Total population | |
---|---|
10,000-12,000 | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Chennai · Kolkata · New Delhi · Hyderabad · Bangalore · Visakhapatnam | |
Languages | |
German · English | |
Religion | |
Christianity · Sikhism · Hinduism · Judaism · Islam · Zoroastrianism · Buddhism · Baháʼí · Jainism · Irreligion · Atheism | |
Related ethnic groups | |
German people |
There is a small community of Germans in India consisting largely of expatriate professionals from Germany and their families as well as international students at Indian universities.
The first Germans to arrive in India were missionaries. Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, sent by Frederick IV of Denmark, came to eastern India for the propagation of the Gospel in the early 1700s. He along with Heinrich Plütschau became the first Protestant missionaries to India when they arrived at Tranquebar on July 9, 1706. [1] In the late 1800s V. Nagel came to the Malabar Coast. He learned the Malayalam language and wrote several hymns. [2] Hermann Gundert (1814–1893) also worked as a missionary scholar in Malayalam-speaking areas, where he translated the Bible into Malayalam. He also prepared a grammar of Malayalam and a bilingual dictionary and established two periodicals in Malayalam.
In recent years, many German expatriates have either permanently moved or established long-term residence in India. Today, German expatriates have a strong presence in India, mainly in the mining and heavy engineering sector. In a 2007 news report, according to an executive of Locatech GmbH, an IT company, the availability of skill and the importance of intellectual property rights is well established in India at all levels – statutory, administrative and judicial. Therefore, doing business in India in comparison to China is considered a safe bet by some Germans in small and medium scale industries which intend to go global. [3] [ undue weight? – discuss ]
Chennai has a significant German community of around 8,000 people and they have integrated well with the local population.[ citation needed ] They mainly work in the banking, information technology, automobile, leather trading, education and food production industries. IIT Madras, a leading engineering and research institution located in Chennai, was established in 1959 with German assistance. [4] [5] Some higher educational institutions in the city have significant numbers of German students and teachers.[ citation needed ]
Tharangambadi, formerly Tranquebar, is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on the Coromandel Coast. It lies 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Karaikal, near the mouth of a distributary named Uppanar of the Kaveri River. Tranquebar was established on 19 November 1620 as the first Danish trading post in India. King Christian IV had sent his envoy Ove Gjedde who established contact with Raghunatha Nayak of Tanjore. An annual tribute was paid by the Danes to the Rajah of Tanjore until the colony of Tranquebar was sold to the British East India Company in 1845.
Thalassery, formerly Tellicherry, is a municipality and commercial city on the Malabar Coast in Kannur district in the state of Kerala, India, bordered by the districts of Mahe, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kasaragod and Kodagu (Karnataka). Thalassery municipality has a population of just under 100,000 as of 2011 census. Thalassery Heritage City has an area of 23.98 square kilometres (9.26 sq mi). Thalassery has an altitude ranging from 2.5 to 30 metres above mean sea-level.
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.
Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1732), also known as Arnos Pathiri, was a German Jesuit priest and missionary, best known for his contributions as a Malayalam and Sanskrit poet, grammarian, lexicographer, and philologist. He lived in India for most of his life and became a scholar of Sanskrit and Malayalam languages before authoring Puthen Pana, a poem on the life of Jesus Christ, Malayalam–Portuguese Dictionary, the first dictionary in Malayalam as well as two linguistic treatises, Malayalavyaakaranam and Sidharoopam.
Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg was a member of the Lutheran clergy and the first Pietist missionary to India.
Rev. N. Samuel of Tranquebar was a professor in divinity, pastor in the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (T.E.L.C.), and a hymnodist. He was a famous poet and author of many books. He was also the first member of the Leipzig Evangelical Lutheran Mission (L.E.L.M.) Council.
