the academic functions and assignments attractive to scholars, it was decided that these should be transferred to a learned body; the International School of Dravidian Linguistics (ISDL) was accordingly formed on 25th Feb, 1977. The first Internal Director was Prof R.C. Hiremath of Dharwad, and the External Director, F.C .Southworth of the USA. A Council Of Direction with Dr. George Jacob, the then Vice-Chancellor of the Kerala University, to preside over it, was formed. The General Body had wide representation among scholars of all India repute

Even before the registration of the DLA, the learned journal, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics (IJDL), was issued from 1972; the first issue carried articles from the world renowned scholars like Emeneau, and others. Since then, without break, two issues have appeared every year. We are now in the 32nd Volume. (For viewing the current ie. June 2003 issue of DLA news, click " DLA NEWS ", below.)

At present, the Govt. of Kerala gives a "Non-Plan" grant of Rs. 3 lakhs and a "Plan" grant of Rs. 8 lakhs per year. The Govt. of W. Bengal pay about Rs. 6 lakhs annually for Bengali Studies. A modest project for Rs. 10.5 lakhs for "Voicing of the Braille Script into Malayalam" was financed by the Department of Science & Technology Govt. of India and successfully completed. The Department of Culture of the Govt. of India gave a grant of Rs. 5 lakhs for partially building a Tribal Museum, against the estimate of Rs. 16.5 lakhs.



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