The Linguist and Grammarian
- Hanxleden was the first to compile a Malayalam dictionary. His lexicon describes Malayalam words in both Sanskrit and Portuguese (the then predominant European language in India). He also wrote a short and succinct grammar for the Malayalam language.
- Hanxleden and his predecessor, Heinrich Roth, were the pioneering European Sanskrit scholars: he was the first European to write a Sanskrit grammar (Grammatica grandonica), and also the first European to compose Sanskrit verse. The manuscript of Hanxleden's Sanskrit grammar surfaced in May 2010 in the Convento di San Silvestro, Montecompatri, Italy.
A preliminary pdf version of the Grammatica grandonica is freely available online thanks to the kind courtesy of the Carmelite Fathers of the Convento di San Silvestro.
Read more about this topic: Johann Ernst Hanxleden
Famous quotes containing the word linguist:
““10 April 1800—
Blacks rebellious. Crew uneasy. Our linguist says
their moaning is a prayer for death,
ours and their own.”
—Robert Earl Hayden (1913–1980)