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Anna Smirnitskaya
Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow / Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; nyushas@gmail.com
Nominations for siblings:
Proto-Dravidian reconstruction and borrowability
The paper represents a historical analysis of the lexical terms for siblings in Dravidian languages, with special emphasis on the factor of borrowability. It is concluded that borrowings within this lexical subsystem of Dravidian languages must have started primarily from terms for elder siblings (more precisely, from the meaning 'elder brother'). The preferred scenario eventually resulted in borrowing the entire subsystem, with its following coexistence along with the original subsystem. However, words denoting younger siblings retained more resistant to borrowing; these were the ones that could, in particular, preserve within themselves some of the most archaic linguistic features, such as prefixes of inalienable possession. The evolution of the system of those prefixes is also explored: it is proposed to consider reconstructions *y- 1SG / *n- 2SG / *t- 3SG relevant for the Proto-Dravidian level, while in the North Dravidian subgroup of Kurukh-Malto these were replaced with the more productive oblique forms of personal pronouns (eng- 1SG / ning- 2SG / tang- 3SG).
Keywords: kinship terms; sibling terms; inalienable possession; borrowability; Dravidian languages; etymology; lexical borrowings.
1.1. Introduction: Kinship terms in Dravidian languages1
In this paper, I make an attempt at a reconstruction of how the Dravidian system for sibling terms changed since the time of Proto-Dravidian language (approximately the end of the 3rd millennium BC, according to Starostin 2000), including both family-internal changes and replacements through borrowing. Such an attempt implies focusing not only on the individual protoforms and their development, but on the kinship system as a whole, with its inherent characteristics. Thus, the meanings of Proto-Dravidian nominations for siblings have to be considered along with other data on Dravidian siblings and kinship terms.
A well-known attempt to visualize the Proto-Dravidian kinship system, not from a linguistic, but from an anthropological point of view was made by T. Trautmann in his "Dravidian Kinship" (Trautmann 1995). According to his conclusions, the basic structure of the cross-cousin kinship system, similar to the modern one, already existed at the Proto-Dravidian time, i.e. eB, yB, eZ and yZ2 (see Figure 1 below). He argued that the question is no longer about the existence of the ancestral Dravidian kinship system with cross-cousin marriage rule, but rather about "what precise form that ancestral rule took" (ibid.: 236).
We find in his paper a description of Dravidian-speaking communities with a system of kinship terms of the so-called "Dravidian" bifurcative-merging type. These are (as it appears
1 The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant 22-28-00072 «Strategies for nomination in the field of basic zoo- and anthroponymic vocabulary in the languages of Eurasia». The author wishes to express her deep and sincere gratitude to George Starostin for his comments on the preliminary version of the article.
2 Kinship terms for siblings are referred to in the article as eB 'elder brother', yB 'younger brother', eZ 'elder sister' and yZ 'younger sister' respectively.
Journal of Language Relationship • Вопросы языкового родства • 21/3-4 (2023) • Pp. 201-223 • © Anna Smirnitskaya, 2023
9
X II X
G2 e MF FFeB FF MM MMeZ FM
y FFyB MMyZ
G1 e MB FeB F M MeZ FZ
y FyB MyZ
G0 e e(MBS) eB eZ e(MBD)
y y(MBS) yB yz y(MBD)
G-1 e tfZS tfeBS S D tfeBD tfZD
y CfyBS CfyBD
G-2 tfDS, $SS ; tfSS, $DS tfSD, $DD | tfDD, $SD
Figure 1. Proto-Dravidian kinship reconstruction in anthropological terms, according to Trautmann 1995: 232.
from his description) communities speaking Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Toda, Ko-dagu, Koya, Telugu, Gondi, Malto and Brahui languages, see Trautmann 1995: 41, etc. He explains the typical features of kinship terms system of this type — cross-cousin marriage and grouping of male relatives in the +1 generation.
Indeed, the grouping of male relatives of collateral lines of kinship in the parents' generation is one of the essential parameters of the typology of kinship term systems in anthropology. This feature became the basis of the four-member typology of kinship terms systems, introduced back in the 19th century by L. G. Morgan (see Morgan 1997 /1871/), further developed by other researchers (cf. Olderogge 1960, Dziebel 2001) and still in use today (cf., e.g., Popov 2015).
The author draws the border and the frontier zone of the typically "Dravidian" kinship term system structure along the line of the Central India contact area of Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages (Trautmann 1995: 111). According to him, further to the north such a system is not preserved; this area is occupied by a typical Indo-Aryan family structure with no place for cross-cousin marriage. An example is the sibling term system of Hindi, for which distinctions between cross- and parallel cousins and cross-cousin marriage are not relevant, and neither is relative age distinction, see bhai 'brother' B; bahen 'sister' Z (the meaning includes cousins from both sides; Trautmann 1995: 93). In relation to the Dravidian situation this means that we should not be expecting any traces of such a system in Northern Dravidian languages (i.e. to the north of the aforementioned line).
An earlier attempt to reconstruct the kinship system for the Proto-Dravidian period has been conducted by Bh. Krishnamurti in his fundamental work "Dravidian languages" (Krish-namurti 2003). He also believes it to have been a bifurcative-merging system with preservation of the cross-cousin marriage rule (ibid.: 10). In one of his papers, M. B. Emeneau (1953) examined the general system of Proto-Dravidian kinship, with evidence drawn from Old Tamil and modern Dravidian languages. He drew attention to the general markers of inalienable possession, as in Old Tamil entai 'my or our father', nuntai 'your father', tantai 'his, her or their father' (see discussion in section 4 below).
In the present paper I will focus specifically on one section of the Proto-Dravidian kinship system, namely, the subsystem for "siblings". The natural questions to be asked are: (a) what did it look like? (b) which of the systems in modern descendent languages have retained the original proto stems? (c) how did this system develop, what happened to it later in different lineages of Dravidian languages, and which elements were replaced by borrowings?
One should keep in mind that kinship terms (or, at least, certain subsets of kinship terms) are sometimes considered to belong to the "basic lexicon" of the language and thus not highly prone to being borrowed. Even so, contact-induced changes can also include changes in kinship terminology, as Metsaranta et al. (2023) have shown in their recent work; the degree of their resistance to borrowings provides us with "a lens with which to evaluate the nature and intensity of contact situations" (Metsaranta et al. 2023: 141).
Figure 2. Modern distribution of Dravidian languages (also including Munda).
Since any reconstruction of the evolution of kinship terms in the history of Dravidian languages must necessarily be dependent on a specific model of Dravidian classification, it is useful to at least briefly describe the situation here. According to a widespread (though not uncontested) classification scheme, Brahui was the first language to split from the Proto-Dravidian community (see Figure 2). This was followed by the separation of the northeastern Dravidian languages Kurukh and Malto, and later the bulk of Central Dravidian; all these groups of languages separated from the Proto-Dravidian community relatively early. The process of linguistic development may have coincided with the supposed gradual advancement of the Dravidians in the direction from the northwest to the south (Gurov 2013: 23). In his dissertation, Georgiy Starostin dates the separation of Southern and Central Dravidian to approximately 1200 BC, based on glottochronological calculations (Starostin 2000: 13). The splitting of the South Dravidian group occurs at a later date, some time during the 1st millennium B.C., around the same time as the split of Kurukh and Malto in the North.
The methodology of our research generally rests on the standard comparative method as described, e.g., in Burlak & Starostin 2005 and in Starostin 2013. We also take into consideration accumulated data on semantic shifts and semantic reconstruction (see Zalizniak 2018; Za-lizniak et al. 2023), as well as studies of borrowability, such as Matras 2009 and others.
