South Dravidian languages

South Dravidian is an outer branch (Zvelebil 1990:56) of the Dravidian languages family. There have been slight differences in the way Dravidian languages are grouped by various Dravidian linguists (see Subrahmanyam 1983, Zvelebil 1990, Krishnamurthi 2003); Krishnamurti calls Tamil-Tulu as South Dravidian I, Telugu-Kui as South Dravidian II and Tamil-Telugu as South Dravidian. South Dravidian in turn branches off into Tamil–Kannada and Tuluic. The languages that constitute the Tamil–Kannada branch are Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Irula, Toda, Kota, Kodava, and Badaga and the languages that constitute the Tuluic branch are Tulu, Koraga, Kudiya, Bellari. (Zvelebil 1990:56)

According to R. C. Hiremath, Director of International School of Dravidian Linguistics in Trivandrum, the separation of Tamil and Kannada into independent languages from the Tamil–Kannada inner branch started with the separation of Tulu in about 1500 BCE and completed in about 300 BCE.

Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam are recognized among the official languages of India and are spoken mainly in South India. All three are officially recognized as classical languages by the Government of India, along with Sanskrit, Telugu, and Odia.