[INDOLOGY] Franklin C. Southworth (1929-2025)

[Madhav Deshpande]

Very sorry to hear the news of the passing of Professor Southworth. During
my graduate student days at Penn [1968-72] my wife and I taught Marathi
under his guidance. Later, with my interest in Indian Sociolinguistics, I
was frequently in touch with Professor Southworth. Just a few months ago, I
called him with a question about tracing the Dravidian elements in Marathi.
He said he was now too old and not keeping up with current research, but he
did answer my question. I remember his visit to Ann Arbor to attend the
"Aryan and Non-Aryan in India" conference. He had missed his flight and
came to Ann Arbor very late, and ended up staying with my family for that
night. He was a wonderful scholar and a gentle and friendly person. Feel
sorry for his loss.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 10:15 AM Deven Patel via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues:
>
> It is with sadness that we report the passing of Franklin C. Southworth,
> Professor Emeritus in the Department of South Asia Regional Studies at the
> University of Pennsylvania. Franklin Southworth was a leading historical
> linguist of South Asia. Over the course of his distinguished career,
> Professor Southworth made foundational contributions to our understanding
> of the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan language families, their interactions, and
> the ways in which linguistic evidence can illuminate the prehistory of the
> subcontinent. His last academic contributions include an article entitled
> “Rice and Language Across Asia: Crops, Movement, and Social Change” (2011)
> and the Routledge volume *Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia* (2005),
> which synthesized decades of research into a landmark study of language
> contact, migration, and cultural exchange.  Trained in linguistics and
> anthropology, Professor Southworth spent much of his academic life at Penn,
> where he taught and mentored generations of students in South Asian
> linguistics, anthropology, and area studies.
>
> Professor Southworth's webpage gives a longer list of his intellectual
> contributions: https://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~fsouth/
>
> Warmly,
>
> Deven
>
> --
> Deven M. Patel
>
>
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