Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-298) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Explosion in the grammar factory -- Pāṇini and Tolkāppiyar -- Ellis and his circle -- The College -- The Dravidian proof -- Legacies -- Appendix A. The legend of the cow-pox -- Appendix B. The Dravidian proof.
0
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
British rule of India brought together two very different traditions of scholarship about language, whose conjuncture led to several intellectual breakthroughs of lasting value. Two of these were especially important: the conceptualization of the Indo-European language family by Sir William Jones at Calcutta in 1786-proposing that Sanskrit is related to Persian and languages of Europe-and the conceptualization of the Dravidian language family of South India by F.W. Ellis at Madras in 1816-the ""Dravidian proof,"" showing that the languages of South India are related to one another but are not.