Proto-Dravidian : *jal-
Meaning : night, darkness
Notes : An interesting Tamil-NDR isogloss. The Tamil variants el and even yālam speak in favour of an original *y- (presumably before a short vowel, since otherwise the general lack of length is hard to explain); if so, the forms are easily comparable to Kur. ellnā. Burrow & Emeneau also draw a comparison with Tam. nallam, based on the presumption of the free variation n- ~ 0- in Dravidian, but this is not at all realistic. On the other hand, the semantic relation between this local root and the more common *ńāḷ- 'night' still has to be ascertained. // Present in 2/6 branches.
