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Dravidian studies (also Dravidology, Dravidiology) is the academic field devoted to the Dravidian languages, literature, and culture. It is a superset of Tamil studies and a subset of Indology.
The 16th to 18th century missionaries who wrote Tamil grammars or lexica include Henrique Henriques, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Constantino Giuseppe Beschi.
| Dravidologist | Photo | Period | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henrique Henriques | 1520–1600 | Portuguese Jesuit priest and missionary. After his initial days in Goa he moved to Tuticorin. As a missionary he strongly believed that books of religious doctrines should be in local languages. He is considered to be the first European Tamil scholar. He set up the first Tamil press and got books printed in Tamil script. The first book printed in Tamil script was "Thambiran Vanakkam" (தம்பிரான் வணக்கம்) (1578), a 16-page translation of the Portuguese "Doctrina Christam". Thereby, Tamil became the first non-European language to be printed on a printing press.[ citation needed ] | |
| Constantine Beschi also called Vīramāmunivar (Tamil: வீரமாமுனிவர்) |  | 1680 –1742 | Italian Jesuit priest and renowned poet in Tamil language. Authored several Tamil dictionaries: including the "Chaturakarati" (சதுரகராதி), a Tamil-Latin and Latin-Tamil-Portuguese dictionary. He translated the famous Thirukkural epic poem of Thiruvalluvar (1730) in Latin. His greatest poetical work is the " Thembavani " (தேம்பாவணி) (the Unfading Garland), a poem on the life of Saint Joseph. |
| Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg |  | 1682–1719 | Lutheran clergy member and the first Pietist missionary to India. He was among the first Protestant missionaries to arrive in India at the Danish colony of Tranquebar in 1706. He translated the Old and the New Testament into Tamil. In 1708 he compiled "Bibliothece Malabarke", listing the 161 Tamil books he had read and described their content. |
The recognition that the Dravidian languages were a phylogenetic unit separate from Indo-European dates to 1816, and was presented by F. W. Ellis, Collector of Madras, at the College of Fort St. George.
The 19th century contributors to the field of Dravidology were:
| Dravidologist | Photo | Period | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francis Whyte Ellis | 1777-1819 | Civil servant. First to propose a Dravidian family of languages | |
| Charles Phillip Brown | 1798–1884 | Collected 2,106 hand written books in South Indian Languages (now with Chennai Library). He provided three services for the Telugu language: he produced his own works in Telugu; he recovered and discovered old Telugu works; and he printed books in Telugu. He authored numerous translations of Telugu works into English. | |
| Robert Caldwell |  | 1814-1891 | Research into the languages and the history of the Dravidian region. |
| Hermann Gundert |  | 1814 – 1893 | Authored Malayalam grammar book, "Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam" (1859) and a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872). Published thirteen Malayalam books including Bible translations. |
| Ferdinand Kittel |  | 1832–1903 | Kannada language and the first Kannada-English dictionary of about 70,000 words in 1894. |
| Benjamin Lewis Rice | 1837-1927 | Renowned for his work Epigraphia Carnatica which contains his study of about 9000 inscriptions found in the Old Mysore area. He published twelve volumes over ten years between 1894 and 1905. He authored "The History of Mysore and Coorg" from inscriptions included in the Epigraphia Carnatica. | |
| U. V. Swaminatha Iyer | 1855–1942 | 91 books related to classical Tamil literature. Collected 3,067 paper and palm-leaf manuscripts. | |
| T. R. Sesha Iyengar | 1887-1939 | Dravidologist renowned for his book "Dravidian India". | |
| K. A. Nilakanta Sastri |  | 1892–1975 | Renowned Dravidologist and prolific historian. Authored 25 historical works mostly on the history of South India. |
| P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar | 1863–1931 | Noted Dravidologist of the 20th century. Authored numerous works on Tamil and Indian history. | |
| Sakkottai Krishnaswami Aiyangar | 1871–1946 | Noted for his work in turning around and running the "Journal of Indian History" in the 1920s. He authored many historical works on South Indian and Indian history. | |
| Korada Ramakrishnaiah | 1891–1962 | Authored 26 works of fundamental importance and extended the borders of Research in Telugu. | |
| V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar | 1896–1953 | Known for authoring numerous works on Tamil and Indian history. | |
The noted Dravidologists from the twentieth century are:
| Dravidologist | Photo | Period | Work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Murray Barnson Emeneau | 1904-2005 | Renowned for his work the "Dravidian Etymological Dictionary" (1961), written with Thomas Burrow. Emeneau studies lesser known languages of the Dravidian family - Toda, Badaga, Kolami and Kota. Emeneau is also credited with the study of areal phenomena in linguistics, with his seminal article, "India as a Linguistic Area". | |
