Pioneering dutch scholarship on historical indology and linguistic sciences

Abstract

Although the Dutch pioneered the Hindi grammatical tradition, it is ironic that while the German, British and Indian contributions to the history of the linguistic sciences have been adequately accounted for, the Dutch contributions remain a rather neglected area. The first grammar of Hindi was written by Jean Josua Ketelaar (1698) in Dutch. Based on his unpublished manuscript, the aim of this article is to underscore Dutch linguistic scholarship for the theory and practice of cross-cul-tural communication and linguistic sciences, primarily in three areas: 1. In pioneering the grammatical tradition of India, namely Hindī-Hindustānī grammatical tradition in the seventeenth century; 2. In setting the stage for the development of comparative historical methods; and 3. In providing insights into motivations for foreign language learning and into the epistemology and cross-cultural communication triggered by the forces of globalization during the colonial era.