The data were collected from dictionaries of the languages under investigation, primarily from the classic etymological dictionary by T. Barrow and M. B. Emeneau (hereafter DEDR 1984) that collects data on a significant number of small and endangered Dravidian languages, as well as dictionaries of concrete languages (listed below in the "Sources of linguistic data"
section). Reconstructions of Proto-Dravidian stems are given according to the dissertation of G. S. Starostin (Starostin 2000), supported by the online etymological database (Starostin 19982005), further referred to as StarLing 2023; in some cases the etymologies of B. Krishnamurti are given, cf. Krishnamurti 2003. Two more etymological dictionaries (Monier-Williams 1899; Turner 1966) were used in the analysis of Indo-Aryan loans.
1.2. Notation convention
In the tables below we indicate the Dravidian protoform for the lexeme if such a protoform can be extracted from existing etymological databases and dictionaries. If a protoform cannot be reconstructed due to the word in question most likely being of borrowed origin, we mark it as a borrowing (LOAN). If the source of borrowing is relatively transparent, we specify the notation further, e.g. LOAN-OIA for loans from Old Indo-Aryan, LOAN-Mar for borrowings from Marathi, and so on. When the source cannot be ascertained with clarity, but there are still strong arguments in favor of borrowing, we mark the item as LOAN-Un (short for Borrowing-Unknown). Hopefully, further research on Dravidian contacts with languages from other families will eventually help identify the concrete source of borrowings in such cases.
2. Kinship terms for siblings in Dravidian languages3
The kinship system of the Dravidian peoples was first described by the American scientist L. G. Morgan, one of the founders of evolutionism in the social sciences and cultural anthropology (Morgan 1997 (1871). He noticed the similarity between the kinship term systems of the Dravidians (his material was based on Tamil data) and the Iroquois (Seneca and Ojibwe) of North America, and identified them as a special type. The 1950s saw the publication of several studies by L. Dumont, which included specific descriptions of Dravidian family terms. This is what Dumont wrote about the Dravidian system: "Dravidian kinship terminology, and with it other terminologies of the same type, can be considered in its broad features as springing from the combination in precise configurations of four principles of opposition: distinction of generation (qualified as an ordered scale), distinction of sex, distinction of kin identical with alliance relationship, and distinction of age" (Dumont 1953: 39).
In the kinship term system of this type, parallel cousins (children of the father's brother or mother's sister) are considered brothers and sisters and are equated to siblings, while children of opposite-sex siblings (cross-cousins) are considered more distant relatives, among whom it is generally encouraged to search for a spouse (so-called cross-cousin marriage), cf. Trautmann 1995.
For example, there is a special term in Telugu connected with one of the kinship lines — the line through the mother's brother, i.e. connecting Ego with a group of cross-cousins from whom he can choose a marriage partner: menarikamu '(for a man) marrying the daughter of his maternal uncle'; '(for a woman) marriage with the son of her paternal aunt' (Brown 1903: 1035), also menarikam '(of a man) marriage with his maternal uncle's daughter; (of a woman) marriage with her paternal aunt's son' (Gwynn 1991: 437); menamama 'maternal uncle, mother's brother', menamaradalu 'father's sister's daughter' etc. These intra-family relationships and connections with "intended marriage partners" are very important for the family structure as a whole (Trawick 1992), and in particular for the sibling subsystem.
3 The author would like to express her gratitude to Veronika Milanova and Niklas Metsaranta for the discussion of borrowability issues.
According to Krishnamurti 2003, the Proto-Dravidian sibling system also reflected the idea of elder and younger siblings of Ego (although, as he points out, the basis for his reconstruction rests primarily on the South Dravidian kinship systems).
He underlines that "separate labels existed for the elder and younger in ego's generation", according to him, these terms were *akka- 'elder sister'; *tam-kay, *cela\ 'younger sister'; *anna-'elder brother', *tamp-V- 'younger brother' (Krishnamurti 2003: 10).
These protoforms are almost identical to the ones currently found in the online source Dravidian Etymological Database, published as part of the Tower of Babel resource (Starostin 1998-2005 = StarLing 2023). Starostin reconstructs the Proto-Dravidian sibling system as *ana-'elder brother'; *ak- 'an elder relative'; *ay- 'a k. of relative (brother/sister)'; *t-amp- 'younger brother'; *cel- 'companion, sister'. In general, forms in StarLing 2023 aim at reconstruction on a deeper historical level compared to those in Krishnamurti 2003. In addition, one other proto-form is reconstructed for the sibling subsystem: PDR *toz- 'friend'; 'younger brother','assistance, help' (StarLing 2023).
In both sources, the meaning 'younger brother' is given with the prepositive t-, which, in our opinion, can be doubted, as we will show below.
In addition to the sibling subsystem including lexemes expressing the meanings of 'brothers' and 'sisters' of Ego, we have to take into account the importance of the parameter of "relative age" in the majority of Dravidian languages, respectively dividing these into 'elder' and 'younger'. The full set of resulting meanings (List A) is as follows:
• elder brother
• younger brother
• elder sister
• younger sister.
For subsystems not distinguishing relative age, only the meanings brother and sister are relevant.
Keeping in mind the importance of cross-cousin marriage, we should consider as one of its consequences the distinction between cross- and parallel lineage of cousins, and the merging of consanguineous brothers and sisters with parallel cousins of the same sex and relative age. The extended set (List A+), therefore, must be as follows: elder brother or parallel male cousin, younger brother or parallel male cousin, elder sister or parallel female cousin, younger sister or parallel female cousin; elder male cross-cousin; younger male cross-cousin; elder female cross-cousin; younger female cross-cousin. However, since for many languages, especially small ones, there is no detailed information about cousins and the branch to which they belong, in the further presentation we adhere to List A.
Kinship terms are sometimes considered to belong to the «basic vocabulary» and thus to remain largely immune to borrowing. However, they are not included in the Swadesh 100-item list of the most "stable" part of the lexicon (Swadesh 1971); only in the larger 200-item Swadesh list several kinship terms are included, such as 'father', 'mother', 'child', 'husband', 'wife'. They are also not included in the Leipzig-Jakarta list of most borrowing-resistant meanings (Tadmor, Haspelmath, Taylor 2010: 233).
Recently, several studies have appeared indicating that borrowings form a significant part of such systems. In particular, work by Milanova et al. (2020) includes a comparative analysis of borrowings in Indo-European kinship and social term systems; the study by Metsaranta et al. (2023) explores the borrowability of kinship terms in Uralic languages. When bilingual speakers make a choice within the complex repertoire of kinship system elements from two contact languages (as described in Matras 2009), they may choose the kinship term from the
other language (as they may do with other lexical items), which opens a possibility for borrowing within the kinship system. It was argued that while affinal kin categories such as those denoting spouses, spouse's siblings, and sibling's spouses have the largest number of loanwords, "among the kin categories with the largest number of loanwords were also consan-guineal categories such as those of 'mother' and 'father'" (Metsaranta et al. 2023: 141).
Since it is clear that the influence of Indo-Aryan languages on Dravidian in this region goes at least as far back as the 2nd millennium BC and has been continuous ever since then, in different forms and on different levels, it is not surprising that many sibling terms in these languages turn out to be of borrowed origin. Such lexical changes most frequently occur in contact languages, so there are borrowings from Marathi in Kolami, from Prakrits in Telugu, etc.
3. Linguistic data on siblings: from South to North Dravidian languages
In this section, we shall consider the relevant available data of the languages of different Dra-vidian family subgroups and their current state. On the basis of this lexical data we will try to figure out what we can say about the current state of the sibling subsystem, and make assumptions about how the development of the subsystem looked like since the collapse of the Proto-Dravidian community.
The classification model of Dravidian languages adopted for the subsequent presentation shall follow Starostin 2000; although, where necessary, we also take into account the lexical reconstructions from Krishnamurti 2003. We do not adopt his classification (which, among other things, groups Telugu together with the Gondwana languages), rather preferring to rely on the scheme based on the lexicostatistical calculations of M. S. Andronov and G. Starostin.
