LanguageEast India Company rule
Ellis publishes the Dravidian Proof
· Chennai
Francis Whyte Ellis argued that the South Indian languages form a family separate from Sanskrit.
In 1816 Francis Whyte Ellis published a note to the introduction of A. D. Campbell's Telugu grammar, printed by the College of Fort St. George press. In it he set out what became known as the Dravidian Proof, arguing that Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam share a common non-Sanskritic origin. Ellis is regarded as the first scholar to classify the Dravidian languages as a separate family. Robert Caldwell later acknowledged his work, and the idea became central to Tamil linguistic and cultural identity.
