Francis Whyte Ellis
Encyclopedia
Francis Whyte Ellis was a British
civil servant in the Madras Presidency
and a scholar of Tamil
and Sanskrit
.
of Machilipatnam
, in 1809 collector of land customs in the Madras presidency, and in 1810 collector of Madras. He died at Ramnad of cholera
on 10 March 1819.
as a separate language family
.
Robert Caldwell
, who is often credited as the first scholar to propose a separate language family for South Indian languages, acknowledges Ellis's contribution in his preface to the first edition of A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages:
missionary from Calcutta) at the Serampore
press, in which he described Sanskrit as the source of all South Indian languages. In his grammar, Campbell set out to disprove Carey and other Calcutta orientalists like Charles Wilkins
and Henry Thomas Colebrooke
(proponents of the "all indian languages are derived from Sanskrit" school of thought). Ellis wrote an note to introduction for Campbell's book in which he offered his "Dravidian Proof".
of Sanskrit and Telugu. Parallel columns of the roots were presented to show the difference between the two languages. For Sanskrit, the roots were taken from Dhatupatha and for Telugu, they were taken from a list compiled by Pattabhirama Shastri. In the second step, Ellis used a more complex comparative table of Tamil, Telugu and Kannada roots to show that the languages shared Cognate
roots. In the third and final step Ellis used a comparative table of words made from the roots of the three languages to show their relationship as well. Ellis made use of Telugu scholar Mamadi Venkayya's Andhradipaka as a source for different types of Telugu words. As a conclusion, Ellis disproved the prevailing theory that though roots and words might be common to South Indian languages, the difference in their idioms was great. He accomplished this by translating the same passages from Sanskrit and English into Tamil, Telugu and Kannada and analysing the sentence structures of the translations.
. The Madras Government supplied the paper. Ellis purchased English types and printing ink for the Press cheaply. The press commenced publishing in 1813 - its first work was Constanzo Beschi
's (Veeramamunivar) Tamil grammar Kodum Tamil. Before Ellis's death in 1819, the press published a Tamil grammar primer Ilakkana surukkam, a Tamil translation of Uttara Kandam of Ramayana
(both by Chitthambala Desikar), Ellis' own translation and commentary of Thirukkural and five Telugu works - Campbell's grammar (with Ellis' Dravidian Proof), tales of Vikkirama, a translation of Panchatantra
and two more grammars. The press continued publishing books into the 1830s including works in Kannada, Malayalam and Arabic.
were oriental scholars interested in learning about the various aspects of Indian life and publishing works on Indian languages. Ellis was a capable administrator and had a good relationship with Indians. He even adopted their customs and way of dressing. Among Ellis contributions to oriental scholarship are his works on South Indian property ownership, Hindu law, a "fake" French
Veda and his commentary on Thirukkural. In 1814, Ellis wrote an account of the Mirasi land proprietary system of South India with the help of his Sheristadar (chief of staff), the Indian scholar Shankarayya. As his reputation for oriental scholarship grew, he was requested by Alexander Johnston to research the origins of a French work titled Ezour Vedam, which was claimed as a translation of a Sanskrit work and a Veda. Ellis proved that the "Vedam" was not a translation but a original work of the Jesuit priest Roberto de Nobili
, written in 1621 for converting Hindus to Christianity. His monograph on the Ezour Vedam was published posthumously in the Asiatic Journal in 1822. He delivered a series of lectures on Hindu law at the Madras Literary Society, which were published after his death. Ellis had a high regard for Tamil poet-saint Tiruvalluvar
and his Thirukkural. He translated 18 chapters of the Aratthupaal (one division of Thirukkural dealing with law and virtue) into English in a non-metrical verse. 13 of those chapters were published by the College press during Ellis' lifetime. Ellis was also the first scholar to decipher and explain the first century CE "Cochin Grants" given to the Anjuvannam
Jewish community
in Cochin. In addition to the "Dravidian Proof", Ellis wrote three dissertations - on Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
, on whose death they passed to G. U. Pope, who had them placed in the Bodleian Library
at Oxford. According to Sir Walter, many of Ellis' unpublished works were lost when they were burned by the cook of the Madurai
collector Rous Petrie. Ellis did not publish them earlier because he wanted to do so only after becoming a "ripened scholar at forty years". As an administrator, Ellis was well liked by his Indian subjects. His grave at Dindigal bears two inscriptions - one in English and the other in Tamil. The English inscription reads:
Dalit
activist Iyothee Thass
has credited Ellis as being the forerunner of Tamil revivalism in the 19th century.
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
civil servant in the Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
and a scholar of Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
.
Biography
Ellis became a writer in the East India Company's service at Madras in 1796. He was promoted to the offices of assistant-under secretary, deputy-secretary, and secretary to the board of revenue in 1798, 1801, and 1802 respectively. In 1806 he was appointed judge of the zillahZillah (country subdivision)
A Zillah or Zilā is a country subdivision in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. It is translated as district* districts of Pakistan * districts of India...
of Machilipatnam
Machilipatnam
Machilipatnam is a city and a special grade municipality in the Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, India. It is located south east of state capital, Hyderabad.-History:...