3.1. Tamil and other South Dravidian languages
Tracing the language data from South to North, we consider first the data of Dravidian languages from the subgroup "South Dravidian I" according to Krishnamurti 2003 (referred to as simply the South Dravidian subgroup in Andronov 1978: 8). Here, we take into consideration the data from Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Irula and Badaga.
Elder sister. The equivalents for this meaning in South Dravidian are quite similar: Tam. akka, Mal. akka, Kan. akka, Bad. akka 'sister (classificatory)', Irula akka, Tul. akka, akke. Thus, the supposed Proto-South-Dravidian equivalent is *akka (cf. also StarLing 2023).
Younger sister. Tamil tankai, Mal. tanka, tankacci, Kan. tangi, Bad. tange, Irula tange, tam-makke, Tulu tangi, with the Proto-South-Dravidian equivalent reconstructible as *tang-. This variant is the closest to the general Proto-Dravidian state, compared to the forms of other languages.
The meaning elder brother in South Dravidian is expressed by Tam. annan, Mal. annan, Kan. anna, Bad. anna 'elder brother', 'mother's sister's son', Tulu anne 'elder brother', 'maternal uncle' (a rare case; in languages of Eurasia we often find the polysemy 'elder brother' = 'paternal uncle', but not 'maternal uncle'. It seems that these meanings are connected as different manifestations of an 'elder person'), 'term of address to an elderly man', Irula ane, cf. DEDR 1984: 14. The protoform is reconstructed as *anna 'elder brother' both in Krishnamurti 2003: 131 and in StarLing 2023.
Younger brother. Tam. tampi, Mal. tampi, tampan, Kan. tamma, Irula tambi, tamma, Tulu tammaiya, Badaga tamma. The reconstructed form is as follows: *tamp- 'younger brother' (StarLing 2023) and *tamp-V- 'younger brother' (Krishnamurti 2003: 10). More specific meanings
recorded for this term in South Dravidian languages include 'younger brother or male parallel cousin (younger than the speaker)', 'term of endearment', 'term of address for any boy or young man', 'title of some temple-priests' (DEDR: 3085).
The symmetrical subsystem for sibling nominations in Tamil (I propose to adopt the term "South Dravidian square" for this structure), compared with its Proto-Dravidian sources, is given in Table 1.
Modern Tamil Reconstruction
female4 male female male
elder akkal annan PDR *akk- PDR *ana-
younger tankai tampi PDR *aq- PDR *t-amp-
Table 1. Main sibling terms in Modern Tamil and their ancestry.
Some of these words clearly share certain phonetic properties and could be classified as so-called Lallworter or "children's words" — lexemes consisting of the most easily mastered (in reference to articulation) phonemes, which also happen to be the earliest items in a child's language acquisition. Such stems, usually with a plosive consonant (labial, less often dental) and a sonorant, with a short mid vowel and repeating syllables, are mentioned in Yakobson 1985: 107, cf. English mom, mummy, dad, daddy; Russian baba, deda etc. Such words often occupy a separate niche in kinship system; they are used as appellatives in everyday conversation and can often be synonymously paired with another kinship term with a reference meaning. This "Lallwort" vocabulary tends to retain its articulation over the course of history; phonetic laws in comparative linguistics frequently do not apply to its properties. It has also been observed that they may be avoided in poetic speech and not be attested in ancient written sources (cf. Smirnitskaia 2022: 185).
Although both the Modern Tamil sibling terms and their Proto-Dravidian sources can be seen to generally agree with the above-mentioned phonetic properties, the one important difference is that in this case, they do not behave as appellatives and there are no correlated synonyms for them from a different linguistic register; therefore, applying the term "Lallworter" to this group of terms would be technically incorrect, even if historically it is quite probable that they do go back to actual "Lallworter".
3.2. Telugu
Telugu, the largest existing Dravidian language, belongs to the South Dravidian II group (according to Krishnamurti 2003) or to the South-Eastern group (according to Andronov 1978). While Krishnamurti unites it with Gondwana languages, Andronov in his turn assigns Telugu to its own special group. Both of these decisions indicate that, one way or the other, this language stands out from the rest of the Dravidian idioms in that region. G. Starostin also believes that Telugu represents a special subgroup within the Dravidian family (Starostin 2000: 13).
Throughout its history, Telugu has been in heavy contact with Indo-Aryan languages, especially with Sanskrit. As some researchers point out, "the number of words borrowed from Sanskrit and Prakrit accounts for about half of the total vocabulary of the Telugu language" (Gurov et al. 2013: 360). Kinship terms are not an exception.
4 No evidence of distinction between kinship terms for male and female Ego is observed in our Dravidian data. Here the designation of gender refers to the gender of the sibling under discussion.
We can observe the preservation in Telugu of the Proto-Dravidian vocabulary in the expression of meanings indicating the relative age of a sibling: annayya < PDr *ana-5 'elder brother' along with tammudu < PDr *t-amp- 'younger brother'; akka 'elder sister' < PDr *ak-'elder relative' along with celli 'younger sister' < PDr *cel- 'companion', 'sister'. Meanwhile, Indo-Aryan borrowings appear in cases where the parameter of relative age is not expressed: sodari 'sister' < Skt. 'sister' with the derivative from the same root sodarudu 'brother', and bhrata 'brother' < Skt. 'brother', but their usage does not go beyond the bounds of high literary language.
Since Telugu, according to Andronov 1978 and Starostin 2000, forms a separate subgroup all by itself, we do not discuss the reconstructions of Proto-Telugu here (they more or less coincide with the forms of Classical Telugu), but simply list the modern forms together with their Proto-Dravidian ancestors in Table 2.
The Telugu form tammudu 'younger brother', extended by means of the productive masculine suffix -du, corresponds to the Tamil form tampi 'younger brother': Burrow and Emeneau place both in the same entry (DEDR: 3085), while G. Starostin points that "although the labial series is considered one of the most stable in the Dravidian languages, [p] is dropped here in *t-amp- in this case", see Starostin 2000: 99, 106.
MODERN RECONSTRUCTION
female male female male
elder akka annayya PDR *akk- PDR *ana-
younger celli tammudu PDR "eel- PDR *t-amp-
Table 2. Main sibling terms in modern Telugu with reconstructions.
Another interesting fact is that the form cellu 'younger sister' < PDr *cel- 'companion', 'sister' in Telugu seems completely disconnected from the system observed in South Dravidian languages such as Tamil, where we usually find represented reflexes of PDr *ay: Tamil tankai, Mal. tanka, tankacci, Kan. tangi, Bad. tange, Irula tange, tammakke, Tulu tangi etc. Though the term cellu is evidently of Proto-Dravidian origin (Krishnamurti 2003: 10), it is different in two ways. First, phonetically it does not fit in with the "South Dravidian square" (see the Lallworter discussion in section 3.1 above) like the other terms of this group; second, the attested meanings of words formed with this root in cognate languages reflect a semantic connection between kinship and society relationships (see the detailed list of such meanings in DEDR #2783). This suggests that this form may have been inherited from a different system of oppositions. A similar pattern is described in the work Zhivlov et al. 2023, where, based on cross-linguistic comparison, several models of nomination of the concept "husband" in the languages of Eurasia are identified: of these, the main opposition is based on the "social" idea of a husband as an "outstanding member of society", and the individual model of "husband" as "my man (the man)". In a similar way, Tel. cellu may be implementing the "social" idea of "sister as an assistant, person who helps, a companion", as opposed to the Proto-South-Dravidian *tang- (>Tamil tankai etc.), which does not have such a meaning and stays strictly within the semantic field of kinship terminology proper.
