A Grammar for Learning the Principles of the Malabar Language,

£4,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

The second edition of the first Tamil English grammar ever printed by one of the key Tamil scholars of the early Lutheran Protestant missionary movement in India. The extensive annotations appear to be transliterated Tamil words with reference numbers, perhaps referring to the Tamil English Dictionary also by Fabricius. Despite the absence of the original title page the second edition is identifiable by the different head and tailpiece of the text. Johann Philipp Fabricius (1711-1791) was a German Lutheran Missionary at the Tranquebar Mission in Madras (Chennai). He had succeeded Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg, the first Lutheran missionary in India and the first to translate the part of the Bible into Tamil, as leader of the mission. Fabricius was no less assiduous in the promotion of the Mission's printing press and production of works in Tamil. When, in 1761, the English army under Sir Eyre Coote seized the French printing press in Pondicherry, it was Fabricius who convinced Coote to hand over the press to the Mission to boost their potential output. The printing of the first Tamil Grammar in 1778 was one of the last works he directly oversaw: in 1779 he was imprisoned for financial mismanagement, although allowed to see his fellow missionaries regularly and keep up-to-date with the progress of the mission. Second edition; 8vo (19.5 x 12.5 cm); lacking title, supplied in facsimile, extensive contemporary annotations on 40 additional leaves, final leaf with inner margin repaired;

• Binding: Hardcover

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