Dravidian Linguistics before Caldwel :

Ellis, Carey, Krishnamachari and Weigle

Dr B V Maheedas, Retd Joint Director, Dept of Public Instruction Bengaluru

Dravdian Linguistics is a discipline of study that came into existence in the nineteenth
century. Some scholars cultivated the field with craze, curiosity and eagerness. First among
them were western scholars particularly the Christian missionaries who came to India on a
mission to teach Christianity to India and lift the people from their fallen state. But they were
puzzled with the variety of languages and culture they were confronted with. Sometimes this
confirmed to them the heathen status of the people here and the relevance of teaching them
but sometimes it also encouraged, and compelled (by needs and circumstances) them to
study the language and culture prevalent amongst the people here. Some of the civil
servants of the East India Company with an obligation to communicate with people as an
administrative exercise also studied the languages and culture of this land. It is however a
rare coincidence that the first useful Kannada Grammar in English was authored by a civil
servant (John McKerrel 1820) and the first expositions that the languages south India
are of a different origin other than Sanskrit was also done by a civil servant (Ellis F W in
1816). Whereas Mackerel’s was a full length grammatical work Ellis’ was an article written
as a prelude to Campbell’s Grammar of Teloogoo language. The purposes of the two works,
however, are different. McKerrel wrote his grammar as an aid to learn Kannada for those
foreigners who came to Karnataka (India) and needed to learn the language; Ellis’ article is a
study to understand the relation between the languages of the land.
Ellis’ Note to the Introduction in Alexander Campbel’s A Grammar of the Teloogoo
Language is the first significant academic exercise towards establishing the non-Sanskrit
origin of Telugu and also, a common origin for Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. “The notion of a
‘South Indian family of languages’ which became known as the Dravidian family [later] was
initially conceived and proposed by Ellis”(Sreekumar,2009: p.2). The method used by Ellis
is scientific and emulative. Ellis compared twenty-five sets of native words from Telugu,
Tamil and Kannada and, sentence patterns from these languages and found that they
corresponded to a greater extent than they resembled Sanskrit words. Hence he concluded
that these languages are of a different origin other than Sanskrit (ibid, p13). However
expositions of Ellis remained unknown to Kannada speaking people until William Carey the
first English grammarian of the Kannada Language stationed at Serampur, Kolkata quoted
him to declare Kannada as not of Sanskrit origin. Sreekumar has very rightly explained that
Ellis is the first to compare the contents of languages of the southern group and arrive at the
conclusion not only that Sanskrit is not the origin of these languages but also that they
belong to a common group.
William Carey had a different opinion earlier. For instance: in his preface to Sanskrit
Grammar (1804) he asserts “The Hindoostanee and Tamil along with the languages of
Gujarath and Malayala are evidently derived from the Sanscrit, but the two former are greatly
mixed with foreign words. The Bengalee, Orissa, Maratha, Kurnata and Telinga languages
are almost wholly comprised of Sanscrit words” (Ellis citations in Sreekumar). And further in
the preface to his A Grammar of the Telingana Language(1814) confirms “The languages of
India are principally derived from Sanscrit”(ibid: page 6). But then Carey expresses a doubt
when he says “The Telinga, Karnatic, Tamil, Malayala and Cinghalese while they have the
same origin with those of the north differ greatly from them in other respects: and especially
in having a large proportion of words the origin of which is unascertained.” (ibid: p,6 citation).