Other expressions denoting sister, mostly borrowed from Indo-Aryan, are: anu-jata 'younger sister' (from Sanskrit 'born together' < Sanskrit jati 'birth'); kamyasi 'younger sister';
5 Proto-Dravidian accent is provisionally set up by G. Starostin to explain the distinction between geminated and non-geminated consonants in *(C)VC(C)V-type structures (see Starostin 2000 for more details); more traditional reconstructions, e.g. Krishnamurti's, simply reconstruct geminated consonants, e.g. *anna- instead of *âna-.
kanistha 'younger sister', kanisthuralu 'youngest sister'; purvaja 'elder sister' (cf. Sanskrit pur-vamu 'first', 'former', 'ancient'); bhagini 'sister'; sahaja, svasa 'sister'. These terms are not basic and not so frequent, mostly restricted to the literary language.
For the meaning brother, dictionaries also indicate additional forms: kaniyudu 'younger brother'; kanisthudu 'youngest brother'; agrajanmudu 'elder brother' (from Sanskrit agramu 'end', 'front', 'top', 'first', 'chief', from the same stem comes agrani 'leader'); jaghanyujudu 'younger brother'; purvajudu 'elder brother'; bhrata (from Sanskrit) 'brother' (also related to the compound form bhratri-snehamu 'brotherly love'); venukati-vadu lit. 'the one who [appeared] after' is often used in the sense of 'younger brother' (cf. venuka 'before', 'behind'). As a result of the fight against Sanskritisms in Telugu, we also have the compound form toda buttuwu, lit. 'born together', produced by analogy with sahodarudu. It may have the meanings of either 'brother' or 'sister' depending on the context, but its use is limited to literary language.
3.3. Gondwana Dravidian languages
The "Gondwana" subgroup includes Dravidian languages spoken in Central India, in the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. They belong to the "Gondwana" subgroup under the classification by M. S. Andronov (Andronov 1978: 8), while Bh. Krishnamurti refers to them as the Central-South (or South Dravidian II) group (Krishnamurti 2003: 19).
The ancient supercontinent Gondwana was named after this region by archaeologists; its name goes back to Sanskrit gondavana "Gondwana Forest", with the root gonda- in turn believed to come from Proto-Dravidian *ko "mountain", see Gurov et al. 2013. The Gondwana subgroup consists of Gondi language (with numerous dialects, including Koya), Pengo, Konda, Manda, Kui, Kuwi. The majority of speakers of these languages are bilingual; the second language is, depending on the place of residence, either Telugu (the official language of Andhra Pradesh) or Oriya (the official language of Orissa). Most of these languages have been rather poorly studied. There are lexicographic sources and some grammatical descriptions for most of them, but almost no comprehensive dictionaries. The sibling terminology for Gond-wana languages is shown in Table 3.
The meaning younger sister is expressed in Kui as angi, tangi 'younger sister'; Kuwi angi, tangi, bopi 'younger sister'; Konda tani(si) 'younger sister'; Manda: e(e)mi 'younger sister'; Gondi: selad 'younger sister'. Pengo has no recorded term for 'a younger sister', only for 'sister' in general.
We can trace the remains of the PDR form *ang- in some, but not in all the languages. In Pengo there is no distinction of younger vs. elder siblings altogether; the curious Manda form e(e)mi 'younger sister' stays without a plausible etymology. Gondi selad 'younger sister' could be construed as a borrowing from Telugu celli id., but this is not highly likely, given that cognates of the same root are also found in Gadaba cellel 'younger sister' and Parji calal 'sister' (cf. also Tamil cilati 'female servant or companion'). A more likely scenario than borrowing would imply the antiquity of the usage of this root to express the concept of "social sister", perhaps going all the way back to Proto-Dravidian. Such semantics could then function as the basis for parallel independent innovations towards the meaning 'sister' (proper kinship term) in different languages. Of course, the geographic proximity to and cultural influence of Telugu here could have also influenced the semantic development of this word in Gondi, Gadaba and other languages.
The meaning elder sister is expressed by Kui bai (baidi) 'elder sister, cousin'; Kuwi nana 'elder sister'; Manda nana 'elder sister', boyni 'sister'; Pengo nana 'elder sister', torndel 'sister';
Konda bibi / bibsi 'elder sister', 'brother's wife', 'mother's mother' (Persian loan through Indo-Aryan, cf. also the term buba 'father' in this language, used for 2nd person as an address with suppletion apo(si) for 3nd person); Gondi takka 'elder sister', bayi 'elder sister'.
The meaning elder brother is expressed by Kui and Kuwi dada 'elder brother'; Manda dada 'elder brother', bayi 'brother'; Pengo dada 'elder brother', bay 'brother', tonden 'brother'; Gondi dadal 'elder brother, father, grandfather', tadal 'elder brother', tanne 'elder brother'; Konda ana(si) 'elder brother' and dada 'elder brother', 'grandfather'.
The meaning younger brother is expressed by Kui ambesa (tambesa), jusu, au 'younger brother'; Kuwi tayi and bova 'younger brother'; Manda buda 'younger brother'; Gondi koko 'younger brother', tammur 'younger brother'; Konda tamberi 'younger brother'. No words for younger relatives have been found in the lexicographic sources on Pengo that we have examined. In Konda there is also a form bay 'brother' without expression of the idea of relative age, apparently of Indo-Aryan origin.
Modern Languages
female male
elder Kui: bai Kuwi: nana Manda: nana Pengo: nana Gondi: bayi , takka Konda: bïbi, bïb(si) Manda: boyni, Pengo: torndel Kui: dada Kuwi: dada Manda: dada Pengo: dada Gondi: tannë Konda: dada, ana(si) Manda: bayi Pengo: bay Pengo: tonden
younger Kui: angi, tangi; Kuwi: angi, tangi, bopi Manda: e(ë)mi Gondi: sëlad Konda: tani(si) Kui: (t)ambesa, jusu, au Kuwi: tayi, bova Manda: buda Gondi: koko, tammur; Konda: tamberi(si)
Table 3. Main sibling terms in languages of the Gondwana subgroup.
To summarize, all the sibling forms of Gondwana Dravidian languages with their possible origin are shown in Table 4:
Lexical sources
female male
elder LOAN-OIA: bhai, nana, bïbi PDr *ak- LOAN-OIA: OIA: *dada PDr *ána-
PDr *aq- LOAN-OIA: boyni; PDr *t-amp-I-A Gondi: koko LOAN-OIA: bayi;
younger PDr *cel- LOAN-UN: Kuwi: bopi Manda: e(ë)mi PDr *toz-. LOAN-UN: Kui: jüsu, au Kuwi: tayi, bova Gondi: tammür Manda: buda PDr *toz-
Table 4. Lexical sources for sibling terms in Gondwana languages.
As we can see in Gondwana languages, it is a possible and even widespread situation when there is more than one term denoting a sibling of the same relational category with Ego. In some cases the terms belong to different systems: one that is inherited and one that is represented by borrowings from one or another contact language, cf. in Pengo tonden 'brother' < PDr *toz- while bay 'brother' < Oriya bhai 'brother' < Sanskrit bhratr 'brother' (Turner 1966: #9661). These terms do not show the relative age distinction, and the same situation is seen in Gondi where takka 'elder sister' < PDr *akk- 'elder relative', while at the same time bayi 'elder sister' is borrowed from Indo-Aryan.
We can suggest that, according to a typical contact-induced scenario, as described, for example, in Matras 2009, the "minor" Dravidian languages borrowed the sibling terms from their larger and more prestigious Indo-Aryan neighbors. Such borrowing always happens in stages: first, when the item is borrowed, it co-exists along with the earlier inherited term, and only after some time it ends up fully replacing the older term. Moreover, we observe that kinship terms are not always borrowed individually; the system, or at least a large part of it, is often borrowed as a whole. For example, if there is a borrowed term for 'elder sister', e.g. Pengo nana, we may expect to simultaneously find a borrowed term for the meaning 'elder brother', e.g. Pengo dada, with both loanwords coming from the same source (in this case, Oriya).
