Credits

Tools

Astro — the static site generator. Open source, MIT licensed. astro.build.

Codex — engineering implementation. The components, schema, and routing were built by Codex against atomic specs.

Claude (Anthropic) — drafting partner. Used for first-pass etymological essays, structural critique, and editorial tightening. Every entry is then revised, sourced, and signed off by hand.

Obsidian — the working notebook where drafts live before publication.

Vercel — hosting.

Sources

The lexicon’s etymological claims are anchored in five reference traditions. Where a claim is sourced, it cites one of these.

The Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (DEDR), Burrow and Emeneau, 1984 (revised). Hosted by the Digital South Asia Library at the University of Chicago. The standard reference for Proto-Dravidian roots and cognate sets. dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/burrow.

The Tamil Lexicon (Madras University), six volumes, 1924 to 1936, with supplement. The canonical Tamil-to-Tamil and Tamil-to-English dictionary, still unsurpassed in coverage and citation density. Also at DSAL. dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/tamil-lex.

Project Madurai — the digital corpus of classical Tamil texts. Sangam works, Tolkāppiyam, Bhakti hymns, and post-classical literature. projectmadurai.org.

Tolkāppiyam — the oldest extant Tamil grammar, cited in the editions of U.V. Swaminatha Iyer and modern critical editions where available.

Modern scholarship — primarily Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, The Dravidian Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Kamil Zvelebil, Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature (Brill, 1992) and related works; and Robert Caldwell, A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages (1856), used historically rather than as current authority.

Editorial

Concept, voice, and editorial direction: Rajhesh Panchanadhan.

Errors

Any error in this lexicon is the editor’s responsibility, not the sources’. If you find one, see contribute.