I was appointed in January 1973 as a Senior Research Fellow in Malayalam by the Dravidian Linguistic Association to work on the problem of the 'commonness in the Grammatical theories of the four major South-Indian Languages', Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu at the D. L. A. Centre, Tirupati. Unfortunately, the Research Scholars of Kannada and Telugu, the two main branches of the Dravidian family were not available; only Tamil was represented. Hence the original plan could not be sucessfully wroked out. However, comparative study can be made in two ways. The first and the ideal method is the combined study and discussion of the various points, failing which the next best way is to present what all meterials we have in each language and allow the scholars of other languages to make comparative studies in their own way. circumstances made me to choose the second alternative and I thought of presenting a clear and faithful picture of what all things have been done in the grammatical literature of Malayalam; choosing all the important works in the field, giving a digest of each and showing their different approaches, allowing the various authors themselves to speak out their views and theories on various important problems. The aim is obviously descriptive and critical comments have been purposely kept to a minimum. Moreover, in these studies of traditional grammars the old terms and methods of description are generally retained. Repetition also could not obviously be avoided.
I GRAMMATICAL WORKS IN MALAYALAM
Historical Background
It is well known that among the four cultivated languages of South India, Malayalam comes last in the development of literature. We get some inscriptions from ninth century onwards containing some peculiarities of the West-coast dialect which grew gradually into Malayalam. Those inscriptions are in Tamil. Even though the West-coast dialect of Tamil had some special characteristics, it seems they were not so pronounced as to become a distinct language until the social and political changes, combined with the geographical factors, made Kerala separate from the Tamil land. Kerala can claim a good number of Tamil poets like Ilamkövadikal and Kulašēkhara Älvär. Some old Cańkam poets also hail from this land. The general opinion is that it was round about the beginning of the Kollam Era (A. D. 825) that the language and culture of Kerala began to show separatist tendencies. That Namboodiri Brahmins, who had established themselves in the land long back, were largely instrumental in this process is doubtless. Tamil receded gradually from the field of popular education which was superseded by Sanskrit. Colloquial Tamil began to be utilized by them for literary purposes with a strong Sanskrit bias. This was the beginning of the Manipzavāļa style; but side by side, the literary genre of pastu based on Tamil models also existed. No literary work which can be dated from tenth or eleventh century has been unearthed till now. Ramacaritam and some manipravala campus have been dated from thirteenth century". Perhaps Bhaşakautaliyam³, the greatest prose work, was the product of the last quarter of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. But one thing stands clear. The above-noted works do not show the literary life in its infancy. They show clear marks of cultivation and sophistication, and hence it may safely be presumed that some centuries might have passed since scholars had begun to adopt the local language as literary medium. But grammars and lexicons were not produced, evidently because the general output of books was small, and the scholars took more interest in Sanskrit than in Malayalam, which was known as Tamil in those days. Again, we find Jains and Buddhists writing scientific works in other South-Indian languages. Religious awakening sponsored by the Saivites and Vaishnavites also gave a great fillip to literature in Tamil land. All these were completely absent in Kerala. Hence it is but natural that Malayalam stands far behind in all types of old writings when compared to other Dravidian languages - Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.
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