| T. Burrow | 1909-1986 | Renowned for his work the "Dravidian Etymological Dictionary" (1961), written with Murray Barnson Emeneau. Also known for his work in Sanskrit. | |
| Kamil Zvelebil |  | 1927–2009 | Czech scholar in Indian literature and Dravidian linguistics. Author of numerous books on Dravidian linguistics and Tamil literature. |
| Bhadriraju Krishnamurti |  | 1928–2012 | Eminent Dravidianist and one of the most respected Indian linguists of his generation. His work "The Dravidian Languages" is considered a landmark volume in the study of Dravidian linguistics. His work "Telugu Verbal Bases" (1961) is the first comprehensive account of comparative Dravidian phonology. He is also author of numerous works in Telugu and English on the subject. |
| Iravatham Mahadevan | 1930–2018 | Renowned for his work on the decipherment of the Tamil-Brahmi script. He also published a corpus of the Indus script and stood by the Dravidian hypothesis. | |
The Dravidian University at Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh has created Chairs in the names of Western and Dravidian scholars to encourage research in individual Dravidian languages as well as comparative Dravidian studies: [1]
The 2021 Indian documentary film Dreaming of Words traces the life and work of Njattyela Sreedharan, a fourth standard drop-out, who compiled a multilingual dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil. [2] [3] [4] Travelling across four states and doing extensive research, he spent twenty five years [5] making this multilingual dictionary.
The Dravidian languages are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Dravidian is first attested in the 2nd century BCE, as inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi script on cave walls in the Madurai and Tirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu.
Tamil, also spelt Thamizh, is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian Union territory of Puducherry. Tamil is also spoken by significant minorities in the four other South Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also spoken by the Tamil diaspora found in many countries, including Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and Mauritius. Tamil is also natively spoken by the Sri Lankan Moors. One of 22 scheduled languages in the Constitution of India, Tamil was the first to be classified as a classical language of India.
Malayalam is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was designated a "Classical Language of India" in 2013. Malayalam has official language status in Kerala and Puducherry (Mahé), and is also the primary spoken language of Lakshadweep and is spoken by 34 million people in India. Malayalam is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the neighbouring states; with a significant number of speakers in the Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka, and Kanyakumari and Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. It is also spoken by the Malayali Diaspora worldwide, especially in the Persian Gulf countries, due to the large populations of Malayali expatriates there. They are a significant population in each city in India including Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune etc. Malayalam is closely related to the Tamil language.
Tulu is a Dravidian language whose speakers are concentrated in Dakshina Kannada and in the southern part of Udupi of Karnataka in south-western India and also in the northern parts of the Kasaragod district of Kerala. The native speakers of Tulu are referred to as Tuluva or Tulu people and the geographical area is unofficially called Tulu Nadu.
The Kodava is an endangered Dravidian language and it is spoken in Kodagu district in Southern Karnataka, India. The term Kodava has two related usages. Firstly, it is the name of the Kodava language and culture followed by a number of communities from Kodagu. Secondly, within the Kodava-speaking communities and region (Kodagu), it is a demonym for the dominant Kodava people. Hence, the Kodava language is not only the primary language of the Kodavas but also of many other castes and tribes in Kodagu. The language has two dialects: Mendele and Kiggat.
Kasaragod is a municipal town and administrative headquarters of Kasaragod district in the state of Kerala, India. Established in 1966, Kasaragod was the first municipal town in the district. It is the northernmost district of Kerala and is also known as Saptha Bhasha Sangama Bhoomi.
Robert Caldwell was a missionary for London Missionary Society. He arrived in British India at age 24, and studied the local language to spread the word of the Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a text on comparative grammar of the South Indian languages. In his book, Caldwell proposed that there are Dravidian words in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the archaic Greek language, and the places named by Ptolemy.
