The first to propose Dravidian Language family [ was: [Y-Indology] Book-Burning in India ]

[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "Narayan Prasad" <prasad_cwprs>

wrote:

 

>> (Ellis, btw, was the first to propose Dravidian language family).

 

>But Grierson recognizes Brian Hodgson as the first to propose

>Dravidian Language family [Ref 1, p.281]:

 

Dear Dr. Narayana Prasad,

 

F. W. Ellis is usually recognized as the one who first proposed

the idea of Dravidian language family. For example. Bh. Krishnamurti,

The Dravidian languages, Cambridge univ. press, 2003. p. 16-17:

"As early as 1816, Francis Whyte Ellis, an English civil servant,

in his Dissertation on the Telugu language" [...]. His purpose was

to show that Tamil, Telugu and Kannada 'form a distinct family

of languages' with which 'the Sanscrit has, in later times, espcially,

intermixed, but with which it has no radical connection'. He presented

considerable illustrative material, mainly lexical and grammatical,

from Telugu, Kannada and Tamil in support of his hypothesis

(Krishnamurti 1969b: 311-312). Ellis recognized the Dravidian languages

as a family, thirty years after Sir William Jones had floated the

concept of the language family in his famous lecture to the Asiatic

Society of Bengal in Calcutta, on 2 February 1786." BhK's book - I

chapter is at:

http://assets.cambridge.org/0521771110/sample/0521771110WS.pdf

 

Susan Okeksiw, "Francis Whyte Ellis: A Brief Review of his Work,"

Adyar Library Bulletin 51 (1987: L. Rocher Festschrift vol.), pp. 267-75.

 

There is lot of info about Ellis, Hodgson, Calwell in a paper

by Thomas Trautmann in M. Deshpande & J. Bronkhorst, Aryan and Non-Aryan

in India. In fact, it was Trautmann who told about Ellis to Ed Bryant.

May be worth checking to see if it was Hodgson's idea.

 

Prof. Trautmann sent me his 2 papers about Ellis. One is about (pre)

vaccination debates in Madras. It was written as a samvAdam between

Mariyamman and Danvantri. Unfortunately,the Tamil original may be lost

now, but Trautmann uses the English translation from London archives.

Second is on the debates about including Telugu in the Dravidian

languages, elite pundits' opposition etc., The title is something

like "haloo-baloo about Teloogoo". Have seen Ellis' poems, "paJcAkkara

mAlai" (on namasivaya mantram), there are two long inscriptions in

akaval, one in Chennai and another from Dindigul (on his tombstone).

They extensively quote tirukkuRaL.

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9802&L=indology&P=R17865

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9911&L=indology&P=R12772

 

I think it was his Tamil teachers like Saminathan, Muttusamy,

Ramachandra Kavirayar who told Ellis that Tamil does not derive from

Sanskrit. This must have raised his curiosity against the Calcutta

Orientalist scholars and pundits who said every Indian language comes

from Sanskrit. Medieval Tamil grammarians, much before Ellis, paid

close attention to studying Kannada and Telugu. There is a long

tradition comparing and contraisting Tamil and Sanskrit

in southern literature.

http://www.services.cnrs.fr/wws/arc/ctamil/2003-06/msg00002.html

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

Am Freitag, 30. Januar 2004 14:25 schrieb Narayan Prasad:

 

> > (Ellis, btw, was the first to propose Dravidian language family).

>

> But Grierson recognizes Brian Hodgson as the first to propose

> Dravidian Language family [Ref 1, p.281]:

>

> --------QUOTE-----

> B.H.Hodgson ivana kAladavaregU dakSiNabhAratada bhASegaLu [...]

 

We would have to find out when Hodgson proposed that.

 

Zvelebil notes that Francis Whyte Ellis asserted a «"family of languages which

may be appropriately called the dialects of South India", and that it

included "the high and low Tamil; the Telugu, grammatical and vulgar;

Carn'at'aca or Cannad'i, ancient and modern; Malayalma or Malayalam", further

"the Tuluva", "Cod'ugu", and "the language of the mountaineers of Rajmahal".

Thus, Ellis enumerated seven DRavidian languages (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada,

Malayalam, Tulu, Kodagu and Malto) and recognized their genetic

relationship."» (K.V. Zvelebil, _Dravidian Linguistics. An Introduction_.

Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 1990, p.

xviii.) Ellis wrote his thoughts in his introduction to A.D. Campbell's _A

Grammar of the Teloogoo Language Commonly Called the Gentoo_ (Madras: College

Press, 1816).

 

--

Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos

Department für Asienstudien - Indologie

Universität München

Deutschland