Sreekumar maintains that these opinions suggested Ellis to conclude that the languages of
the south are of a different origin in 1816 in his preface to the A Grammar of the Teloogoo
Language by Alexander Campbell (Sreekumar: page,7 citation). Ellis presented his position
first and then the supporting evidences (ibid). Ellis also unfolded “the difference of word
order between the sentence structure of Sanskrit with Tamil, Telugu and
Kannada”(sreekumar,2009: page16). Ellis’ expositions were so convincing that Carey who
once believed that the said languages are of Sanskrit origin very categorically states in his
preface to A Grammar of the Kurnata Language 1817 published from Serampur: “It would
be the height of folly, after what has been written upon this subject by Mr Ellis, to maintain a
controversy upon the question, whether the Sungskrita is the parent of the languages
spoken in the peninsula, or whether the large body of words called Deshya (viz. Country
words) is the original stock. In the facts which respect the proportion of Sungskrita words
employed either in their pure or corrupted state in these languages, there is scarcely any
difference of opinion and it seems unnecessary to pursue the enquiry further, (except as a
mere matter of literary curiosity) whether the country words form the basis of those
languages and the Sungskrita ones have been superadded, or the contrary.” (Carey: 1817,
preface). In his grammar proper Carey classifies words into three classes viz. ‘ Pure
Sungskrit ’ (tatsamam), ‘ such are as derived from Sungskrit, but have undergone
considerable alteration’ (tadbhavam) and ‘words current in the country, most of which are of
uncertain origin’ (deshya) (Carey, 1817: para 2.1). It can be seen that these are the words
which Ellis used when he compared words of Telugu, Kannada and Tamil though Carey did
not know the labours of Ellis until Carey completed his work of grammar as he vouches in
his preface.
In 1832 Sreeranga Pattanada Krishnmacari in his Hosagannadanudigannadi argues
that Sanskrit and Tamil are the original languages, the ɑːdi bʰɑːs̠ɑːs : “Vedas are in Sanskrit.
Those who constructed the vyɑːkɑrɑn̠ɑ for it are the saints like the Pɑːn̠ini, Kɑːtyɑːyɑnɑ and
Pɑtɑñjɑli. Therefore Sanskrit is a pre[historic]-language. Tigul̠uː - in the same way – since it
is well known in the south sea shore, the promoter of its grammar (vyɑːkɑrɑn̠ɑ) is Saint
Agɑstyɑ and meaning of every word in the language can be derived from its parts - this
Dravida language also has no beginning” (Krishnamachari, 1838: 129-130); [therefore Tamil
is original and true and not derived from any other language]. Tɑul̠ ɑvɑ, kɑr̄ nɑːt̠ aka, ɑːndʰrɑ
and mɑlɑyɑːl̠ ɑ are drɑmid̠ɑːbʰɑsɑːs (ibid: p,iii). His arguments however, are naive and
shrouded in myths. But his exposition that Kannada contains many words from Tamil in an
unchanged state and these are tatsamas from Tamil (the examples are “mɑn̠i”, “kɑːn̠i”,
“mɑrɑ” etc.(ibid: 145) can be seen as an attempt to set up correspondences between Tamil
and Kannada.
After Carey the breakthrough in decisively treating Kannada as a language of non-
Sanskrit origin came in the writings of Gottfried Weigle, a German missionary who worked in
Karnataka. Weigle wrote his article On Canarese Language and Literature in German in
1846 and was published in a German scholarly journal in 1848. This was an attempt to put
the languages of the peninsula as a separate group. He used the term Pancha Dravida
which is indeed a very old one, used originally not to denote a family of languages but to a
group of Brahmins including those in Karnataka and Tamil-Nadu. This reference to an ethnic
identity is generally traced back to 12th century Rajatarangini of Kalhana where the Brahmin
community is classed as Pancha dravida and Pancha Gowda:
कर्णाटकणश्च तैलंगण द्रणविडण महणरणष्ट्रकणाः, गुर्ारणश्चेवत पञ्चैि द्रणविडण विन्ध्यदविर्े ||
सणरस्ितणाः कणन्धयकु ब्र्ण गौडण उत्कलमैविलणाः, पञ्चगौडण इवत ख्यणतण विन्ध्स्योत्तरिणवसनाः ||
(Quoted in several texts for instance in http://www.brahmanasabha.org/)
(However Krishnamachari had used it to mean Tamil). The term is redefined here (in
Weigle’s article) to mean a family of languages. It is a short essay of about 35 pages in
length but has valuable information and thoughts. This is an article aiming to group southern
languages as one unit after Ellis’ works and acceptance of the same by Carey. Though
Weigle quotes scholars like Evald, Wilson, Rhenius etc. none of their works are available.
