This book describes the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole-Dravidian language family from different aspects, examining its history and writing system, structure and typology, lexicon, and recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups. The 11 chapters highlight the following: (1) "Introduction" (e.g., the Dravidian languages as a family and affinity between Dravidian and languages outside India); (2) "Phonology: Descriptive" (e.g., vowels, consonants, and suprasegmental features); (3) "The Writing Systems of the Major Literary Languages" (e.g., Telugu-Kannada script and Tamil and Malayalam scripts); (4) "Phonology: Historical and Comparative" (e.g., phonotactics and Proto-Dravidian morphophonemics); (5) "Word Formation: Roots, Stems, Formatives, Derivational Suffixes and Nominal Compounds" (e.g., phonological changes in Proto-Dravidian roots); (6) "Nominals: Nouns, Pronouns, Numerals and Time and Place Verbs" (e.g., gender and number and pronominalized nouns); (7) "The Verb" (e.g., the verbal base and series verbs); (8) "Adjectives, Adverbs and Clitic"; (9) "Syntax" (e.g., simple, compound, complex, and minor sentences); (10) "Lexicon" (e.g., loanwords from Perso-Arabic sources and from western languages); and (11) "Conclusion: A Summary and Overview" (e.g., earlier attempts at subgrouping the Dravidian languages and the subgrouping adopted in this book). (Contains 1 map, 15 figures, 66 tables, and approximately 450 bibliographic references.) (SM)