Thus Sir Jones can not be wholly held responsible for not giving attention to Dravidian. Besides, a shadow of darkness had fallen upon India, and the Indians were on their way to loose all of their land, freedom, and even their independence of intellect. They had already receded into hibernation which was to turn soon into a deep coma ironically induced by themselves, and the sight was not encouraging to conceive their language as the parent-language of the Europeans whom fortune had begun to favor. But the fact remains that it was still a crucial juncture in the history of languages and Sir Jones was the most capable person to have presided over it. But he too committed the one mistake that no scholar of languages can afford to commit: ignoring a language or languages no matter how insignificant they or their speakers may have come to be considered. He ignored Dravidian. The identity of the common source of Indo-European is not, therefore, a mystery. What is mysterious is that how the astounding scholar, Sir Jones, who, even before such important discoveries as the Indo-European phonetic correspondences and the recognition of Indo-European root-words was fully convinced that the Indo-European languages had sprung from a common source, missed Dravidian in the context of its identity while he was in India, while he was cognizant of the fact that prehistoric Europe was populated by a people whose speech was suspected to have given birth to such Indo-European languages as the Celtic, Greek, and Latin, and while he could not have missed hearing the millions of Indians’ speaking the Dravidian languages day in and day out in the same land which was also the seat of Sanskrit.

From this juncture, Dravidian and Indo-European studies embarked upon diametrically opposite journeys both in quality and output. For the next hundred and seventy five years or so, Dravidian studies which were largely conducted by European scholars whether stationed in India or abroad, went limping and halting with no particular plan or goal. It is curious or even mysterious that in spite of the fact that all the European scholars of the Dravidian studies were fully familiar with the path, process, growth, and development of Indo-European Linguistics since its birth which was one of the direct results of the Europeans’ realization of the existence of Sanskrit in India and that of many ancient Indian texts such as Panini’s monumental work on linguistics: Ashtadhyayi, none of them showed any particular inclination to be a Rask, Bopp, or Isac Grimm of the Dravidian languages. They showed great interest in Dravidian words, and strenuously collected them and compiled some of the first Dravidian dictionaries. But they did not pay any particular attention to the many important phonetic correspondences in Dravidian. Some of them who attempted to explain certain other aspects of Dravidian were not always correct in their assessment and explanations of them, and this included such students of Dravidian studies as Jules Bloch whose appallingly blatant mistakes were bluntly pointed out in America by an American linguistic publication (Language Monographs - Linguistic Society of America; Number V; September, 1930; p. 15). And there is a shocking number of instances such as these which have further disfigured or covered up the true image and significance of Dravidian.

The chance to correct Sir Jones’ ignoring of Dravidian slipped away almost entirely because of another unfortunate episode the grievous effects of which, like cancer, eat away at the heart of independence of modern Indian thinking concerning various aspects of India and the Indian phenomenon. Having divided in their own minds and writings the Indian languages and their speakers into northern and southern, the Indian civilization into Aryan, semi-Aryan, non-Aryan, and even non-Indian, a number of European scholars began to portion out this poison in liberal quantities to the already impotent native scholars of India. By illustration and demonstration they showed them how to condemn their own ancient languages and culture. They instilled into them that Dravidian languages are the languages of the barbarians lately trying to be a little civilized; that they have little or no originality; that they cropped up somehow with no antiquity or heritage, so on and so forth. The native Dravidian scholars became increasingly incapable of realizing, let alone exposing, the originality of Dravidian. Like a living mummy, Dravidian came to be bound and gagged by her own self-appointed spokespersons. Bombarded and confounded by numerous misleading theories concerning Dravidian, the native Dravidian scholars treated their own language phenomenon with contempt; worse yet, like an orphan in her own land.

Some so-called native Dravidian scholars raised this sort of self-flagellation to such an art form and addiction that the grotesque scene alarmed some of the European scholars themselves. Many of them took upon themselves to kindly inform the concerned individuals that they were cutting their own throats; that Dravidian is indeed of great antiquity and that it needs to be studied and not condemned; that they were desecrating the sanctity and honor of an ancient, independent, and illustrious language phenomenon of which by accident of birth they are fortunate to be part of; that Dravidian and Sanskrit share and manifest the same religious and cultural phenomena of India; that a remarkable number of Dravidian elements are there even in the oldest of the Vedas, the Rig Veda; that there is no trace of the Europeans in the Vedas or in any other ancient scripture of India; that a striking number of great sages and thinkers of ancient India were dark skinned Dravidians; that traditionally Indian gods and goddesses are conceived as dark in color; and that there is more to Dravidian than they could possibly ever comprehend.