Another obvious source of borrowing in this region might have been the neighboring Munda languages, but almost no compatible terms for Munda siblings have been found (see Parkin 1985 on Munda kinship terms). The only case that could potentially be traced back to a Munda source is Manda (Dravidian) buda 'younger brother'; it has a possible parallel in Gutob (Munda) budi 'younger sister, sister-in-law (husband's younger brother's wife), stepsister'. Even so, Norman Zide6 suggests that this word was, in its turn, borrowed from the Indo-Aryan language Desiya, the lingua franca of that region, where it has the meaning 'small girl' (Zide and Das 1963); since it is further comparable to Prakrit boda- 'young' (Turner 1966: 524, #9268), its ultimate origin once again goes back to Indo-Aryan languages rather than Munda.
Still, although the majority of borrowed sibling terms in Gondwana (as well as other Dra-vidian) languages can be attributed to Indo-Aryan sources, the origin of certain borrowings remains unclear, such as Kuwi bopi, Manda e(e)mi 'younger sister'; Kui jusu, au; Kuwi tayi, bova; Manda buda 'younger brother'. With neither Dravidian, nor Munda, nor Indo-Aryan etymologies readily available for these words, one could provisionally assume the influence of certain old substrates — for example, a subset of terminology remaining from the pre-Dravidian languages of the corresponding regions, which were home to many tribes who switched to Dravidian languages after the arrival of the Dravidian migration, but may have left behind some substratum elements. Given that these lexical elements more frequently apply to younger siblings — an area of kinship terminology that is more resistant to borrowing, which will be shown in section 5 — this is an additional argument for their earlier, substrate-related origin. However, this is a rather speculative assumption, warranting further search for any potential ancient cognates of these items.
3.4. Central Dravidian languages: Kolami, Parji, Gadaba
Central Dravidian is a small subgroup of Dravidian languages spoken in the central regions of India, in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. According to contemporary historical linguists, this branch separated from the Proto-Dravidian community
6 The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to Evgenia Renkovskaya for discussing the examples from Munda languages.
relatively early, approximately around 1200 BC (Starostin 2000: 13). The group includes Parji, Gadaba, Kolami, Naikri and Naiki languages (the last two shall not be covered in the present paper due to scarceness of information).
Native speakers of these languages may also be bilingual in certain Indo-Aryan languages, such as Marathi for Kolami, Halbi and Bhatri for Parji, Oriya for Gadaba. As for contacting languages of Dravidian origin, speakers of Kolami and Gadaba living in Andhra Pradesh can also speak Telugu, and many of the people in this group also have some knowledge of certain dialects of Gondi. Table 5 provides the list of attested forms for siblings together with their origins.
The meaning elder sister finds the following equivalents in Central Dravidian: Kolami ak-kabai, do bai; Gadaba kako. The meaning younger sister is expressed in Kolami as torndal, sin-nam bai; in Gadaba as cellel. In Parji there is no distinction.
The meaning elder brother corresponds to Kolami dadak, do toren; Parji toled, pava; Gadaba dada, todn; the meaning younger brother is expressed as Kolami bayi, toren; Parji toled; Gadaba bayi, todn. As we can see below, in Parji no relative age distinction for the meaning 'sister' is observed; known lexicographic sources only adduce the lexeme calal 'sister'.
Modern Reconstruction and lexical sources
female male female male
PDR *ana — no reflexes found
elder Kol. akkabai, do bai Gad. kako Kol. dadak, do toren Gad. dada, todn Parj. toled, pava PDR *ak - only Kol. PDR *cel- Parj. Also, borrowed: LOAN-OIA*kaka: Gad. kako PDR: *toz- — Kol, Gad., Parj. Also, a parallel existing system — LOAN-Mar dada or OIA *dada (Turner 1966: #6261): Kol. dadak, gad. dada LOAN-OIA *bappa 'father'. (Turner 1966: #9209): Parj. pava
younger Kol. torndal, sinnam bai; Gad. cellel Kol. bayi, toren; Gad. bayi, todn; Parji toled PDR *aq- -no reflexes PDR *cel- Parji PDR *cin- together with borrowed adjective sinnam bai (< OIA bhai) PDR *t-amp--no reflexes PDR: *toz — Kol. toren; gad. todn; parji toled LOAN — Mar bhagini 'sister' LOAN — OIA Kol. bayi from OIA bhai
no relative age distinction Parj. calal 'sister'. no term
Table 5. Sibling terms in Central Dravidian languages with their sources
We see in these examples many borrowings, especially from Indo-Aryan languages, such as Kolami dadak, Gadaba dada from Marathi dada (or, perhaps, directly from Old Indo-Aryan *dada (Turner 1966: #6261). They form the core of the sibling system, occupying most of the relevant slots. A few meanings still retain inherited Dravidian equivalents, such as PDR: *toz—> Kolami toren; Gadaba todn; Parji toled. However, reflexes of this stem seem to appear in all instances only as an additional term, complementary to those expressed by Indo-Aryan borrowings. Since they always express different meanings ('younger sister', 'younger brother', 'elder brother'), we may assume that its earlier stage meaning was closer to a general 'sibling', 'kin'.
Borrowed lexemes are sometimes intertwined with original Dravidian ones, forming combinations such as Kolami sinnam bai 'younger sister', consisting of sinnam 'younger' < PDR *cin- 'small' and bai 'sister' < OIA bhai 'sister'. Another interesting case is Kolami akkabai, comprised of two iterations of one and the same meaning, one of Dravidian and one of Indo-Aryan origin: akka < PDR *akk- 'elder relative, elder sister' (the only remnant of this item across all Central Dravidian systems) and bai 'sister' < OIA bhai 'sister'.
Reflexes of PDR *ay- 'younger relative' (brother/sister) did not remain in the sibling system, having been relocated to lexical periphery. However, we still find their traces in the kinship domain: according to Setumadhava Rao, descendants of this stem are still found in Kolami dialects, e.g. taqgod 'husband's elder brother'; cf. also Naikri taqgon, ta^goj 'wife's elder brother'; Naiki ta^gon 'husband's or wife's elder brother' (StarLing 2023). Derived forms also include Kolami (dialectal) taqgoda 'wife's elder sister'; Naikri taqgodal 'wife's elder sister'; Naiki taqgoda 'husband's elder sister' and possibly Gadaba (dialectal) naggal 'wife's younger sister'.
The opposition "elder ~ younger" is occasionally neutralized, but only for the meaning 'sister', as manifested by Parji calal < PDR *cel- 'companion, sister'. This may be the result of the influence of neighboring Indo-Aryan kinship terms system in which there is no such opposition.
3.5. North Dravidian: Malto
Malto is one of the two languages belonging to the North Dravidian (Kurukh-Malto) group. According to the classification model of G. Starostin, separation of the Kurukh-Malto subgroup is dated back to around the 3rd millennium BC, with Malto emerging as an independent language already in the 1st millennium AD (Starostin 2000: 15).
Malto is spoken in the Rajmahal Hills in the far Northeastern Indian state of Jharkhand, with speakers also living in West Bengal, the states of Tripura and Orissa. Currently, there are about 340 thousand speakers of Malto including different dialects; many of them also speak Bengali (an Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family) or Santali (Munda language family).
The semantics of brother in Malto is usually expressed by the lexemes baya 'elder brother' and a lexical set denoting possession, such as tangdo 'his or her younger brother or sister' and others; also by the meanings undgle 'brother from the same parents'; nuna 'affectionate name for a son or younger brother', possibly related to Oriya nunu 'son' and nuni 'eldest daughter', 'a small non-Brahmana girl'; dubay 'sisters and brothers from the same parents'.
