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{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Charles Edward Gover
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth year|1835}}
| birth_place = [[Poplar, London|Poplar]], [[Middlesex]], [[England]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|1872|09|18|1835|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Chennai|Madras]], [[India]]
| nationality = [[United Kingdom|British]]
| known_for = One of the earliest translators of [[Tirukkural]] into English
| occupation = Folklorist
| father = Thomas Gover
| mother =
| spouse =
| children =
| awards =
}}

'''Charles Edward Gover''' (1835–1872) was a [[British people|British]] [[folklorist]] in Madras (present-day [[Chennai]]), [[India]].<ref>{{cite book
| last = Ebeling
| first = Sascha
| title = Colonizing the Realm of Words: The Transformation of Tamil Literature in Nineteenth-Century South India
| publisher = SUNY Press
| date = 2010
| location = Albany, New York
| pages = 23
| language = en
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_O1X_y_X-98C&pg=PA24
| isbn = 978-1-4384-3199-4
}}</ref> He was one of the earliest translators of the [[Tirukkural]] into English.

==Life==
Gover was the son of Thomas Gover of [[Poplar, London|Poplar]], [[Middlesex]]. In 1864, he was appointed principal and secretary of the Madras Military Male Orphan Asylum at [[Egmore]], [[Chennai]]. In 1868, he became a member of the [[Royal Asiatic Society]], but withdrew in 1871–1872. He was a member of the Society of Arts and a fellow of the Anthropological Society.<ref name="DNB">{{cite DNB|wstitle=Gover, Charles E.|volume=22}}</ref>

Gover died of a [[haemorrhage]] on 18 September 1872 in Madras, and was buried at [[St Andrew's Church, Chennai|St Andrew's Church]] there. He had married in 1863 Clara Gertrude Taylor, and had five children with her.<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=11166|title=Gover, Charles Edward|first=Rosemary Cargill|last=Raza}}</ref>

==Works==
Gover wrote a pamphlet on "Indian Weights and Measures, their condition and remedy" (Madras, 1865). During 1866, he communicated to the Asiatic Society a paper on "The Pongol Festival in Southern India" (''Journal,'' new ser. v. 91–118), where he asserted without proof that the festival was a remnant of primitive [[Aryan]] life. Another contribution was an account of the moral condition and religious views of the [[caste system]] in [[southern India]], mainly based on a collection of popular songs in ancient [[Canarese]], of which he gave specimens in a poetical English version.<ref name="DNB"/>

Gover also wrote essays on Indian folklore for the ''[[Cornhill Magazine]]''. Under the title ''The Folk-Songs of Southern India'', he collected his essays in 1872.<ref>{{cite web
| url = https://archive.org/details/folksongsofsouth00goverich
| title = The folk-songs of southern India
| last = Gover
| first = Charles E.
| date = 1871
| publisher = Madras: Higginbotham and Co. (342 pages)
| access-date = 11 June 2017
}}</ref> In this book, he translated select couplets of the ''[[Tirukkural]]'' into English in verse and published it under the title "Odes from the Kural". He was the fourth translator of the Kural text into English, after [[Nathaniel Edward Kindersley]], [[Francis Whyte Ellis]], and [[William Henry Drew (Christian missionary)|William Henry Drew]].<ref>{{cite book
| last = Manavalan
| first = A. A.
| title = A Compendium of ''Tirukkural'' Translations in English
| publisher = Central Institute of Classical Tamil
| volume = 4 vols.
| date = 2010
| location = Chennai
| language = en
| isbn = 978-81-908000-2-0
}}</ref>

[[Philologists]] have discredited his hypothesis that, driven into the extreme south of India, and cut off from intercourse with other peoples, the [[Dravidian languages|Dravidian]] nations have preserved their original vocabulary, and that true Dravidian roots, common to the three major branches, [[Tamil language|Tamil]], [[Telugu language|Telugu]], and [[Canarese]], are pure [[Aryan]].<ref name="DNB"/><ref>Athenæum, 27 July 1872, pp. 111–112, 26 Oct. 1872, p. 531; ''Annual Reports of Royal Asiatic Society'', May 1868 and May 1870, pp. x–xi.</ref>

==See also==

* [[Tirukkural translations]]
* [[Tirukkural translations into English]]
* [[List of translators into English]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Charles E. Gover. (1871). The folk-songs of southern India. Madras: Higginbotham and Co. (342 pages). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/folksongsofsouth00goverich

{{Tirukkural}}
{{Tamil language}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gover, Charles E.}}
[[Category:Tamil–English translators]]
[[Category:Translators of the Tirukkural into English]]
[[Category:1835 births]]
[[Category:1872 deaths]]
[[Category:Tirukkural translators]]
[[Category:19th-century translators]]

Charles E. Gover - Revision history

CleanupBot II at 23:25, 13 August 2023