Hermann Gundert

Hermann gundert was a linguist as well as a missionary in southern India. He was born in In 1814, and was educated in at the grammar school of Stuttgart and the Maulbronn seminar, subsequently he studied protestant theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen where he obtained his PhD. 1836. He came to India as a private tutor. Through Carl T. E. Rhenius, he got to know the South Indian languages, their linguistic examination as well as the work in the fields of mission and schools. After his marriage with Julie Dubois from Switzerland Gundert joined the Basle Mission in 1838, with whom he took up work on the south-west coast of India. Besides his missionary work, during the 23 years that he lived in India, the majority of which was spent in Kerala, Gundert devoted himself principally to the study and documentation of the local Malayalam language, as well as to research into the country and its culture. Hermann Gundert did a substantial body of work in German, English, Malayalam and Tamil. In Kerala he is known primarily for his linguistic publications, which are still regarded as standard works to this day. His articles on research into the history and customs of Southern India - particularly Kerala - are also afforded considerable recognition. Above all, Gundert is held in high esteem for the systematic and scholarly way in which he approached his work. Notably, Gundert published the first two Malayalam journals, which proved to be the forerunners for contemporary Malayalam newspapers and opened a new field for literature. Gundert's theological works, his translation of the Bible and missionary tracts, as well as his articles on Indian religious and missionary history are less well known in the present day, but they nonetheless offer an absorbing insight into the state of affairs at the time. In 1857, the British colonial administration appointed Gundert as school inspector of Kanara and Malabar. In 1859, however, poor health forced Hermann Gundert to return to Germany, where he went on to manage the Calw publishing house from 1862 until his death in 1893. He worked as an author and a publisher of Indian and German publications and was a source of great fascination to his children and grandchildren, especially Hermann Hesse.