Lexemes used to express the semantics of sister are bayi 'elder sister' of Indo-Aryan origin, undglni 'sister from the same parents', nuni 'affectionate name for a younger sister or daughter' and other terms cited above denoting 'younger sister or brother' together, as engdo 'my younger brother or sister' etc. The forms with their reconstruction are shown in Table 6.
An important feature of this system is the consistent fused designation of younger siblings with terms that include earlier prefixes of inalienable posession: tangdo 'his or her younger brother or sister', ningdo 'your younger brother or sister'. For some reason, such prefixes were preserved only in designations of younger siblings. Typically, this could be regarded as an archaic element, hinting at an inherited Dravidian origin for the root do 'younger brother or sister'; but no parallels are found in other Dravidian languages for this root which, furthermore, also violates the commonly accepted phonotactics for Proto-Dravidian (featuring a retroflex consonant in root-initial position). This is an interesting and difficult historical issue that warrants further investigation.
Modern Reconstruction
female male female male
elder bayi baya LOAN-OIA bhaginï 'sister' LOAN-OIA bhratr 'brother' (Turner 1966: #552) through Beng. bhäi 'brother'
younger nuni 'affectionate name for a younger sister or daughter' nuna 'affectionate name for a son or younger brother' ?LOAN-Or: nunu 'son' LOAN-Or nunu 'son'
-do 'younger brother or sister' (with the prepositive marker of posession) -do 'younger brother or sister' (with the prepositive marker of posession) ??LOAN -source unknown
Table 6. Main sibling terms in Malto.
3.6. North Dravidian: Kurukh
Kurukh (Kurux, Oraon) is a language of the North Dravidian group, spoken in the territory of northeastern India (the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, small communities also in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal), as well as in the Republic of Bangladesh and southern Nepal. Most speakers are bilingual in Indo-Aryan: Hindi, Bengali, Bhojpuri. The terms for sibling in Kurukh with their reconstruction are given in Table 7.
The meaning sister is expressed in Kurukh with the lexemes bhaiya 'younger sister' (also bhiya, hiya, bia), -di 'younger sister', only in combination with possessive prepositional markers: ingri 'my or our younger sister', ningdi 'your younger sister', tangri 'his, her, their younger sister'; -dai 'elder sister': engdai, ningdai.
The meaning brother is expressed by the lexemes bhais 'brother', 'cousin', 'respectful treatment between equals' (also bhaiyos), bhaiyas 'younger brother', 'benevolent address to the younger', 'jagirdar, land owner'; also bias, as well as dadas, das 'elder brother', 'elder brother of wife, husband': engdadas 'my elder brother', ningdadas 'your elder brother', etc.; nimhai das 'your elder brother'; ningri(s) 'your younger brother', tangri(s) 'his younger brother'.
Modern Reconstruction
female male female male
elder -dm, with possessive: engdai etc. dadas, däs with inalienable possessive engdadas etc. LOAN — OIA unknown for -dai, or maybe Dravidian source LOAN-OIA *dadda 'father or other elderly relative' (Turner 1966: #6261) through Hindi dada 'father, elder brother'
younger bhaiyä; -di, only in combination with inalienable possessive: ningdi 'your younger sister' bhaiyas 'younger brother'; ningri(s) 'your younger brother' LOAN-OIA cf. Beng. bhagini 'sister' LOAN-Un for *-di, or maybe Dravidian source LOAN-OIA cf. Beng bayi LOAN-Un for *-di(s), or maybe Dravidian source
Table 7. Main sibling terms in Kurukh.
In this language we can see many forms of Indo-Aryan descent: bhaiya 'younger sister' < OIA; bhais 'brother', 'cousin', 'respectful treatment between equals' < OIA. Even the form with
prepositive inalienable possession marker appears to be of Indo-Aryan origin: engdadas 'my elder brother' < OIA, cf. *dadda 'father or other elderly relative'.
No traces of reflexes of the old Dravidian forms for 'elder brother' and 'elder sister' were found. Neither dictionaries of Kurukh, nor the etymological material in DEDR 1984 give any evidence for any remnants of PDR *ana 'elder brother' or *ak- 'elder relative, elder sister'.
In Kurukh, the markers of inalienable possession are regular and, unlike other languages in which such forms are found, are used with almost all the elements of the kinship term system: embas 'my father', nimbas 'his father', tambas 'their father'. This regularity may be explained by assuming that at the time of the separation of Kurukh-Malto from Common Dra-vidian, this prefixal system was still relatively productive, and remained so throughout the more recent history of Kurukh, with the prefixes commonly added even to new terms of borrowed origin.
If so, another phonetic decomposition of the forms tangri 'his younger sister' and tangri(s) 'his younger brother' is possible. We propose that the original marker of inalienable possession for the 3rd person for Kurukh was not *t- but rather *tay-. According to Starostin 2000, referring to Kurukh, "here /d/ and /r/ may be reflexes of an earlier /d/", so the forms tangri and tangri(s) more probably consist of the earlier prefix *tay- + a corresponding sibling term. Thus, at the level of Proto-North-Dravidian Kurukh tangris 'younger brother' can be decomposed into *tay- +*di 'younger brother', tangri 'younger sister' into *tay- +*di. Since there is not much evidence to reconstruct a morphological difference between protoforms depending on gender (cf., however, notes on final -i as a feminine suffix in the Classical Tamil period in Wilden 2018: 31), with the exact same form for both genders in Malto, this opposition in Kurukh is probably innovative and can hardly be traced back to Proto-Kurukh-Malto, let alone Proto-Dravidian.
Such an analysis, however, cannot be applied to other groups of Dravidian languages, in particular, the South and Central branches. Thus, Tamil tampi 'younger brother' goes back to PDR *t-amp-, consisting of the inalienable possession prefix *t- and the stem *-amp- 'younger brother'; this form cannot reflect an earlier prefix tay-. The existence of Tamil forms with and without this prefix can be considered as an argument for this hypothesis: ampi 'younger brother' (Brahman dialect or colloquial), n-ampi 'the elite among men', 'a term of endearment', etc.; outside of South Dravidian, cf. the prefixless variant in Kui ambesa / t-ambesa 'younger brother'. On the whole, all those forms agree with the reconstruction of a simple system of prefixes of inalienable possession for Proto-Dravidian: *t- (3rd person), *n- (2nd person), *y-/0-(1st person).
If so, the longer forms of prefixes in Kurukh-Malto must be understood as a secondary development, during which the old system was analogically restructured and the old prefixes replaced by the full forms of indirect (oblique) pronouns: in Kurukh these are eyg- 1st p. sg., niyg- 2nd p. sg. and tayg- 3rd p. sg., see discussion in Kobayashi & Tirkey 2017: 85; for the Malto forms, see section 3.5 above.
The stems for 'younger siblings' in Kurukh and Malto can hardly be inherited from Proto-Dravidian, even if we hypothetically suggest that they have been lost in all other branches of the family. First, Kurukh -di /-di and Malto -do cannot be reflexes of the same protoform. Second, the Malto stem -do is atypical for Dravidian languages which usually do not allow retro-flex consonants in root-initial position. Finally, assuming these roots' antiquity in the required meanings of 'younger brother' and 'younger sister' requires an explanation for the appearance of *t-ay- 'younger sister' and *t-amp- 'younger brother' in the other branches — roots that are far more compatible with the phonetic typology of Proto-Dravidian than the ones in Kurukh-Malto. Given all these considerations, even if we cannot pinpoint an exact source of provenance for the Kurukh-Malto forms, it is far more likely that they are of contact than inherited origin.
