Dravidian phonology

Dravidian languages are noted for the lack of distinction between aspirated and unaspirated stops. While some Dravidian languages have accepted large numbers of loan words from Sanskrit and other Indo-Iranian languages in addition to their already vast vocabulary, in which the orthography shows distinctions in voice and aspiration, the words are pronounced in Dravidian according to different rules of phonology and phonotactics: aspiration of plosives is generally absent, regardless of the spelling of the word. This is not a universal phenomenon and is generally avoided in formal or careful speech, especially when reciting.

For instance, Tamil does not distinguish between voiced and voiceless stops. In fact, the Tamil alphabet lacks symbols for voiced and aspirated stops.

Dravidian languages are also characterized by a three-way distinction between dental, alveolar, and retroflex places of articulation as well as large numbers of liquids.

Proto-Dravidian
Proto-Dravidian had five short and long vowels: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, *ū, *e, *ē, *o, *ō. There were no diphthongs; ai and au are treated as *ay and *av (or *aw). The five-vowel system is largely preserved in the descendent subgroups.

The following consonantal phonemes are reconstructed:

Words starting with vowels
A substantial number of words also begin and end with vowels, which helps the languages' agglutinative property.

karanu (cry), elumbu (bone), athu (that), avide (there), ithu (this), illai (no, absent)

adu-idil-illai (adu = that, idu = this, il= suffix form of "in", illai = absent, so → that-this-in-absent → that-in this-absent → that is absent in this)

Numerals
The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages (here exemplified by Hindi, Sanskrit and Marathi).


 * 1) This is the same as the word for another form of the number one in Tamil and Malayalam. This is used as an indefinite article meaning "a" and also when the number is an adjective followed by a noun (as in "one person") as opposed to when it is a noun (as in "How many are there?" "One").
 * 2) This is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning of "double" in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20, literally meaning "double-ten"), iravai (20 in Telugu), or "" ("double") or Iruvar (meaning two people) (in Tamil).
 * 3) The word tondu was also used to refer to the number nine in ancient sankam texts but was later completely replaced by the word onpadu.
 * 4) The Proto-Dravidian word "tol" is still used in Tamil to denote numbers such as 90, "thonnooru".
 * Words indicated (II) are borrowings from Indo-Iranian languages (in Brahui's case, from Persian).