The Dravidian language family, a significant linguistic group, is believed to have originated from a proto-Dravidian language that existed thousands of years ago, potentially during the Indus Valley Civilization. This theory, supported by linguists like VI Subramaniam, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, KK Gowda, and Robert Caldwell, suggests that all Dravidian languages share a common ancestor.
After the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization and subsequent migrations, these languages diverged. One branch of this proto-language evolved into Brahui, still spoken in present-day Pakistan. Ajith Kanna highlights the connection between Brahui and South Indian languages, noting their shared characteristic of lacking grammatical genders, where verbs remain unchanged regardless of the pronoun's gender.
Dravidian languages exhibit distinct features compared to Indo-Aryan languages. Notably, words for body parts and numbers show consistency across the Dravidian family. Tamil is considered to have retained more characteristics of the proto-Dravidian language, while Kannada has adapted more readily to changes. Historians emphasize that the age of a language is less important than its evolution from a common ancestor.
The evolution of scripts and writing materials also influenced the development of words. For instance, the letter "zha" in early Kannada scripts transformed due to writing constraints. In Kerala, the practice of writing on coconut fronds led to the development of rounded letter forms.