Kurux Historical Phonology Reconsidered, with a Reconstruction of Pre-Kurux-Malto Phonology and Copious Indo-Aryan and Munda Etymologies.
Kurux belongs to the Dravidian family of languages, say Kobayashi and Tirkey, and forms a close subgroup with Malto.
Kurux much later changes PKxMt /*q/ to /x/, while it remains /q/ in Malto.
The order within entries is Elamite, Brahui, Kurux, Malto, and, where relevant, other Dravidian (PPD) citations.
Kurux later shifts /*q/ to /x/, while Malto keeps /q/.
As a result, unless there is a cognate in Elamite, Kurux, or Malto, there is no way to distinguish reflexes of PZ *qufrom those of PZ *ku- in Brahui.
In this ordering, at least two geographical groups correspond with genetic subgroups: South Dravidian I (Tamil, Malayalam, Irula, Kurumba, Toda, Kota, Kodagu, Kannada, Koraga, Tulu) and North Dravidian (Kurux, Malto, Brahui).
Review of Martin Pfeiffer, Elements of Kurux Historical Phonology.
Here for the first time Bray (1934: 17-20) explicitly laid out a special relationship of Brahui with Kurux and Malto.
Burrow handled the dual velars in Brahui, Kurux, and Malto, i.e., PDr.
*c- in South and Central Dravidian, but have velars (k-, x-, kh-) in Kurux, Malto, and Brahui.
*k- is preserved as a stop before *i, *i; before the other vowels its reflex is the Kurux and Brahui voiceless velar spirant [x], which is spelled in the published sources as kh, and Malto q, the phonetic value of which is still uncertain" (Emeneau 1962: 62 [1980: 320]).