, in 1809 collector of land customs in the Madras presidency, and in 1810 collector of Madras. He died at Ramnad of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
on 10 March 1819.
Dravidian language hypothesis
Ellis is most noted for being the first scholar to recognize the Dravidian languagesDravidian languages
The Dravidian language family includes approximately 85 genetically related languages, spoken by about 217 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and...
as a separate language family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
.
Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell
Bishop Robert Caldwell was an Evangelist missionary and linguist, who academically established the Dravidian family of languages. He served as Assistant Bishop of Tirunelveli from 1877. He was described in The Hindu as a 'pioneering champion of the downtrodden' and an 'avant-garde social reformer'...
, who is often credited as the first scholar to propose a separate language family for South Indian languages, acknowledges Ellis's contribution in his preface to the first edition of A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages:
The first to break ground in the field was Mr. Ellis, a Madras civilian, whose was profoundly versed in the Tamil language and literature, and who interesting but very brief comparison, not of the grammatical forms, but only of some of the vocables of three Dravidian dialects, is contained in his introduction to Campbell's TeluguTelugu languageTelugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...
Grammar.
History
Ellis first published his notion about the South Indian languages forming a separate language family in a "Note to Introduction" for his protege Alexandar Duncan Campbell's Telugu Grammar in 1816. The event which set forth in motion the writing of the "Dravidian Proof" was the report of the Committee of Examination of Junior Civil Servants issued in 1811. The committee, chaired by Ellis, wanted the civil service officers to learn the basic structure of the South Indian languages, so that they can function effectively wherever they were stationed in South India. It noted that the common features of five South Indian "dialects" - High Tamil, Low Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada and recommended the teaching of Tamil as a representative of all five. The College of Fort St. George and its press (see below), were given the task of creating grammars and other text books for the language training. As a part of this effort, Campbell, then the secretary to the Board of Superintendents of the college, prepared a work of Telugu grammar in 1816. Two years before, another work of Telugu grammar had been published by William Carey (an orientalistOriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
missionary from Calcutta) at the Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
press, in which he described Sanskrit as the source of all South Indian languages. In his grammar, Campbell set out to disprove Carey and other Calcutta orientalists like Charles Wilkins
Charles Wilkins
Sir Charles Wilkins, KH, FRS , was an English typographer and Orientalist, notable as the first translator of Bhagavad Gita into English, and as the creator of the first Devanagari typeface....
and Henry Thomas Colebrooke
Henry Thomas Colebrooke
Henry Thomas Colebrooke was an English orientalist.-Biography:Henry Thomas Colebrooke, third son of Sir George Colebrooke, 2nd Baronet, was born in London. He was educated at home; and when only fifteen he had made considerable attainments in classics and mathematics...
(proponents of the "all indian languages are derived from Sanskrit" school of thought). Ellis wrote an note to introduction for Campbell's book in which he offered his "Dravidian Proof".
The Dravidian Proof
Ellis' Dravidian Proof is a step by step attempt to establish the non-Sanskritic origins of Telugu. Ellis first compared the rootsRoot (linguistics)
The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
of Sanskrit and Telugu. Parallel columns of the roots were presented to show the difference between the two languages. For Sanskrit, the roots were taken from Dhatupatha and for Telugu, they were taken from a list compiled by Pattabhirama Shastri. In the second step, Ellis used a more complex comparative table of Tamil, Telugu and Kannada roots to show that the languages shared Cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
roots. In the third and final step Ellis used a comparative table of words made from the roots of the three languages to show their relationship as well. Ellis made use of Telugu scholar Mamadi Venkayya's Andhradipaka as a source for different types of Telugu words. As a conclusion, Ellis disproved the prevailing theory that though roots and words might be common to South Indian languages, the difference in their idioms was great. He accomplished this by translating the same passages from Sanskrit and English into Tamil, Telugu and Kannada and analysing the sentence structures of the translations.
St. George College and its press
While stationed at Madras, Ellis became interested in the history and languages of India. He was a member of the Member of the Madras Literary Society and the founder of the College of Fort St. George at Madras - an institution which had both British and Indian members. Pattabiram Shasthri, Muthusami Pillai, Udayagiri Venkatanarayanayya, Chidambara Vaathiyaar and Syed Abdul Khadar were among Indian scholars who worked in the college. The college was founded in 1812 and the next year Ellis also helped set up the College Press by supplying it with a printing press and Tamil types. Telugu types, printing ink and labour for the venture was supplied by the Superintendent of Government Press at EgmoreEgmore
-Main places:* Chennai Egmore railway station.* Office of the commissioner of Greater Chennai Police department.* Government Museum, Chennai.* Connemara Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in India.* National Art Gallery...
. The Madras Government supplied the paper. Ellis purchased English types and printing ink for the Press cheaply. The press commenced publishing in 1813 - its first work was Constanzo Beschi
Constanzo Beschi
Constanzo Beschi, also known under his Tamil name of Vīramāmunivar or Constantine Joseph Beschi was an Italian Jesuit priest, Missionary in South India, and renowned poet in the Tamil language.-Early years and formation:Born in Castiglione delle Stiviere, Mantova, Italy, a place very close to...