3.7. North Dravidian: Brahui
Brahui is the northernmost of all the Dravidian languages, spoken in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Its separation from the rest of Dravidian community, according to lexico-statistical data, was the earliest split from Proto-Dravidian, taking place at the end of the 3rd millennium BC (Starostin 2000). Today, Brahui is the only language spoken so far to the North, being surrounded by languages of other families. Most of the speakers are bilingual with Balochi (of Indo-Iranian origin). The sibling terms of Brahui and their possible sources are shown in Table 8.
Modern Reconstruction
female male female male
no relative age distinction ir addi ilum; ada PDR *Ü-[aj-] 'young' LOAN-Bal. addi 'sister' PDR *il-[aj-] 'young' LOAN-Bal. adda 'brother'
younger no special term ilumko 'younger or youngest brother' no term PDR *il-[aj-] 'young'
Table 8: Main sibling terms in Brahui
In Brahui the factor of relative age is not taken into consideration; this parameter does not distinguish the meanings of 'younger sister' and 'elder sister' as in the majority of other Dravidian languages. Interestingly, the subsystem of siblings as a whole has two types of expression — one of Dravidian and the other of borrowed Iranian origin. There is a pair of sibling terms that form a group of borrowed origin: ada 'brother'; (rare) 'son'; 'respectful address to a younger man' ~ cf. Balochi (Iranian family) adda 'brother (familiar)'. Also addi 'sister', (rare) 'daughter'; 'respectful address to a woman' ~ cf. Balochi addi 'sister'. Judging by the fact that the borrowings from Balochi have hardly undergone any phonetic change, they must have entered the Brahui vocabulary quite recently.
Parallel Dravidian forms for siblings are: ilum 'brother', ilumko 'younger or youngest brother' and ir 'sister' < PDR *il-[aj-] 'young' (StarLing 2023). Possibly connected with these forms is also Brahui lumma 'mother' which, according to (Bray 1934), also derives from the stem *il-[aj-] 'young'; however, this etymology is questionable for phonetic and morphological reasons.
Moreover, this etymology seems doubtful from the point of view of semantics and the data of semantic typology. The semantic derivation of ilum 'brother' from PDR *il-[aj-] 'young' can be explained as a result of possible shift young ^ younger sibling, with subsequent expansion of the meaning to other kinship terms (compare for example with the existing shifts #8334 'little, small' ^ 'child' and #0159 'young' ^ 'husband' in Zalizniak et al. 2023).
The reconstruction proposed in Bray 1934 for Brahui lumma 'mother' appears doubtful from this point of view, since no direct semantic derivation young ^ mother seems to be possible. We can propose only one hypothetical scheme for the emergence of such a semantic development, with a transitional stage during which a compound was formed from PDR + PDR *ama- 'mother' = initially 'young mother' or something of the kind ('young mother who recently gave birth to a child', 'young mother with small children', etc., or simply 'a mother of really young age', said about girls that were married in their early years and gave birth to a child while still being children themselves). Phonetic contraction of the compound could then result in a form like lumma; however, this is still a hypothesis waiting for additional arguments.
4. Inalienable possession
One of the most important features of the Dravidian kinship system, already mentioned several times in relation to specific branches of this family, since its traces are found everywhere from the Northern Dravidian languages Kurukh and Malto to Old Tamil, is the feature of inalienable possession, expressed in kinship terms as a kind of prefix (even though grammatical meanings are usually expressed in these languages by suffixes, not prefixes). There is a clear etymological connection between such prefixes, e.g.,in Old Tamil entai 'my father', nuntai 'your father' and tantai 'his, her or their father' and in Malto engdo 'my younger brother or sister', ningdo 'your younger brother or sister', tangdo 'his or her younger brother or sister' (see section 3.5).
In modern Tamil, as well as in the majority of Dravidian languages, this feature has not been preserved, except for the forms that originally referred to the 3rd: cf. Tam. tantai 'father', tay 'mother', or Gondi tanne 'elder brother' etc. — in all these forms, the original prefix has fused with the root and became desemanticized. However, in modern Kurukh and Malto reflexes of this system still seem to remain quite transparent and even somewhat productive. According to M. B. Emeneau's conclusions, this feature was a specific property of the Proto-Dravidian language (Emeneau 1953: 346). The loss of forms of kinship with inalienable possession by the majority of Dravidian languages is sometimes considered an important marker of the development of Dravidian languages "from active towards a nominative type system" (Gurov 2013: 45). Note, however, that quite a few spoken dialects of Tamil still preserve traces of the old system, as shown in Table 9.
In some cases, differentiated marking has been preserved only for 2nd person, as in the Ceylon dialect and Tamil dialects of Kanyakumari and Ramanadhapuram. This similarity is of an areal nature, since these districts are located on the coast of the Indian Ocean, on the Southern tip of India (Kanyakumari) and on the Southeastern coast of India (Ramanadhapuram), in the areas closest to Ceylon.
It may be seen from this table that the Proto-Kurukh-Malto system and the systems in other Dravidian languages, most notably Tamil, cannot be derived from each other. The Ku-rukh-Malto system is basically identical with the indirect stems of Kurukh-Malto personal pronouns; the South Dravidian system (occasional relics of which can be found in some Central Dravidian languages as well) consists of simpler prefixes *y- '1st p.' (in Tamil *y-a—> e-, *y-a—> ya-), *n- '2nd p.' (it is not quite clear if the Tamil variant nu-, unquestionably related to the Tamil oblique stem un-, is archaic or innovative), *t- '3rd p.'. The most logical scenario is that the system in Kurukh-Malto was rebuilt (relatively recently) in accordance with its more current stems for personal pronouns.
5. Conclusion
In this paper we have presented an analysis of the system of sibling terms in Dravidian languages. According to our data, the terminology system that exists today in South Dravidian languages with its distinction of relative age has every reason to be the reflection of an ancient Proto-Dravidian system of sibling terms. The main system most probably consisted of the same stems that continue to be used in South Dravidian languages, organized in what we earlier called the "South Dravidian square": PDR *ak- 'elder sister'; PDR *ana- 'elder brother'; PDR *(t)-ay- 'younger sister' and PDR *(t)-amp- 'younger brother'. The two latter forms (but probably not the two first ones) could, at the PDR stage, freely combine with the 3rd person
1 my, our 2 your 3 his, her, their
Malto engdo (younger brother or sister); engade (son); engadi (daughter); ayya (mother) ningdo (younger brother or sister); ningade (son); ningadi (daughter); ijjo (mother); ijjo-abbor (father and mother, parents) tangdo (younger brother or sister); tangade (son); tangadi (daughter); teho (mother); teho-tamba-kor (father and mother, parents)
Kurukh embas (father); ingyo (mother); ingdi (younger sister); engdai (elder sister); engri(s) (younger brother); engda (daughter) nimbas (father); ningyo (mother); ningdi (younger sister); ningdai (elder sister); ningri(s) (younger brother); ningda (daughter) tambas (father); tangyo (mother); tangri (younger sister); tangdai (elder sister); tangri(s) (younger brother); tangda (daughter)
Old Tamil entai (father); yay (mother); enkai (younger sister); evvai (сестра); empi (younger brother); emmun (elder brother) nuntai (father); nay (mother); nunkai (younger sister); nuvvai (сестра); numpi, umpi (younger brother); nummun (elder brother) tantai (father); tay (mother); tankai (younger sister); tampi (younger brother); tammun (elder brother)
Ceylon dialect of Tamil ayya/apu (father); amma/aci (mother); akka (sister); annan (elder brother) koyya/kopu (father); komma/koci/kocci (mother); akka (your elder sister); konnan (your elder brother)
Tamil dialect of Kanyakumari appan (father in general); amman (uncle, mother's brother in general.); annan (elder brother in general) koppan (your father); komman (your uncle, mother's brother), konnan (your elder brother)
Tamil dialect of Ramanadhapuram noppan (your father), nomma (your mother), nokka (your elder sister), nonnan (your elder brother)
Suggested reconstruction for Proto-Kurukh-Malto level *eng- (< *en-k-) *ning- (< *nin-k-) *tang- (< *tan-k-)
Suggested reconstruction for Proto-Dravidian *y- *n- ~ *nu- *t-
Table 9. The preserved forms with markers of inalienable possession in Dravidian
prefix *t- (data on their possible combination with 1st and 2nd p. prefixes are lacking, which does not formally allow to reconstruct them on the PDR level).
