Week 9, Part 2: Dravidian Languages

Dravidian languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu are being separated from the rest of the South Asian languages because they differ greatly from the Indo-European languages, and therefore also "helps" speakers encounter even more problems with learning English. I discovered this week that Dravidian languages should not have been included in the previous Week 8, Part 1 post because of these differences. So here is my attempt at summarizing an entire group of languages in terms of pronunciation and grammar and their contributions to language interference for English-language learners.

Pronunciation:

• Vowel systems consist of around 10 different vowel sounds (versus 22 in English); many English vowel sounds are difficult to distinguish and pronounce

• Dravidian languages don't have aspirated consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/) and they are therefore hard to pronounce. /p/, /t/, and /k/ are often replaced with /b/, /d/, and /g/ respectively.

• Consonants in Dravidian languages are 'geminated' or doubled, so a single consonant can be fully pronounced twice, often confusing people who are listening. The only decent example I could think of is the word "duchies" being confused with "dutch cheese."

• /z/ doesn't exist and is often replaced with /s/.

• Similarly, /f/ is replaced with /p/.

• Unlike previously mentioned South Asian languages, consonant clusters are prevalent in Dravidian languages, so they're not a problem. However, sometimes a light vowel sound is added at the end of English words because consonants at the end of words are rare in Dravidian languages.

• Stress is similar to other South Asian languages.

Syntax:

• Sentences are formed by adding elements to a word stem (i.e. They destroyed is formed by adding a past tense suffix and plural suffix to the word destroy.) ELLs may have considerable difficulty at first grasping the formation of sentences and clauses in English, much more so than speakers of Indo-European languages, because of the structure of the languages.

• Word order and formation of complex sentences are completely different in Dravidian languages, so it can be a huge obstacle for ELLs who only speak Dravidian languages.

• Relative pronouns (whom, who, that, which, etc.) don't exist! So, some speakers may phrase clauses like people who live next door without the relative pronoun like living next door people.

• In Dravidian languages, questions are formed by intonation and interrogative particle (i.e. You are leaving, no?). In English, we form questions and negations differently and it may be hard to learn for Dravidian speakers.

• There is a very complex system of tenses with some tenses that don't always correspond with tenses in English, so tenses used in English might be different than what native English speakers use.

• There is no equivalent to English articles; speakers may often replace a or an with one and leave out the completely.

• Terms used solely for emphatic and reflexive reasons are common in Dravidian languages, but when translated into English, speakers may end up sounding redundant. (i.e. When he was young itself, he lost his father vs. When he was young, he lost his father)

To help explain the distinction of Dravidian languages in India, here's a map of where all of the major Dravidian languages are mainly spoken.