This book embodies the rasults of the researches that have beon carried out by me under the guidance of Profossor R. L. Turner, the present Director of the School of Oriental Studies, London. Being written in 1933, the need for a revision of the thesis was felt by me, and the pre-sent publication will be found to contain certain improvements and additions when compared with its original form.
An enquiry into the loan words from Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages into the Dravidian is calculated to throw considerable light on the mutual relations of the Sanskritic and the Dravidian tongues; and a suggestion of an investigation on this line, first came to me from the learned professor under whom I had the privilege to work. I am happy that my efforts have not gone unrecognized inasmuch as no less a scholar than Professor Tarter himself opines that some of the borrowings discussed in this book raise questions of linguistic and cultural interest and should throw light on the development and practice of Sanskrit at least in South India.
I have to record my gratitude to Professor Turner for the wealth of constructive suggestions, clarifying criticism and stimulating encouragement with which he super. vised the growth and completion of the thesis. My thanks are also due to Dr. Barnett for valuable help rendered in various ways.
I shall be failing in my duty if I do not express my sincere gratefulness to the University of Travancore for allowing me a grant towards the publication of this book.
Dr. K. Godavarma (1902-1952) is one of the early scholars from India who got exposure to modern linguistics. He is the first scholar from Kerala to take Ph.D. (1933) from the London University on Malayalam language. His research guide was Prof. Turner, which helped him to attain mastery in linguistics. He is an erudite scholar well versed in Sanskrit, which paved the way for acquiring a thorough knowledge over the other Indo Aryan languages also. If two languages are in contact, whether cultivated or non-cultivated, along with cultural diffusion, the languages too will be affected. Suppose language A and language B are in contact, it is quite natural that some of the lexical items of language A will be borrowed by language B and vice-versa. The quantum of such borrowals from one language to the other may vary based on different factors such as need-filling, political power, cultural superiority, language of administration, vastness in literature, prestige of the linguistic community, medium of education etc. Even if language B has only a lesser grade in most of the above criteria, even then some of the words from language B will be adopted by the speakers of language A due to factors like need-filling motto or due to close intimacy with the people of language B etc. In short, with regard to loan words, both, languages A and B, function as donor language and recipient language.
Malayalam language has a good number of borrowed words which come to this language from different sources such as Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu, Arabic, Portuguese, Syriac, Italian etc. A large chunk of loan words in Malayalam is from Sanskrit. This may be true in other Dravidian languages such as Telugu, Kannada and Tamil also; probably, in Tamil, the Sanskrit loan words may be relatively less when compared to the other three major Dravidian languages.
This work is a modified version of Godavarma's Ph.D. thesis. It was published in 1946 by Ramavarma & Bros., Mavelikkara and was printed in Thiruvananthapuram at the A.R.V. Press.
Godavarma not only points out the historical and cultural contacts between the Aryans and the Dravidians but also states the mutual give-and-take between them in all spheres and it is especially true in the fields of language, religion and culture. He is aware of the fact that although the Dravidian languages have borrowed abundantly from Indo-Aryan, the Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit too have borrowed words from Dravidian.
In the present book, the author gives an exhaustive investigation into the Indo-Aryan loan words in Malayalam. It is possible that some of the words labelled as loans from Indo-Aryan will be the loans from Dravidian to Indo-Aryan. This epoch-making work is of immense value to the researchers of Dravidian languages in general and Malayalam in particular. Hence, the International School of Dravidian Linguistics has decided to republish this monumental work.
I express my sincere thanks to Prof. Naduvattom Gopalakrishnan for helping me in the publication of this work. 1 also thank S.B. Press, Thiruvananthapuram for undertaking the printing of this book.
We hope that the academic community will wholeheartedly receive this publication.
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