South Dravidian languages

Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu (South Dravidian II or South-Central Dravidian) are recognized among the official languages of India and are spoken mainly in South India. All four are officially recognized as classical languages by the Government of India, along with Sanskrit and Odia.

Phonological features

Standard Tamil and Malayalam have both retroflex lateral and retroflex approximant sounds, whereas most of the remaining like Kannada have merged the central approximant with the lateral. Evidence shows that both retroflex approximant and the retroflex laterals were once (before the 10th century) also present in Kannada. However, all the retroflex approximants changed into retroflex laterals in Kannada later. In Kannada, the bilabial voiceless plosive () at the beginning of many words has disappeared to produce a glottal fricative () or has disappeared completely. This change was later taken to other Kannadoid languages and Tuluoid languages like Bellari and Koraga, e.g. Tamil peyar, Kannada hesaru, Bellari/Koraga hudari; Tamil puṟṟu, Jenu Kuruba uṯṯu, Ka. puttu, huttu, uttu.

Tamil-Malayalam and Telugu show the conversion of Voiceless velar plosive () into Voiceless palatal plosive () at the beginning of the words (refer to comparative method for details). Kannada and other languages, however, are totally inert to this change and hence the velar plosives are retained as such or with minimum changes in the corresponding words, e.g. Tamil/Malayalam cey, Irula cē(y)-, Toda kïy-, Kannada key/gey, Badaga gī-, Telugu cēyu , Gondi kīānā .

Tulu is characterized by its r/l and s/c/t alternation, for e.g. sarɛ, tarɛ across Tulu dialects compare with Kannada tale. The alveolar ṯ, ṯṯ, nṯ became post alveolar or dental, the singular ones usually becomes a trill in other Dravidian languages, e.g. Tamil oṉṟu, āṟu, nāṟu, nāṟṟam, muṟi, kīṟu; Tulu oñji, āji, nāduni, nāta, {mudipuni, muyipuni}, {kīruni, gīcuni}. The retroflex approximant mostly became a and also , e.g. Tamil ēẓu, puẓu, Tulu {ēḷŭ, ēlŭ, ēḍŭ}, puru.

The vowels have mostly remained the same with the 5 /a, e, i, o, u/ + length; Malayalam and Tulu have an extra /ə̆/ and /ɯ/ respectively. The Nilagiri languages developed a set of centralized vowel around retroflexes and alveolars with Irula having /ɨ, ʉ, ə, ɵ/ + length. Kurumba languages have nasalized vowels, e.g. Jenu Kuruba ã·we, Kannada āme, āve, ēve, ēme, Tamil yāmai, āmai.