225. Mura, the laterite

Languages, like those of Dravidian Group, are like large botanical farms spread over millions of hectares of land, with lateral variations in morphology.Like farms, the languages also grow and evolve in situ in the region. But the words are like seeds or seedlings.They can be brought from other regions or can be carried to other regions along with the migrants. When we decipher that so and so word may have been brought from an African or other source people jump to negate instantly comparing that the two languages (donor and receipent) are starkly different in terms of linguistic structure and composition.
Like the farms, languages are not static. They evolve over a period of time. History is a prolonged period of time.The past may have been tumultuous periods when one set of well grown languages, due to socio-cultural clashes, were eventually overpowered and modified over a period of time into another set of languages.
East African word
To the list of words derived from African sources, we may add one more word now familiar in Tulu language. In the coastal region laterite is a common occurrence.Most of the area is covered by a hard cap of reddish or brownish rock known as ‘laterite’ and we call it ‘mura’ or murakallu. Murakallu is a familiar soft rock rock that hardens upon exposure to daylight.Murum is used in civil engineering also. While levelling and paving or ashpalting, rubbles are spread and murrum is put over these stone pieces.
It is difficult to estimate the period when the laterite were cut into bricks and used for construction of houses.However, if you see the traditional large axe that is employed to cut the bricks, you may be reminded of the legends of Parasurama.

The laterite in East Africa is known as ‘murrum’ in their language. It is possible that early human migrants carried this word from East Africa to the Tulunadu.
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46.Proto-Tulu Migration: Stage I

1. The proposal of the earliest stage of migration of proto- Tulu tribes is based on (a) the presence of Tulu words in African and Sumerian derived languages. The basic word ‘Tulu’ itself can be found in several place names and persons names. Similarly the Tulu words bant, oor (<.ur1=village), uri2 (<.ur2=to burn), ain (<.ai=five), sike(<.sige=sultriness), sima (samba=lion), puttu (putt=to birth) etc. are derived from ancient African/Mediterranean proto languages.
2. The timing suggested ca.2000 BC is approximate and is based on the mass migration of tribes out of Africa due to adverse environments like drought and desertification. There are actually many phases of African migrations beginning with the origin of evolved man around 165,000 years ago. Since the words Tulu, bant, oor, ain etc were well formed in African –Mediterranean region during the 4000-2000 BC period, the ca.2000 BC migration episode has been considered. The dates can be further refined with availability of new data.
3. The place of origin or initial dispersal was chosen as Ethiopia based on the presence of maximum number of place-name associations with the word Tulu. Even in those early days Tulu might have been a small ethnic group. Apparently even now there are ethnic groups called Tulu in Ethiopia.
4. For comparison of genome characteristics of Ethiopian and Tulu people extensive data may be required on either side, since both sides have undergone extensive human assimilations in the post-migration period. Right now, there may not be sufficient compilation of genetic data on this front, especially on the Tulunadu side. Besides, the present day Ethiopian have also changed considerably because several generations of migrations to and from Africa throughout the history. Apart from the declared complexities of genetic substructure of Ethiopian chromosomes, at least three major phases of back migrations from Asia into Ethiopia have been explained based on Y -chromosome genetic studies (Ornella Semino and others, 2002).Beside the present, Ethiopian (and Yemeni) maternal lineages are said to be composites of sub-Saharan and West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups suggestive of extensive bidirectional gene flow on either sides of the Red Sea (Toomas Kivisild et al, 2004).
As pointed out by Kivisild et al (2003) in the Indian context, “It will take larger sample sizes, more populations, and increased molecular resolution to determine the likely modest impact of historic gene flows to India on its pre-existing large populations”
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43. Evolution of Tulu Language

