A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages

Robert Caldwell

Trübner, 1875 - Dravidian languages - 608 pages

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This is a later edition of a classic work first published in 1856, followed by a second edition, much expanded by the author, in 1875. It was republished by Asian Educational Services of New Delhi in 1913, and copies of that book appeared in 1987 and 1998. Other modern editions also exist.
The author, Robert Caldwell 1814-91, was a Christian missionary in South India for more than fifty years, and in 1877 was consecrated Bishop in Tirunelveli. He came to international recognition as an orientalist of the first quality as a result of his ground-breaking research and this book which resulted. In it he shows that the South Indian languages of Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Malayalam etc., are a separate family of languages. He named them ‘Dravidian’, affirming their antiquity, separate literary history, and their independence from Sanskrit and the Indo-Aryan languages.
The implications of this were far-reaching. It meant that these Dravidian languages, their societies and culture had existed prior to the arrival in South India of the Brahmans, and that the intrinsic differences in physical anthropology, religion, and social structures that existed were part of a separate and distinctive Dravidian development. Caldwell, by this book, can therefore be seen as having helped to lay the foundations in South India for the strongly anti-Brahman cultural and political movements which followed in the 20th century.
Thomas Trautmann writes of this book: "Caldwell showed the full extent of the Dravidian family, and demonstrated the relations among the languages in a richness of detail that has made it a classic work, still in print. The real significance of what Caldwell accomplished was not the first conception of the Dravidian family, but the consolidation of the proof”. This was reinforced by Caldwell’s other monumental work on the history of the region (“A Political & General History of the District of Tinnevelly from earliest times ...”, 1881).
References:
Y. Vincent Kumaradoss: “Robert Caldwell: A Scholar-Missionary in Colonial South India”. ISPCK 2007, pp.147-149.
Robert Eric Frykenberg: “Robert Caldwell, missionary and orientalist”. OUP (Oxford DNB) 2004-07.
Thomas Trautmann: “Inventing the History of South India” in David Ali (ed) “Invoking the Past: The Uses of History in South Asia”. New Delhi OUP 2002, p.41. 

Contents

• INTRODUCTION: 1
• Vomit 1520: 15
• Origin of the term Corornandel 25: 20
• tuguese equivalent of Mabar 25 Derivation from name of village: 26
• The Dravidian idiom not merely provincial dialects of the same language: 42
• lars were derived from Sanskrit erroneous 43 List of sixty words: 49
• dialects by Brahmans 51 Thirteen particulars in which the Dravidian: 55
• To what group of Languages are the Dravidian idioms to be affiliated t 6480: 64
• fessor Max Muller 65 Intercomparison of the Scythian languages: 80
• Sanskrit words contained in Tamil belong to three different periods: 89
• Political and Social Relation of the Primitive Dravidians to: 107
• PrsAryan Civilisation of the Dravidians 117118: 117
• Relative Antiquity of Dbavidian Litebatdbe 123153: 123
• 1 The Jaina Cycle: 129
• tungaChola Rajendras date 135 Date of RamSuuja 136 Auveiyars: 137
• 5 The Cycle of the Literary Revival 144145: 144
• Introduction of good colloquial prose 150 Comparison: 153
• of Dravidian languages Those languages the vernaculars of Southern: 3
• nouns much used in these passives third person neuter required simi: 5
• Enumeration op Dravidian Languages 944: 9
• Malatalam 2021: 20
• Consonants 2148: 21
• Suggestion of Dr Gundert Colonel Yules communication Maldives: 28
• Labials and semivowels Tamil rule 27 Vocalic r 28 Cerebral: 31
• applications of the name 34: 34
• Dravidian element in the Maler and Oraon not clearly ascertained 40: 40
• Dialectic Interchange of Consonants 4862: 48
• Euphonic Permutation of Consonants 6264: 62
• shape of certain Tamil adverbs of place 66 Suffixes with t and d nasal: 68
• Use of v y and n 72 Use of to 73 Use of n in Tamil: 76
• Harmonic Sequence of Vowels 7779: 77
• ment of vowels 83 3 Rejection of radical consonants 84 4 Accent: 86
• Dravidian Soots originally Monosyllabic 93: 93
• Formative Additions to Boots 96101: 99
• Changet in SootVowels 103: 103
• sion rootvowels of pronouns 109 3 Strengthening of rootvowel: 113
• Numrer: 120
• 3 Neuter Singular 126128: 126
• Principles of Pluralisation 128135: 128
• 2 Pluralising Particle of the Neuta 140147: 142
• Formation of Casks 148203: 148
• 2 Final n of personal pronoun does not make it a nominative 3: 154
• rally the base receives some augmentation Signs of case added to this: 155
• lar alone attru used instead of attu by a few neuter plural pronominals: 162
• 2 Accusative Casesigns am annu anna nu fcc 168170: 168
• The Conjunctive or Social Case: 174
• The Genitive or Sixth Case: 182
• mon of all possessive suffixes in Tamil Max Miiller 187 Other case: 191
• 7 Auxiliary Suffixes ofike Genitive in Telugu and Tamil: 197
• Adjectives or Nouns used Adjectivally 203213: 203
• Comparison of Adjectives 211212: 211
• Origin of word for three Dr Qundert Mr Kittel: 229
• this resemblance disappears on examination 237 Radical shape: 238
• Changes which take place 245 Dr Gunderts opinion compari: 244
• Afliaiion: 251
• terminations of verb 271 Can any analogy to Dravidian pronoun: 274
• the only genitive easesign in Canarese 192 So also in Telugu: 275
• ExtraDravidian Relationship 284289: 284
• The Reflexive Pronoun Self 290297: 290
• Pluralisation of the Personal and Reflexive Pronouns 296309: 297
• Origin of Pluralising Particles 301302: 301
• Twofold Plural of the Dravidian Pronoun of the First Person 308309: 308
• Demonstrative and Interrogative Pronouns 314327: 314
• In Tamil v and n Telugu usage Tulu 319 Tulu: 321
• tive I: 327
• Honorific Demonstrative Pronouns 333: 333
• Classification 342371: 342
• fall behind Dravidian double accusatives 338 Causals formed from: 353
• The Middle Voice 859: 359
• Origin of A the Dravidian Negative Particle 866367: 366
• Conjugational System 372441: 372
• The Present Tense: 380
• Formation of Preterite bt Reduplication op Final Consonant: 387
• 3 The Malayalam Preterite 895: 394
• Origin of the Dravidian Sign of Past Time 398409: 398
• futures future the least distinctive tense form of the Tamil future: 404
• Compound Tenses: 410
• The Imperative 419421: 419
• Dravidian infinitive origin of infinitive in j in classical Tamil: 425
• Verbal Nouns: 431
• Nouns of Agency 439440: 439
• Adverbi: 441
• GLOSSARIAL AFFINITIES 452509: 452
• Sanskrit Affinities: 466
• ExlraSanskritic or West IndoEuropean Affinities: 474
• Semitic Affinities 491495: 491
• APPENDIX 510597: 511
• Remarks oir thk Philological Portion op Mr Govers Folk: 522

