Narayan Govind Kalelkar (

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

: नारायण गोविंद कालेलकर) (December 11, 1909 - 1989) was a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

from

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He was born in the village of Bambuli in Ratnagiri District. He received his early college education in

Baroda Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capital ...

and

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

with specialization in French language, and a D.Lit. Degree from a university in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He taught French and Literature at Baroda Vidyapeeth, and Indo-Aryan/

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

at Deccan College in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

. Kalelkar authored several books on linguistics in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, they being the first of their kind in Marathi. His ''Dhwanivichar'' (ध्वनिविचार) (1955) and ''Bhasha Ani Samskruti'' (भाषा आणि संस्कृति) (1960) received

state's literary prizes; and his ''Bhasha: Itihas Ani Bhoogol'' (भाषा: इतिहास आणि भूगोल) (1964) received a

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

award in 1967.

Contribution to Konkani language

Kalekar's study of Konkani was instrumental in Sahitya Akademi's decision in 1975 to recognize Konkani as an independent Indian language (rather than being a dialect of Marathi). 20th-century Indian linguists Kalelkar, Narayan Govind 1909 births 1989 deaths Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Marathi {{India-linguist-stub