I propose a three stage evolution of Tulu language. Other Dravidian languages also share this global heritage.
Stage I: ca.4000-2000 BC - Proto Tulu
Proto Tulu originated in Ethiopia. It contained lot of words derived from Sumerian languages and African languages. Some of these words still survive in our language. Other Proto-Dravidian languages also were originated in the region.
Around 2000 BC severe desertification of northern Africa occurred with formation of Sahara desert. The adverse environmental conditions forced many human tribes to leave Africa and migrate to greener areas with basic amenities. Tulu and other Proto Dravidian tribes left Africa and migrated.
Stage II: ca.2000-500 BC - Early Tulu
Migrating Tulu tribes and proto-Dravidians settled in the Pirak region in Central Asia, now part of Pakistan. Pirak region had a native language: Early Prakrit. They interacted with Indo-Aryans that came from Eastern Iran. A group of Indo-Aryan sages were engaged in the oral composition of Vedas. Early Tulu and Dravidians tribes learnt rice cultivation in this area. Again unfavorable environmental conditions enticed these Tulu/Dravidian tribes to migrate into greener pastures of India.
Stage III: ca.500-300 BC - Tulu
Early Tulu and Dravidian tribes migrated into India. They traveled and settled for some time in different regions of northwestern India, interacted with local language groups and further migrated to West coast of India. Interaction of Dravidian tribes with Marathi tribes contributed exchange of words between Dravidian and Marathi. Marathi language is an evolved form of Early Prakrit.
Tulu tribes settled in Karavali region that is popularly known as Tulunadu. Early Kannada tribes settled in plains of Karnataka. (The names Kannada and Karnataka may have evolved later.) Early Malayalees traveled further south and settled in Malabar. Tamils moved further and settled in Early-Madhurai, somewhere in the southern coast of India. The Early-Madhurai was destroyed by the transgression of the Sea and Tamils resettled in inland townships designated again as Madhurai.
At that time Munda group of languages and culture prevailed all over southern India. Munda tribes were adept in agriculture.They were growing a variety of crops like wheat, barley, jowar, ragi, cow pea (kadale), black gram (urd), green gram (padengi), horse gram (kudu), togari etc. The incoming tribes interacted with Munda tribes leading to assimilation of Munda language and culture in Tulu and other Dravidian languages and culture. Dravidian groups introduced rice cultivation methods acquired from their earlier settlements.
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38.Earliest Indian Tribes

The oldest known human fossils of homo sapiens, designated Omo I and Omo II, were discovered from the Omo river valley in Ethiopia by Richard Leakey and were dated to be 195,000 years old. The journey of mankind from 165,000 to 8000 years before present, coinciding with the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer nomadic phase of human evolution, inferred based on the genetic studies of mtDNA and Y- chromosomes, reveals that almost entire globe was populated by the mankind before 8000 years as result of incessant migrations during the last 150,000 years. With such extensive migratory trends it can assumed that mankind almost evolved and perfected verbal/lingual communications in this huge period. The factors of time, distance, environment and tribes have introduced so many variations in the languages of the world that simple genetic connections between languages can be hardly deciphered.
The data in the compilation of journey of mankind suggests that:
1). 85,000-75,000 years ago.
The first phase (batch) of human migration from Africa to India. The earliest Indian settlers.
2). 74,000 years ago.
The massive volcanic eruption documented at Mt. Toba in Sumatra. It was followed by heavy dust storms that led to nuclear winter in the entire south Asian region with volcanic dust dissipations spreading up to India for six years. Volcanic activity was followed by a millennium of ice age. Widespread devastation of the human beings, animals and plants possibly occurred in most of the southern Asia.
3). 74,000-65,000 years ago. A group of tribal people entered India from the north east Assam and Bengal from the Borneo side.
4).65,000 -52,000 years ago.
Two way coastal migrations into India have been visualized:
(a).One branch from NW India migrating along the West Coast. This is second phase of migration from Africa, possibly more evolved anatomically than the first batch.
(b).Other branch from Bengal side migrating via East coast. This is the first batch returning from the tour of South-east Asia and Australia. Possibly this branch represents the advent of Austro-Asiatic (Munda) tribes into India.
5) 10,000 years ago. The global Ice Age also called the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM).
The Glaciation caused lowering of sea levels to the tune of about 100m.This facilitated human migrations across the continents and land masses as many of the land bridges were exposed and people were able to cross the sea routes through the exposed land bridges.
The sea had retreated exposing wider land coastal mass and the land bridge between India and Srilanka (‘Ram Sethu’ or the Adams bridge) was more accessible for human migrations across the sea from India to Srilanka and vice versa. These geological-geographic aspects have ramifications that inspired some of the famous folklores of India.