Elamo-Dravidian languages

The latest version (2015) of the hypothesis entails a reclassification of Brahui as being more closely related to Elamite than to the remaining Dravidian languages.

[1] The hypothesis has gained attention in academic circles, but has been subject to serious criticism by linguists, and remains only one of several possible scenarios for the origins of the Dravidian languages.

[5] David McAlpin, assistant professor of Dravidian languages and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, published a series of papers providing evidence supporting the theory.

According to David McAlpin, the Dravidian languages were brought to present day Pakistan by immigration from the Middle East via Elam, located in present-day southwestern Iran.

[1] Bhadriraju Krishnamurti regarded McAlpin's proposed morphological correspondences between Elamite and Dravidian to be ad hoc, and found them to be lacking phonological motivation.

[11][12][13] Apart from the linguistic similarities, the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis rests on the claim that agriculture spread from the Near East to the Indus Valley region via Elam.