Hermann Gundert

7 October, 1837: Rev. Dr. Hermann Gundert, the German Missionary arrives in Trivandrum had an audience with His Highness Sree Swathi Thirunal Maharaja, the ruler of Travancore. Rev. Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on Bible translations into Malayalam. He worked in various parts of South India for 23 years (1836- 1859).

The archives of information he collected from Kerala are kept in the Tuniberg University, Germany. He returned to Germany  in 1859. There he took ten more years to complete the Malayalam-English dictionary. Though Gundert came to Kerala as a missionary, he is remembered today mainly for his contributions the language Malayalam. He lived in Calw, Germany where he passed away on April 25, 1893.