Lal Bahadur Vayanasala and Granthalayam at Payyannur- a library built to resemble a stack of books. (Picture courtesy: Appukuttan Karayil)
A sprawling colonial bungalow at Illikunnu hill in Thalaserry, Kerala, is being restored to its original orthodox Kerala architectural style. The impressive structure, surrounded by verandas on all four sides, was once the home of German missionary, scholar and linguist Hermann Gundert, who lived here for 20 years from 1839, studying and contributing to Malayalam language and literature.
In a few months, this historical monument will open to the public as the Hermann Gundert Museum and Study Centre. This is part of the Thalassery Heritage Project led by the Kerala Tourism Department. The heritage mansion belongs to the Church of South India, and had earlier housed the Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF).
Hermann Gundert is revered in Kerala for his pioneering contribution to the Malayalam language and literature. He introduced punctuation marks—the full stop, comma, semicolon, colon and question mark—into the Malayalam language. He also compiled the first encyclopaedic Malayalam-English dictionary in 1872, and published the first Malayalam newspaper, “Rajya Samacharam” in 1847. Gundert published 13 books in Malayalam, on diverse disciplines such as religion, history, language, literature and science during the two decades he spent in India.
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