There is no definite origin of Dravidian language. Though it is said that the Dravidian language has some connections with the Indus-Valley civilization. Francis W Ellis a British civil servant first recognized this language as an Independent language in 1816. The term Dravidian came from the Sanskrit word Dravida (which Historically meant Tamil). The Dravidian language family today includes 75 languages spoken by over millions of people in southern India, Sri Lanka, and certain areas of Pakistan and in Nepal. The prevailing theory is that speakers of Dravidian languages split into Northern, Central, and Southern ancestral languages somewhere around 1,500 BC. Dravidian languages are spoken in India (mainly in its southern, eastern, and central parts), in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), and in diaspora communities in S.E. Asia, Pacific Islands, eastern Africa, and elsewhere.

A well-established assumption is that Dravidian language speakers were spread all across India. The only Dravidian language that is spoken entirely outside India is Brahui, who live in Sindh and Balochistan provinces of southern Pakistan and a smaller number in Afghanistan. Of the Dravidian languages, Tamil has the oldest literature, paralleled in India only by that of Sanskrit. Its phonological and grammatical systems corresponded in many points to the ancestral parent language, called Proto-Dravidian. Proto-Dravidians used only suffixes, never prefixes or infixes, in the construction of inflected forms. Hence, the roots of words always occurred at the beginning.

The four major languages of Dravidian family are Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Malayalam is closely related to Tamil, it is spoken in Kerala. This language possesses an Independent written script and is also rich in modern literature. There are at least three main regional dialects (North, Central, South) of Malayalam and a number of communal dialects. People of Karnataka speak Kannada. Kannada has at least three social dialects, which are recognized as Brahmin, non-Brahmin, Harijan i.e. the Untouchables. A number of regional dialects also exist namely Dharwar, Bangalore and Mangalore. Kannada also has an important ancient modern literature.

Telugu is the official language of Andhra Pradesh and is spoken in and around Andhra. It holds a dichotomy between the written and spoken styles; it also has a sharply distinctive local & regional dialect including Telangana, coastal area, Rayalaseema and a `transitional zone`. Telugu has divisions between Brahmin, non-Brahmin and Harijan speech. The language has its own script, closely akin to that of Kannada, and an important literary tradition. To the south of the Kannada territory, people speak Tulu, a South Dravidian language having no developed written literature. Thus a form of Proto-Dravidian, or perhaps Proto-North Dravidian, must have been extensive in northern India before the advent of the Aryans. Finally, the almost universal adoption of Indo-Aryan in the north and of Dravidian in the south has covered up the original linguistic diversity of India. Till date nothing is known about the history of non-literary Dravidian language before their discovery that began in the end of 18th century. Dravidian languages have shown an extensive vocabulary borrowing but only a few of grammatical borrowing from the Indo-Aryan tongue.