In Kurukh-Malto, this system was significantly changed, particularly in regard to terms for younger siblings, cf. Kurukh tangri 'younger sister' < PNorthD *taq- + *di 'younger sister', tangris 'younger brother' < PNorthD *tay- +*di 'younger brother'; the root here is of unknown origin, while the possessive prefix has been reconfigured by analogy with the more current shape of the pronominal oblique stem in Kurukh (and Malto).
The alternate hypothesis — namely, that the kinship terms of Proto-Dravidian were classi-ficatory and referred to entire groups of people connected by similar relations to Ego — is much less likely, given that the only form that expresses such a fused meaning (in Malto) is probably not of Dravidian origin.
The other two stems with occasional "sibling semantics" that we can also reconstruct for Proto-Dravidian refer to "social background": these are the PDR roots *cel- 'companion; sister' which, it could be said, show some gender ambiguity with inclination towards female gender
(it is the source both of forms meaning 'sister', as in Parji calal, and masculine forms such as Tamil cilatan 'male companion, associate, servant') and PDR *toz- 'friend', 'younger brother','assistance, help', usually denoting masculine gender (the source of forms meaning mainly 'companion', 'brother', as in Konda toran 'younger brother' or Kui torenju 'male friend'), though cf. Pengo torndel 'sister'. Their meanings are connected with the idea of "help"; see semantic shifts 'brother' — 'friend' and 'friend' ^ 'husband' / 'wife' in the Database of semantic shifts of languages of the world (Zalizniak et al. 2023). They seem to belong to a completely different subsystem of nomination, hinting at certain structural details of the ancient society that have yet to be explored.
The other terms are of borrowed origin. The sources of borrowings are different, depending on the historical processes and contact languages, mainly from different Indo-Aryan and, more rarely, from Indo-Iranian languages. We found that the way of adaptation of borrowings in the sibling subsystems of Dradivian languages proceed in three stages.
1. New term appears as a borrowing, usually first for 'elder siblings' and even more precisely, for 'elder brother'. This may be connected with 'elder brother's prestigious position and preferred association with more prestigious language (though this consideration is rather speculative). Terms for younger siblings are less prone to borrowing; they retain the old shape and the old features. The most ancient features of the system still remain in the subsystem of 'younger siblings', such as the distinction of relative age in Brahui ilumko 'younger or youngest brother' and the prefixes of inalienable possession in the majority of languages.
2. Two terms co-exist, as in Brahui, Telugu, Central Dravidian, Gondwana languages.
a. Sometimes they form two 'parallel' systems of sibling terms along with the authentic one, as in Brahui and Gondwana languages;
b. Sometimes they can appear within one and the same compound word, as in Kolami akkabai < akka (of Dravidian origin) + bai (of Indo-Aryan origin) and possibly Malto dubay 'sisters and brothers from the same parents' (this form is not so clear; bay clearly stems from bayi 'elder sister', baya 'elder brother' of Indo-Aryan origin, but the component du, possibly connected with do in tangdo 'his younger brother or sister', is not very likely to be of Dravidian origin, either — perhaps an older borrowing from an unknown source).
3. The borrowed term gains a more prominent position than its predecessor, cf. the situation with the terms for 'elder siblings' in Central Dravidian languages, and in Malto (although the phonetic peculiarities in terms for younger siblings there remains an issue for further research). The original terms may remain at the periphery of the system, as a lexical item with a different meaning or restricted usage, or vanish completely7.
The resulting configuration of the sibling term system is quite diverse in Dravidian languages. In most South Dravidian languages all the main terms are still of authentic origin, so they represent the most ancient type of the system. In Telugu all the main terms remain authentic but some are replaced with terms of "social background". In Central Dravidian lan-
7 It is useful to list some semantically adjacent examples from close semantic kinship areas: thus, in Konda the original form apo(si) 'father' has only preserved the meaning of vocative, as opposed to the borrowed main term buba 'father' (Persian loan through Indo-Aryan, in the same subsystem with bïbi ~ bïbsi 'elder sister'). A similar situation is observed in Brahui: the inherited Dravidian form mama 'uncle' has only retained the meaning 'form of address from son-in-law to father-in-law', although the custom of real cross-cousin marriage that the form originally reflected did not survive and gave way to Muslim traditions.
guages terms of "social background" remain in the younger sibling subsystem along with borrowings, while the distinction of relative age is eroding. In Gondwana languages the distinction between 'younger' and 'elder' is erased for 'brothers'; the authentic system remains as an additional parallel to the borrowed one (the origin of terms for "younger siblings" in Gondwana languages still stays a subject for further investigation, though it is definitely not from Munda languages, but possibly a remnant of pre-Dravidian and pre-Indo-Aryan substrate, see section 3.3).
Sources of linguistic data
Unreferenced examples come from the following sources: Brahui — Bray 1909, 1934; Badaga — Hockings & Pilot-Raichoor 1992; Gadaba — Bhaskararao 1980; Balochi — Dames 1881; Gondi — Subrahmanyam 1968, Rafath et al. 2009; Gutob — Zide 1963; Indo-Aryan loanwords — Turner 1966-1985; Irula — Periyalwar 1979, Zvelebil 1979; Kannada — Ucida & Rajapurohit 2013; Kolami — Emeneau 1955; Kui — Winfield 1929; Kurukh — Grignard 1924, Kobayashi & Tirkey 2017; Kuvi — Israel 1979, Burrow & Bhattacharya 1963; Malayalam — Gundert 1872, An-dronov & Makarenko 1971; Malto — Droese 1884, Das 1973, Mahapatra 1979; Manda — Ramakrishna Reddy 2009; Marathi — Molesworth 1857; Parji — Burrow & Bhattacharya 1953; Pengo — Burrow & Bhattacharya 1970; Sanskrit — Monier-Williams 1899; Tamil — TL, Fabricius 1972, Winslow 1862; Ceylon Tamil dialect — Smirnitskaya 2013a; Tamil dialects — Smirnitskaya 2013b; Telugu — Gwynn 1872, Brown 1903; Tulu — Männer 1888, Brigel 1982.
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А. А. Смирнитская. Обозначения братьев и сестер в дравидийских языках: прадрави-дийская реконструкция и проблема заимствований.
Статья посвящена исследованию развития системы номинации сиблингов в дравидийских языках, с упором на анализ степени устойчивости тех или иных терминов к заимствованию. Делаются выводы о заимствовании в дравидийских языках в первую очередь терминов для обозначения старших сиблингов, начиная со старшего брата; о преимущественном заимствовании целых подсистем и последующем параллельном их сосуществовании наряду с исконной системой; о большей устойчивости к заимствованиям терминов, обозначающих младших сиблингов и сохранности в их форме наиболее архаичных языковых черт, в частности форм, выражающих отношения неотчуждаемой принадлежности. Относительно последних предлагается считать для прадра-
видийского уровня наиболее вероятной систему *y- 1SG / *n- 2SG / *t- 3SG, с последующей ее реструктуризацией в северно-дравидийской подгруппе курух-малто на основании аналогического влияния продуктивных косвенных форм личных местоимений (eng- 1SG / ning- 2SG / tang- 3SG).
Ключевые слова: термины родства; обозначения сиблингов; дравидийские языки; лексические заимствования; устойчивость к заимствованиям; прадравидийский язык; неотчуждаемая принадлежность.
