In other words, Sanskrit had not simply gained six new sounds: it had also gained a more general contrast—dental versus retroflex—one that permeated its entire sound system. And since this contrast is part of all the Dravidian languages spoken in south India, like Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu,5 but non-existent in any of the Indo-European languages to the north of India like Persian, Greek, Latin or the modern European languages, Deshpande was certain that retroflex sounds had to have come into Sanskrit from a Dravidian source.
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