A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages

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Caldwell's Comparative Grammar of Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages (London, 1856, 2/1875, 3/1913) is outdated.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.