Note 201 — K (continued 6)

In communicating among themselves, the Koravas and Yerukalas speak a corrupt polyglot, in which the words derived from several languages bear little resemblance to the original. Their words appear to be taken chiefly from Tamil, Telugu, and Canarese. A short vocabulary of the Yerukala language has been published by the Rev. J. Cain.201 The Yerukalas call this language Oodra, which seems to stand for gibberish or thieves’ slang, or, as they explain, something very hard to understand. Oriya or Oodra is the language of the districts of Ganjam and Orissa. The word Oriya means north, and the fact that the Yerukalas call their language Oodra would seem to confirm their belief that they are a northern tribe. The wanderers always know more than one language colloquially, and are able to make themselves understood by the people of the country through which they may be passing. Those who have settled in villages invariably speak the language of the locality. When talking among themselves, they call a Brāhman Thanniko Koravan, or the bathing Korava. They consider the Brāhmans to be more cunning than themselves, and, as they are fond of bathing to remove pollution, they have given them this nickname.