onsiderably from the colloquial.
The oldest known specimen of a Dravidian language occurs in a Greek
play which is preserved in a papyrus of the 2nd century A.D. The exact
period to which the indigenous literature can be traced back, on the
other hand, has not been fixed with certainty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Bishop R. Caldwell, _A Comparative Grammar of the
Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages_ (London, 1856; 2nd
edition, 1875); Dr Friedrich Muller, _Reise der usterreichischen
Fregatte Novara um die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859, unter den
Befehlen des Commodore B. von Wullerstorff-Urbair: Linguistischer
Theil._ (Wien, 1867, pp. 73 and ff.); Dr Friedrich Muller, _Grundriss
der Sprachwissenschaft_, vol. iii. (Wien, 1884), pp. 106 and ff.; G.
A. Grierson, _Linguistic Survey of India_, vol. iv. "Munda and
Dravidian Languages" (Calcutta, 1906), pp. 277 and ff. by Sten Konow.
(S. K.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In Dravidian words a line above a vowel shows that it is long.
The dotted consonants t, d, and n are pronounced by striking the tip
of the tongue against the centre of the hard palate. The dotted l is
distinguished from l in a similar way. Its sound, however, differs in
the different districts. A Greek [chi] marks the sound of _ch_ in
"loch"; _s_ is the English _sh_; _c_ the _ch_ in "church"; and _ri_
is an _r_ which is used as a vowel. In the list of Dravidian
languages the names are spelt fully, with all the necessary
diacritical marks. In the rest of the article dots under consonants
have been omitted in these words.

DRAWBACK, in commerce, the paying back of a duty previously paid upon
the exportation of excisable articles or upon the re-exportation of
foreign goods. The object of a drawback is to enable commodities which
are subject to taxation to be exported and sold in a foreign country on
the same terms as goods from countries where they are untaxed. It
differs from a bounty in that the latter enables commodities to be sold
abroad at less than their cost price; it may occur, however, under
certain conditions that the giving of a drawback has an effect
equivalent to that of a bounty, as in the case of the so-called sugar
bounties in Germany (see SUGAR). The earlier tariffs contained elaborate
tables of the drawbacks allowed on the exportation or re-exportation of
commodities, but so far as the United Kingdom is concerned the system