Dravidian studies 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 Diocese of Medak is one of the prominent Dioceses in the Church of South India, a United Protestant Church with its headquarters in Medak comprising nearly 200 Presbyters ministering to Telugu, Lambadi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindustani, English and other linguistic groups numbering nearly 1/3rds of a million spread over 105 pastorates and administered through 3 District Church Councils (DCC), namely, the Town DCC, the Medak DCC and the Godavari DCC geographically located in the erstwhile civil districts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Medak, Rangareddy, Hyderabad and Mahboobnagar in Telangana.
Volbrecht Nagel was a German missionary to the Malabar coast of India. Initially associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church, he later joined the Open Brethren, and is remembered now as a pioneer of the Kerala Brethren movement.
Johann Philipp Fabricius was a German Christian missionary and a Tamil scholar in the later part of his life. He arrived in South India in 1740 to take charge of a small Tamil Lutheran congregation in Madras and expanded it during his stay. During his time in Madras he wrote several Christian hymns in Tamil and published the first Tamil to English Dictionary. Of his works his translation of the Bible to Tamil is considered to be most noteworthy.
Christianity in the state of Tamil Nadu, India is the second largest religion in the state. According to tradition, St. Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, landed in Malabar Coast in AD 52. In the colonial age many Portuguese, Dutch, British and Italian Christians came to Tamil Nadu. Priests accompanied them not only to minister the colonisers but also to spread the Christian faith among the non-Christians in Tamil Nadu. Currently, Christians are a minority community comprising 6% of the total population. Christians are mainly concentrated in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu - Kanyakumari, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli.
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.
Translation of the Bible into Malayalam began in 1806. Church historians say Kayamkulam Philipose Ramban, a scholar from Kayamkulam, translated the Bible from Syriac into Malayalam in 1811 to help the faithful get a better understanding of the scripture. The Manjummal translation is the first Catholic version of the Bible in Malayalam. This is the direct translation from Latin. The four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles were translated by the inmates of the Manjummal Ashram, Fr. Aloysius, Fr. Michael and Fr. Polycarp. The Pancha Granthy came out from Mannanam under the leadership of Nidhirikkal Mani Kathanar in 1924. The Catholic New Testament was published in full in 1940, and has influenced development of the modern language.
The history of Bible translations into the Tamil language commences with the arrival of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg at Tranquebar in 1706.Johann Philipp Fabricius, a German, revised Ziegenbalg's and others work to produce the standard Tamil version. Seventy years after Fabricius, at the invitation of Peter Percival a Saiva scholar, Arumuka Navalar, produced a "tentative" translation, which is known as the "Navalar version," and was largely rejected by Tamil Protestants.
The New Jerusalem Church was built in 1718 by the Royal Danish missionary Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in the coastal town of Tranquebar, India, which was at that time a Danish India colony. The church is located on King Street, and church services are conducted every Sunday. The church, along with other buildings of the Tranquebar Mission, was damaged during the tsunami of 2004, and were renovated at a cost of INR 7 million, and re-consecrated in 2006.
The Tranquebar Mission was established in 1706 by two German missionaries from Halle namely, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau. Ziegenbalg and Plütschau responded to the appeal of King Frederick IV of Denmark to establish a mission for the natives, living in the Danish East India Company colony of Tranquebar. The mission was responsible for the printing and publication of the Bible in the Tamil language. In 2006, the 300 years anniversary of the mission was celebrated by the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (TELC), with many international delegates in attendance. A monument to acknowledge 300 years of the mission was raised by the TELC on this occasion.
New Jerusalem Church is one of the oldest churches in Tharangambadi (Tranquebar), a Danish settlement in Nagapattinam district in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is in the premises of Fort Dansborg, built with the help of Danish king Christian IV in an agreement with Danish Admiral Ove Gjedde in 1717 and acted as the base for Danish settlement in the region during the early 17th century. The Church was built in 1717 Rev Bartholomew zigenbalg by A.D by Rev. Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg and has records from the 18th and 19th centuries. He is believed to be the first Protestant missionary in India and the Church is believed to be the first Protestant Church in India.
Heinrich Plütschau was along with Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, the first German Lutheran priest to arrive in India.
Wilhelm Germann was a German Protestant theologian and missionary.