Gundert Bungalow

Dr. Herman Gundert, the revered German missionary, played an important role in the history of Thalassery.

He was born in Stuttgart on 1814 February 14 and came to India as a Christian missionary. He studied history and religion from Tubin University and got doctorate from Switzerland. In 1834 he become a member of Basal Mission. Basal Mission Society was his motivation for coming to India. He studied Hindi, Bengali and Tamil in early day itself. He started staying at Thirunalveli. At the age of 24 Gundert married Yuliya de Bova.

From 27th February 1839 he started staying at Illikkunnu , a place near Thalassery- Ancharakkandy road.

Now also Gundert Bungalow is tourist attraction. It is a beautiful building with tiled roof. He was a master in 18 languages. In 1939 he started a school in the Bungalow. He was the first school inspector for Malabar and South Karnataka. In 1847 first Malayalam news paper 'Rajyasamacharam' started from Thalassery. After that another publication named 'Paschimodayam' was also started. Articles published by Gundert in German, English, Malayalam and Tamil languages spanned to various subjects such as history, grammar, language science, general knowledge etc. Out of 50+ books published by him, most famous one is English-Malayalam dictionary. This dictionary was published at Mangalore in 1872. Although the dictionary was published at Mangalore, he verified the content from Kalwa of Germany since he left India on April 11 1859 itself. 'Keralolppathi' published in 1843 and 'Keralapazhama' published in 1868 are also well known.

Dr. Herman Gundert died on April 25 1893.

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