Due to their crucial role one of the major tasks in modern South Asia linguistics is the research of the historical view of the Dravidian Languages. A knowledge of the Dravidian language structure in all its development stages, from their earliest beginnings to today, is necessary for understanding numerous fundamental aspects with the emergence of the indoarian, Munda and other languages of south Asia and of course for the history of the Dravidian language family itself. The Comparative Grammar forms an important part of the historical linguistics. Yet Richard Caldwell's Comparative Grammar of Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages (London, 1856, 2/1875, 3/1913) is outdated. An up to date comparative grammar of the Dravidian languages therefore was long overdue. With the work of the renowned Russian Dravidian scientist Mikhail S. Andronov, in which the over 80 known, investigated and described languages and dialects of the Dravidian language family are taken in consideration, this gap has been closed.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1856.

Excerpt from A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages It is now more than thirty-seven years since I commenced the study of Tamil, and I had not proceeded far in the study before I came to the conclusion that much light might be thrown on Tamil by comparing it with Telugu, Canarese, and the other sister idioms. On proceeding to make the comparison I found that my supposition was verified by the result, and also, as it appeared to me, that Tamil imparted still more light than it received. I have become more and more firmly persuaded, as time has gone on, that it is not a theory, but a fact, that none of these languages can be thoroughly understood and appreciated without some study of the others, and hence that a Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages may claim to be regarded not merely as something that is useful in its way, but as a necessity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.