Popular passages

Page 49 - that it would be scarcely possible for them now to assert their independence. Tamil, however, the most highly cultivated ab intra of all Dravidian idioms, can dispense with its Sanskrit altogether, if need be, and not only stand alone but flourish without its aid. The ancient or classical‎

Page 614 - All diseases are ascribed to supernatural agency. The sick man is supposed to be possessed by one of the deities, who racks him with pain as a punishment for impiety or neglect of the god in question. Hence not the mediciner, but the exorcist, is summoned to the sick man's‎

Page 81 - It is a remarkable peculiarity of the Indian languages that, as soon as they begin to be cultivated, the literary style evinces a tendency to become a literary dialect distinct from the dialect of common life, with a grammar and vocabulary of its own. This is equally characteristic of the speech of the Aryans of the north and‎

Page 453 - properly speaking, the Dravidian languages have no adverbs at all. Every word that is used as an adverb in the Dravidian languages is either a noun, declinable or indeclinable, or a verbal theme, or the infinitive or gerund of a verb; and illustrations of the manner in which those words acquire an adverbial force‎

Page 91 - The oldest Dravidian word found in any written record in the world appears to be the word for ' peacock' in the Hebrew text of the Books of Kings and Chronicles, in the list of the articles of merchandise brought from Tarshish or Ophir in Solomon's ships, about 1000 BC This word is‎

Page 127 - Whatever antiquity may be attributed to the Tolkappiyam, it must have been preceded by many centuries of literary culture. It lays down rules for different kinds of poetical compositions, which must have been deduced from examples furnished by the best authors whose works were then in existence.‎

Page 1 - is peopled, and from the earliest period appears to have been peopled, by different branches of one and the same race, speaking different dialects of one and the same language— the language to which the term ' Dravidian' is here applied; and scattered‎

Page 50 - indebted to Sanskrit as English is to Latin. Tamil can readily dispense with the greater part or the whole of its Sanskrit, and by dispensing with it rises to a purer and more refined style ; whereas English cannot abandon its Latin without abandoning perspicuity.‎

Page 86 - The period of the predominance of the Jainas (a predominance in intellect and learning—rarely a predominance in political power) was the Augustan age of Tamil literature, the period when the Madura College, a celebrated literary association, appears to have flourished, and when the KuraJ, the‎

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages
• Author: Robert Caldwell
• Edition: 2
• Publisher: Trübner, 1875
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Jul 25, 2006
• Length: 608 pages