My comments on Weigle here are based on the Kannada translation (mumbel̠agu, 605 –
636) of the English version of his article, original being in German.
 Weigle begins with an ethno-geographical approach and then switches to a brief
linguistic one. The area between Kanya-kumari and Vindhya mountains is roughly identified
by Weigle as the main habitation of Dravidians. But he proceeds to note that people
speaking some kind of Dravidian languages also lived in the Gangetic plains and in the
present Indo-Pak bordering areas. These assertions of Weigle have since come to be true
by further researches in Dravidian linguistics, the languages of Brahuee, Kui and Kuvi being
spoken in the northern part of the nation. He opines that there are certain languages with
limited number of speakers like Kodava, Koraga, Malekudiya etc, the names also being the
ethnic identities of these people, as belonging to the Dravidian Stem. He says the language
spoken by the Todas is well understood by the Kannada speaking people, thus suggesting it
may also belong to the same stem. He then proceeds to suggest the languages of
Gondwana region and the languages with small speaking population from the Amarakantika
plateau to Rajamahal mountains near to the river Ganga also are clearly related to these
languages(mumbel̠agu: p 607). With these details he concludes Dravidian languages and
people who are ethnically essentially Dravidian lived throughout the country and occupied a
large portion of the landscape and that the pre-Sanskrit population of India did not cross the
mountains to enter the northern part but entered the south from the north by the sea root
(mumbel̠agu: p 608-609)
Weigle adds Malayalam and Tulu languages to Ellis’ South Indian Family of three
and proposes that these form the languages of the Deccan or the Pancha Dravida stem of
languages(mumbel̠agu, p 606) . Thus Weigle is the first person to use the word Dravida and
Dravidian to the languages of the peninsula. He finds commonalities in the system of
alphabets, in the names of fractions and certain aspects of grammar amongst the Dravidian
stem of languages as he calls them. He remarks Sanskrit vowels ri, li, and visarga and
among the consonants the aspirated ones and the letter h though are not natural to it,
Kannada has retained them in its alphabet . Short e, o and special consonants ǀ̤ , r̤ are found
in the Kannada alphabet. According to him the true Dravidian Alphbet is retained in two
forms: (1) in the generally used Tamil alphabet and (2) in the old Malayalam alphabet. They
retain the Dravidian characteristics and the alphabets of other Dravidian languages can be
derived from them (mumbel̠agu : p 611-12). Thus in Weigle’s view the absence of ri, li, and
visarga and the aspirated consonants and the existence of short e,o and the special
consonants ǀ̤, r̤ are the main characteristics of Dravidian languages with respect to
alphabets.
Speaking about the nouns he states: in Kannada there are no compound nouns. And
those which are found are direct translations of Sanskrit words. For instance the word
tɑːvɑregan̠n̠ɑ is the translation of kɑmɑlɑloːcɑnɑ (mumbel̠agu : p 615). Gender of nouns in
Kannada follows the Tamil pattern: masculine and feminine are bifurcated only amongst the
human beings, all others being neuter (mumbel̠agu: p 615). This characteristic of Dravidian
languages is clearly enunciated for the first time in Weigle’s essay. His generalisation
regarding Dravidian demonstrative pronouns that they include the vowels ‘ɑ’ for remote and
‘i’ for proximate (mumbel̠agu, p 616) is later accepted by Caldwell and elaborated. (Kittel had
a different opinion). He has clearly stated that between avanu the remote he and ivanu the
proximate Kannada has uvanu the middle one (ibid).