's (Veeramamunivar) Tamil grammar Kodum Tamil. Before Ellis's death in 1819, the press published a Tamil grammar primer Ilakkana surukkam, a Tamil translation of Uttara Kandam of Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
(both by Chitthambala Desikar), Ellis' own translation and commentary of Thirukkural and five Telugu works - Campbell's grammar (with Ellis' Dravidian Proof), tales of Vikkirama, a translation of Panchatantra
Panchatantra
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian inter-related collection of animal fables in verse and prose, in a frame story format. The original Sanskrit work, which some scholars believe was composed in the 3rd century BCE, is attributed to Vishnu Sharma...
and two more grammars. The press continued publishing books into the 1830s including works in Kannada, Malayalam and Arabic.
Works of Ellis
Ellis and his friends William Erskine and John LeydenJohn Leyden
John Leyden was a British orientalist.-Biography:Leyden was born at Denholm on the River Teviot, not far from Hawick. His father, a shepherd, had contrived to send him to Edinburgh University to study for the ministry...
were oriental scholars interested in learning about the various aspects of Indian life and publishing works on Indian languages. Ellis was a capable administrator and had a good relationship with Indians. He even adopted their customs and way of dressing. Among Ellis contributions to oriental scholarship are his works on South Indian property ownership, Hindu law, a "fake" French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
Veda and his commentary on Thirukkural. In 1814, Ellis wrote an account of the Mirasi land proprietary system of South India with the help of his Sheristadar (chief of staff), the Indian scholar Shankarayya. As his reputation for oriental scholarship grew, he was requested by Alexander Johnston to research the origins of a French work titled Ezour Vedam, which was claimed as a translation of a Sanskrit work and a Veda. Ellis proved that the "Vedam" was not a translation but a original work of the Jesuit priest Roberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili
Roberto de Nobili was an Italian Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He used a novel method of adaptation to preach Christianity, adopting many local customs of India which were, in his view, not contrary to Christianity.Born in Montepulciano, Tuscany in September 1577, Roberto de Nobili arrived...
, written in 1621 for converting Hindus to Christianity. His monograph on the Ezour Vedam was published posthumously in the Asiatic Journal in 1822. He delivered a series of lectures on Hindu law at the Madras Literary Society, which were published after his death. Ellis had a high regard for Tamil poet-saint Tiruvalluvar
Tiruvalluvar
Thiruvalluvar , or Tiruvalluvar, was a celebrated Tamil poet whose contribution to Tamil literature is the Thirukkural, a work on ethics. Thiruvalluvar is thought to have lived sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 8th century AD. This estimate is based on linguistic analysis of his writings,...
and his Thirukkural. He translated 18 chapters of the Aratthupaal (one division of Thirukkural dealing with law and virtue) into English in a non-metrical verse. 13 of those chapters were published by the College press during Ellis' lifetime. Ellis was also the first scholar to decipher and explain the first century CE "Cochin Grants" given to the Anjuvannam
Anjuvannam
Anjuvannam or Anjuvannan refers to the community of Cochin Jews.The name derives from the traditional Hindu system of castes where any person not belonging to one of the four principal castes used to be referred to as an anjuvannan...
Jewish community
Cochin Jews
Cochin Jews, also called Malabar Jews , are the oldest group of Jews in India, with roots claimed to date to the time of King Solomon, though historically attested migration dates from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Historically, they lived in the Kingdom of Cochin in South India, now part of the...
in Cochin. In addition to the "Dravidian Proof", Ellis wrote three dissertations - on Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
Legacy
When Ellis died in Ramnad, he left some of his papers — philological and political — to Sir Walter ElliotWalter Elliot (ICS)
Sir Walter Elliot , Born in Edinburgh, studied at the East India College in Haileybury and joined the Indian Civil Service at Madras in 1821 and worked on till 1860....
, on whose death they passed to G. U. Pope, who had them placed in the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
at Oxford. According to Sir Walter, many of Ellis' unpublished works were lost when they were burned by the cook of the Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
collector Rous Petrie. Ellis did not publish them earlier because he wanted to do so only after becoming a "ripened scholar at forty years". As an administrator, Ellis was well liked by his Indian subjects. His grave at Dindigal bears two inscriptions - one in English and the other in Tamil. The English inscription reads:
Uniting activity of mind with versatility of genius, he displayed the same ardour and happy sufficiency on whatever his varied talents were employed. Conversant with the Hindoo languages and Literature of the Peninsula, he was loved and esteemed by the Natives of India, with whom he associated intimately.
Dalit
Dalit
Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as Untouchable. Dalits are a mixed population, consisting of numerous castes from all over South Asia; they speak a variety of languages and practice a multitude of religions...
activist Iyothee Thass
Iyothee Thass
Iyothee Thass or Pandit C. Ayodhya Dasa was a practitioner of Siddha medicine who is regarded as a pioneer of the Dravidian Movement.- Early life :...
has credited Ellis as being the forerunner of Tamil revivalism in the 19th century.