The Dravidian languages of south India, spoken by approximately 222 million speakers across South Asia, form one of the largest language families in the world. First recognized as a distinct group in the early-to-mid 19th century, the pioneering scholarship on Dravidian languages emerged in the 1970s within the Generative Linguistics paradigm. Half a century later, the body of scholarship on Dravidian languages, employing varied analytical frameworks, serves to deepen our understanding of this unique linguistic family. The Oxford Handbook of Dravidian Languages offers an accessible introduction to Dravidian languages and linguistics from a broad interdisciplinary perspective. The text examines the languages through studies that highlight their long histories, vast literatures, and current robust presence in communication. Beyond formal linguistics, the chapters cover diverse areas of inquiry such as cognition and conceptual representation, comparative philology, language and politics, lexicology, literature and literary history, and multilingualism. This Handbook compiles current, trend-setting scholarship in Dravidian studies, exploring the origins of the Dravidian peoples, their languages, and the history of script in the Indian subcontinent.
