Rev. Dr. Hermann Gundert (
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, February 4, 1814 – April 25, 1893 in
CalwCalw is a municipality in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital of the district Calw. It is located in the northern Black Forest.-History:...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
missionary and scholar, who compiled a Malayalam grammar book,
Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), the first Malayalam-
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
dictionary (1872), and translated the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
into Malayalam. He worked primarily on the
Malabar coastThe Malabar Coast, also known as the Malabarian Coast, is a long and narrow south-western shore line of the mainland Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest region of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their...
, in
KeralaKerala , is a state located in southwestern India. The state was created in 1956 on linguistc basis, bringing together those places where Malayalam formed the principal language...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
.
Hermann Gundert obtained a doctoral degree in
philologyPhilology considers both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies.Classical philology is the philology of the Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages...
from
TübingenEberhard Karls University, Tübingen is a public university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of Germany's oldest universities, internationally noted in medicine, natural sciences and the humanities...
.
Rev. Dr. Hermann Gundert (
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, February 4, 1814 – April 25, 1893 in
CalwCalw is a municipality in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital of the district Calw. It is located in the northern Black Forest.-History:...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
missionary and scholar, who compiled a Malayalam grammar book,
Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), the first Malayalam-
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
dictionary (1872), and translated the
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
into Malayalam. He worked primarily on the
Malabar coastThe Malabar Coast, also known as the Malabarian Coast, is a long and narrow south-western shore line of the mainland Indian subcontinent. Geographically, it comprises the wettest region of southern India, as the Western Ghats intercept the moisture-laden monsoon rains, especially on their...
, in
KeralaKerala , is a state located in southwestern India. The state was created in 1956 on linguistc basis, bringing together those places where Malayalam formed the principal language...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
.
Hermann Gundert obtained a doctoral degree in
philologyPhilology considers both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies.Classical philology is the philology of the Greek, Latin and Sanskrit languages...
from
TübingenEberhard Karls University, Tübingen is a public university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of Germany's oldest universities, internationally noted in medicine, natural sciences and the humanities...
. In Kerala, he took a deep interest in the local culture and the Malayalam language, attempting a systematic grammar of the language. This was one of the prominent non-
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
-based approaches to Indic grammar. Gundert considered Malayalam to have diverged from Proto-Tamil-Malayalam, or
Proto-Dravidian-Hypothetical language:Proto-languages are, by definition, hypothetical languages reconstructed by linguists, and hence no proto-language has any historical record. So is the case with Proto-Dravidian...
. Apart from the early inscriptions found on copper and stone, Gundert traced Malayalam to the Rāma Charitam, a poem predating the Sanskrit alphabet.
Gundert is held in high regard to this day among linguistic experts in Kerala for the high scholastic aptitude exhibited in his work. His dictionary has been described as "monumental" in a review of the work on
Dravidian languagesThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
. He published two Malayalam journals, of which Rajya Samacharam is considered to be the first newspaper in Kerala.
Though Gundert came to Kerala as a missionary, he is remembered today mainly for his literary contributions. In
ThalasseryThalassery, also known as Tellicherry, is a city on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. This is the second largest city of North Malabar. It is 21 km from the district headquarters, Kannur. The name Tellicherry is the anglicized form of Thalassery. Thalassery municipality has a population...
(Tellicherry), people have honored him by a statue in the city.
He was the grandfather of
Hermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
, German novelist and recipient of the
Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
. There is a bungalow in
ThalasseryThalassery, also known as Tellicherry, is a city on the Malabar Coast of Kerala, India. This is the second largest city of North Malabar. It is 21 km from the district headquarters, Kannur. The name Tellicherry is the anglicized form of Thalassery. Thalassery municipality has a population...
where he used to stay when he was there, where the
Nettur Technical Training FoundationNettur Technical Training Foundation is a prominent private educational trust in India, with campuses all over south India. It was established in 1963 with Swiss co-operation, in order to provide purposeful quality education with excellent employment opportunities, with qualifications that are...
(NTTF) is now situated.
Literature
Frenz, Albrecht. 1979. Hermann Gundert: A Biography. In
IX All India Conference of Dravidian Linguists, pp. 9-15. Calicut.
Frenz, Albrecht. 1993. Gundert as a Man. In K. K. N. Kurup and K. J. John, eds.,
Legacy of Basel Mission and Hermann Gundert in Malabar, pp. 9-32. Calicut.
Frenz, Albrecht and Scaria Zacharia. 1993.
Dr. Hermann Gundert and Malayalam Language. Kottayam: Centre for Kerala Studies.
Jenkins, Paul. 1998. Gundert, Hermann. In
Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. by Gerald Anderson, pp. 270-271. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.
External links