A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages c8.22

c8.22

I have little doubt that the root of the Dravidian word is native, not foreign, though it is difficult now to identify it with certainty. I can scarcely agree with Dr Gundert in connecting it with the root of *iruḷ*, darkness, *irâ*, night, a root which also, he thinks, appears in *îr*, to saw. If we consider the latter verb, however, with its derivatives, apart from its supposed connection with *iruḷ*, darkness, it may be found to supply us with the true root. *îr* means not merely to saw, but still more frequently to pull asunder, to split; and from division into two by the act of pulling asunder, *ir*, *îr*, the word for two, may have been derived. The radical form of *îr*, two, was doubtless short, *ir*; but the earliest shape of *îr*, to pull asunder, may also have been short, as monosyllables ending in consonants seem generally to have been. There is another root common to all the Dravidian languages, *ir*, to be; but this seems to be quite independent both of *ir*, dark, and of *ir*, two.