Dravidian studies (also Dravidology, Dravidiology) is the academic field devoted to the Dravidian languages, literature, and culture. It is a superset of Tamil studies and a subset of Indology.
The 16th to 18th century missionaries who wrote Tamil grammars or lexica include Henrique Henriques, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Constantino Giuseppe Beschi.
The recognition that the Dravidian languages were a phylogenetic unit separate from Indo-European dates to 1816, and was presented by F. W. Ellis, Collector of Madras, at the College of Fort St. George.
The 19th century contributors to the field of Dravidology were:
The noted Dravidologists from the twentieth century are:
The Dravidian University at Kuppam, Andhra Pradeshhas created Chairs in the names of Western and Dravidian scholars to encourage research in individual Dravidian languages as well as comparative Dravidian studies:[1]
The 2021 Indian documentary film Dreaming of Words traces the life and work of Njattyela Sreedharan, a fourth standard drop-out, who compiled a multilingual dictionary connecting four major Dravidian languages Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil.[2][3][4] Travelling across four states and doing extensive research, he spent twenty five years[5] making this multilingual dictionary.