Hermann Gundert was a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the maternal grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. Gundert is chiefly known for his contributions as an Indologist, and compiled a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), in which he developed and constricted the grammar spoken by the Malayalis, nowadays; a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on Bible translations into Malayalam. He worked primarily at Tellicherry on the Malabar coast, in present day Kerala, India. Gundert also contributed to the fields of history, geography and astronomy.
Tamil–Kannada is an inner branch of the Southern Dravidian I subfamily of the Dravidian languages that include Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. There have been slight differences in the way Dravidian languages are grouped by various Dravidian linguists. Tamil–Kannada itself is designated as a branch of the South Dravidian I subfamily and in turn branches off into Tamil–Kota and Kannada–Badaga. The languages that constitute the Tamil–Kannada branch are Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Irula, Toda, Kota, Kodava, and Badaga.
Tigalari, also known as Tulu script, is a Southern Brahmic script which was used to write Tulu, Kannada, and Sanskrit languages. It was primarily used for writing Vedic texts in Sanskrit. It evolved from the Grantha script. It is called as Tigalari lipi in Kannada-speaking regions and Tulu speakers call it as Tulu lipi. It bears high similarity and relationship to its sister script Malayalam, which also evolved from the Grantha script.
Since the Iron Age in India, the native languages of the Indian subcontinent are divided into various language families, of which the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian are the most widely spoken. There are also many languages belonging to unrelated language families such as Munda and Tibeto-Burman, spoken by smaller groups.
Constantine Joseph Beschi, also known under his Tamil name of Vīramāmunivar, was an Italian Jesuit priest, missionary in South India, and Tamil language littérateur.
Kudiyirikkal Narayanan Ezhuthachan was an Indian writer and scholar of Malayalam literature. He was one among the principal followers of the idea of social impact on literature. Ezhuthachan supported Marxist literary criticism and interpreted Indian literary works based on Marxist aesthetics. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his work Keralodayam, a long narrative poem written in Sanskrit. He is the first Malayali to win Sahitya Akademi Award in Sanskrit. He died on 28 October 1981 while delivering a lecture at Calicut University.
Francis Whyte Ellis (1777–1819) was a British civil servant in the Madras Presidency and a scholar of Tamil and Sanskrit.
The introduction and early development of printing in South India is attributed to missionary propaganda and the endeavours of the British East India Company. Among the pioneers in this arena, maximum attention is claimed by the Jesuit missionaries, followed by the Protestant Fathers and Hindu Pandits. Once the immigrants realized the importance of the local language, they began to disseminate their religious teachings through that medium, in effect ushering in the vernacular print culture in India. The first Tamil booklet was printed in 1554 in Lisbon - Cartilha em lingoa Tamul e Portugues in Romanized Tamil script by Vincente de Nazareth, Jorge Carvalho and Thoma da Cruz, all from the Paravar community of Tuticorin.
P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri was a Sanskrit scholar, who also acquired mastery over Tamil language and literature. He was the first to translate Tolkāppiyam into English.
Korada Mahadeva Sastri was an Indian linguist. His classic work Historical Grammar of Telugu was the first systematic study on the development of Telugu Language. It provides a survey of the historical development of the Telugu Language from the earliest times. This work helped decipher some Indus Valley seals. He was a founder member of the Dravidian Linguistics Association of India. He was awarded the 2011 C.P.Brown award and Sri Kalapurna award for his lifetime achievements.
Korada Ramakrishnaiya was a Dravidian Philologist and litterateur. He was the first Telugu scholar to publish research works on Comparative Dravidian Linguistics (CDL). He published the first Literary Criticism based on modern methods 'Andhra Bharata Kavita Vimarshanamu'.
Njattyela Sreedharan is a lexicographer from Thalassery in Kerala. He is known for compiling a dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu.
Dreaming of Words is a 2021 Indian documentary film directed and produced by Nandan. Dreaming of Words has received numerous accolades including National Film Award for Best Educational/Motivational/Instructional Film (2020) awarded to Nandan as both director and producer at the 68th National Film Awards. The documentary traces the life and work of Njattyela Sreedharan, a fourth standard drop-out, who compiles a dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages.
