Why did pre-Kannada and pre-Telugu language speakers not abandon their languages to shift to the official Prakrit during the early historic period?

The linguists of India have ,over a period of time used many words for referring to Tamil or to avoid the usage of the word Tamil. It’s surprising to observe that the word Tamil is not found even in essential references about languages of India.

The substitute words invented for this purpose are:

• Prakrit
• Dravida
• Devanagari
• Neesha Bhasha
• Pracya,
• Bahliki,
• Daksinatya,
• Sakari,
• Candali,
• Sabari,
• Abhiri,
• Dramili,
• Odri.
• Many such alibi words.

Since Tamil is spoken/written from time immemorial in India,if there’s any page on the Indian languages and if Tamil does not figure there,be sure that some other substitute word is used in its place.

Take for example,the Wiki page on Prakrit vide Prakrit - Wikipedia .The entire page does not have a single word ‘Tamil’ any where! So,was Tamil,a pan-Indian language, not present at the relevant period ? If ‘Prakrit’ was a language ,were there native speakers called’Prakruts’? History does not support any such inference.

So,what exactly does the word ‘Prakrit’ mean ?We all know that the word ‘Sanskrit’ is derived from Tamil words ‘Samam=Levelled+Kirukku=Script’ i.e. ‘Refined Script’. Similarly ,the word ‘Prakrit’ is derived from 2 Tamil words’Pira=Other+Krit=Kirukku(Script)’ i.e. ‘Miscellaneous Scripts’.These miscellaneous languages were dialects/variations of Tamil only.

The pre-Kannada,pre-Telugu,pre-Malayalam people should have spoken Tamil obviously.The evolution of these languages from Tamil is visible through the history.

(Originally published in Quora)