According to Weigle the names of fractions are a peculiar feature of Dravidian
languages. He has recorded the names of the following fractions in Kannada:
1/2 = ɑre
1/4 = k ɑːlu
1/8 = beːl̠e
1/16 = viːsɑ
1/32 = ɑreviːsɑ
1/64 = kɑːn̠i
1/128 = ɑrekɑːn̠i
1/256 = gid̠d̠ɑːn̠i
In Tamil 1/20 is called mɑː and in Telugu 1/256 is called priya and 1/1024 is called sura
(mumbel̠agu: p 618). Identification so many fractions by names is a characteristic of
Dravidian languages.
Irregular verbs are very less in Kannada and in its sister languages (mumbel̠agu, p
622). We have to note that the Dravidian stem has no comparative degree and it is
expressed somewhat like in Hebrew (ibid, end note 17 in page 641). He has categorically
said Kannada has no passive voice and that to express in active is the Kannada idiom; some
add the verb ‘pɑd̠u’ to fall to express the passive but this destroys the natural expression of
Kannada. As an example he rightly observes it is better to say ‘he eats hits’ instead of ‘He is
being hit’(mumbel̠agu : p 623). He opines that the phonetic changes that occur while
accepting Sanskrit words into these languages was first formed when Sanskrit words
were accepted into Prakrit ; Then the same rules were applied to Kannada
(mumbel̠agu, p 613). Weigle was the first person to note that in modern Kannada the
present tense terminations of verbs end in e. Formation of verb in potential mood formed by
inserting a long vowel for the present tense formative [and ending in u] give it a meaning that
the action has not yet taken place and this nature of verbs is inbuilt in all the Dravidian
languages (mumbel̠agu : p 619). A convincing explanation of this u and the e-ending of other
present tense verbs were to come from Kittel later.
 Another characteristic of Dravidian languages is the formation of doubles such as
sɑːru - giːru. Such a double can easily be formed by replacing the first syllable by giː
(mumbel̠agu : p 626).
Weigle has attempted to approach the three entities: language, culture and literature
in a holistic manner. His ethno-geographical approach not only defines the boundaries of
the extent of the land inhabited by Kannada speaking people but also shows that people
speaking such languages as Koraga, Malekudiya etc form also separate ethnic groups.
Then he expands the geographical limits to include habitat of Dravidian people. Then he
proceeds to such topics as the family of languages to which Kannada Language belongs
and some grammatical characters of the language. He finds commonalities between these
languages in their alphabet, gender of nouns, tenses of verbs, giving different names to
fractions, forming doubles the ways they receive words from Sanskrit. He is the first person
to name so many Dravidian languages and to use the word Dravida and Dravidian to these
languages.
Then as a second part in his essay he speaks of the history of Kannada literature. In
fact this is the first documentation of literary history in Kannada. The length being short the
essay only gives a bird’s eye-view of Kannada literary works in this second part and in the
first part a short elucidation of Kannada language and the Dravidian family of languages.
The essay is more in the form of brief expression of findings rather than detailed elucidation
of the principles with supporting evidences. But it cannot be denied that Weigle is the first to
note a number of grammatical commonalities between the languages of south India, to use
the word Dravidian to this family of languages and to include more languages in the family.
Francis White Ellis established the Dravidian family and Gottfried Weigle expanded the
Dravidian linguistic empire.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Carey, William, 1817. A Grammar of the Kurnata Language (Serampur, Kolkota) A
Xerox copy of the work is available in the library of Karnataka Theological college
Balmatta Mangaluru.
2. Krishnamachari, Sreerangapattanada, 1836. Hosagannadanudigannadi (Madras). A
copy of it is available in the library of Karnataka Theological college Balmatta
Mangaluru
3. Mumbelagu, Ed. Navada A V, 2015. It is a treatise on Prelude to Modern kannada
Literary History – vol 1. (published by Kannada Sahitya Prishattu, Pampa Mahakavi
Road, Chamarajapete Bengaluru)
4. Sreekumar, 2009 . Francis White Ellis and the Beginning of Comparative Dravidian
Linguistics in Historiographia Linguistica (John Benjamin Publishing Co, USA). Also
posted in academia edu.