later in Europe and Madras." Death and legacy Ziegenbalg was troubled by ill health his entire life, a condition aggravated by his work in the mission field. He died on 23 February 1719, at the age of thirty-six, in Tranquebar. His last 13 years were spent laying the foundations for German scholarship in Tamil that continues to this day. Ziegenbalg is buried at the New Jerusalem Church, which he helped establish in 1718 at Tranquebar. The positive results of their labours came with challenges. Their work was opposed both by Hindus and by the local Danish authorities. In 1707/08, Ziegenbalg spent four months in prison on a charge that by converting the natives, he was encouraging rebellion. Along with the political opposition, he had to cope with the climatic conditions in India. Ziegenbalg wrote: "My skin was like a red cloth. The heat here is very great, especially during April, May and June, in which season the wind blows from the inland so strongly that it seems as if the heat comes straight out of the oven". For an account of his death, see Death-bed scenes: or, Dying with and without religion, designed to illustrate the truth and power of Christianity, Volume 43; Volume 651, Part I, Section II, chapter 28. Johann Phillip Fabricius picked up where Ziegenbalg left off in Bible translation, particularly Tamil Christian hymnody. He also felt that the previous translation by Ziegenbalg urgently needed emendations. "The four qualities which Fabricius found in the originals were lucidity, strength, brevity and appropriateness; these were sadly lacking in the existing Tamil translation, but he hoped that by the help of God he had been able to restore them." Both scholars can also be referred to as proto-linguists, both worked arduously on dictionaries and grammars in Tamil. Interesting semiotic and linguistic questions arise, when taking into consideration both gentlemen's translations of the Bible. Stephen Neill summarises Ziegenbalg's failures and the cause of tragedy in his life, thus: "He was little too pleased with his position as a royal missionary, and too readily inclined to call on the help of the civil power in Denmark. In his controversies with the authorities at Tranquebar, he was generally in the right, but a less impetuous and more temperate approach might in the end have been more beneficial to the mission. He was too ready to open the coffers of the mission to those