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Sourashtra or Saurashtra or ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬꢵ or Palkar refers to the language spoken by the community of people native to Gujarat, who then migrated and settled in South India. The language is mainly spoken by Saurashtrian communities all over South India. Madurai in South India has the highest number of people belonging to this community and also remains as their cultural center. The origin of the name dates back to the time when the ancestors of these people inhabiting the kingdom of Saurashtra in the modern day state of Gujarat. Different roots were suggested for the origin of the name Saurashtra. Sou in Hindi refers to the number,'100' and rashtra refers to 'region'. So in general, sourashtra refers to a province of 100 regions. Another possible origin of the word is, the Sanskrit term Saura means sun. Since Saurashtra people built and worshipped Sun or Saura God they were called as Saurashtrians and the region they lived was naturally called as Saurashtra Province. Oral tradition says that, Saurashtrians migrated after the fall of 'Somnath Temple' when Ghazini Mohammed invaded India. It is said that the Saurashtrians lived for about two centuries in northern regions of modern day Maharashtra and later moved to Vijayanagar Empire by the invitation of the Kings. Saurashtrians were highly-skilled manufacturers of fine silk garments and were patronized by the Kings and their families. They were welcomed by the Naicker Kings of Madurai and were allowed to settle near the King's palace. This could be evident from the fact, that even today there is a huge concentration of Saurashtra People living around the Tirumalai Nayak palace in Madurai. The Tamil name by which these people is known in Southern India is Patnūlkarar, that is silk-thread workers or weavers who speak Pattunuli, a dialect of Gujarati. The details about Sourashtra community is discussed by A.J. Saunders. Sourashtra, also known as Palkar. Sowrashtra, Saurashtram, is an Indo-Aryan language derived from Sauraseni Prakrit. The Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 510,000 (1997 IMA), although the actual number could be double this figure or even more. Equivalent of Saurashtra in the Linguistic Survey has been recorded as Saurashtri which is yet another name of Patnuli dialect of Gujarati spoken by the silk weaving community of Madurai who are considered to have migrated from Gujarat to the south several centuries ago. On the basis of current preference for the name of their mother tongue, we have, however, adopted the name ‘Saurashtra’ and not Saurashtri. On account of several generations of association in the Dravidian Language area, the speech is supposed to have been strongly affected by Dravidian traits. We preferred to call that dialect of Gujarati with such traits as Saurashtra. … Regarding Saurashtra, however, some interest has been shown, of late, on the technical aspects of this variety while the inclination to affiliate it with Marathi is also visible among some scholars. In any case, some authoritative work on this variety of language remains to be done. Pending the same, however, we have to keep it under Gujarati according to the Linguistic Survey. vide Census of India 1961 Vol. I INDIA Part II –C (ii) Language Tables, Published by the Manager of Publications, Civil Lines, Delhi, pp.  CCXLIV + 554, (1967). The migration might have taken place in various groups at different times and they settled in many places in Tamil Nadu. Later Hyder Ali invited some families from Thanjavur to settle in Srirangapattanam in Karnataka. Those people are now in Bangalore after the fall of Srirangapattanam and they are called as 'Jamkhaanadavaru'. Similarly some families went to Andhra and settled in Tirupati. Because of lack of frequent communications, there are so many dialect variations in this Language. The majority of people (a sizeable number) are settled in Madurai. Other major Towns of their settlement are Ambur, Ammapettai, Ammaiyappan, Arani, Arantangi, Ariyalur, Ayyampettai, Bangalore, Bhuvanagiri, Chamarajanagara, Chennai(Madras), Dindigul, Darasuram, Kanchipuram, Kanyakumari, Kottar, Kumbakonam, Kurinjipadi, Melamangalam, Mysore, Namakkal, Nilakottai, Palani, Palayamkottai, Paramkudi,Parampur, Parmathi,Pasikkadai, Periyakulam, Pondicherry,Pudukottai, Pudukudi, Ramanathapuram, Rasipuram,Salem, Shevvapet,Thanjavur, Tiruchi, Tiruvappur,Tirubhuvanam, Tuvarankurichi,Uraiyur, Vathalakundu. Vellankuzh, Vellore, Viravanallur, Walajapettai, Yamaneswaram etc. In history they are referred to as Patkar, Pattegar, Patvekar and Patnulkarar. In Tamil the weaving community is referred to as ‘Kaikkolar’. In Tamil Nadu State they are called Sourashtra (Patnulkarar) or merely Palkar. Edgar Thurston refers this Community as Pattunulkaran. The details about Sourashtra community are discussed by A.J. Saunders [1 1]. A History of the Sourashtras in Southern India by the Sourashtra Literary Societies of Madura and Madras was published on 17 January 1891 under the Chairmanship of Sri T.M. Ramaswamaiyo, the Secretary being Sri K.V. Subbaiyo. In that book, it is stated that the following books were consulted: Dr. Balfour Encyclopedia of India, Ramesh Chander Dutt's Ancient India, Alexander Cunnigham's Ancient Geography of India, Tod's Rajasthan, Professor Lassen on Prakrita Languages, Bombay Gazeteer, Researches of the Asiatic Society, A Grammar of the Gondian Languages. The Ethnologue puts the number of speakers at 310,000 (1997 IMA), although the actual number could be double tor even three times this figure or even more because many people wrongly stated their mother tongue as Tamil in census enumeration as it is not taught in school and it remained mainly a spoken language, though Literature are available in Sourashtra, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Roman and Devanagari Scripts. Now Journals in Sourashtra script are published, such as Bhashabhimani, Zeek, Jaabaali, and Sourashtra Mithran.
Source : DBpedia

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