Language and culture

Language and culture are sensitive and emotional issues. We all have grown up with certain set of ideas and it will be difficult to give up our clichés when somebody suggests anything contrary to our coveted opinions.

Anthropologists are almost unanimous that early man originated in Africa and his tribes migrated to different parts of the world. Rosenberg study(2002) based on heterozygosity or genetic diversity suggests that human beings originated in East Africa, around Kenya, where oldest modern human fossils were found, and migrated to other parts of the world. The Harappa –Mohenjodaro and Sind/ Baluchistan area where early Indian civilizations are recorded also along the paths of migration of human beings.

Dravidians as well as Aryans have settled in India since say 3500 years. They have evolved languages and cultural trends that are well established by now. It should not mean that we all Dravidians and Aryans were originated and evolved within this declared motherland only.

It is just like the comfortable experience we enjoy in the house or the town in which we live and wherein many of our ancestors had have lived. Just because several generations of our ancestors lived in this house or town and etched unforgettable pages in the history should not mean that at some point of early period of history, one of our primal ancestors came from some other town and settled here.

If we believe that human populations migrated, it is taken for granted that the proto languages they were speaking and the cultural habits they were accustomed to also migrated with them to different parts of the world.