Irula language

Irula is a Dravidian language spoken by the Irulas who inhabit the area of the Nilgiri mountains, in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka, India.Template:Sfnp It is written in the Tamil script.

Origins

The language was first described and classified by indologist Kamil Zvelebil, who in 1955 showed that the Irula language is an independent Southern Dravidian language that is akin to Tamil, particularly Old Tamil, with some Kannada-like features. Before that, it was traditionally denied or put to doubt, and Irula was described as a crude or corrupt mixture of Tamil and Kannada.

According to a tentative hypothesis by Kamil Zvelebil, a pre-Dravidian Melanid population that forms the bulk of the Irulas anthropologically began to speak an ancient pre- or proto-Tamil dialect, which was superimposed almost totally on their native (pre-Dravidian) speech. That then became the basis of the language, which must have subsequently been in close contact with the other tribal languages of the Nilgiri area as well as with the large surrounding languages such as Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam.

Phonology

The tables present the vowelTemplate:Sfnp and the consonantTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp phonemes of Irula.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	Template:IPA Template:IPA		Template:IPA Template:IPA
Mid	Template:IPA Template:IPA		Template:IPA Template:IPA
Open		Template:IPA Template:IPA

All vowels are centralized by certain neighbouring consonants.Template:Clarify They are then transcribed Template:IPA, etc., but they may be closer to Template:IPA.

Consonants

Phonemes marked with an asterisk appear only in Template:Harvtxt.

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar
Nasal		Template:IPAlink				Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink				Template:IPAlink
Stop/Affricate	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink*	Template:IPAlink*	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink	Template:IPAlink
Fricative		Template:IPAlink			Template:IPAlink
Approximant (Lateral)								Template:IPAlink*		Template:IPAlink
						Template:IPAlink		Template:IPAlink
Rhotic				r̪		Template:IPAlink

Sources

• [{{{url}}} A Grammar of Irula]. Annamalai University.
• [{{{url}}} Phonology of Irula with Vocabulary]. Annamalai University.
• [{{{url}}} Nilgiri Areal Studies]. Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press.

Further reading

• The Irula language, Volumes 1-3. Harrassowitz.

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