Childers, Robert Caesar (1838–1876)

British orientalist. He was born in Nice and became a civil servant in Ceylon in 1860. He studied Sinhalese, Pali, and the Buddhist sacred books, and in 1873 became the first professor of Pali and Buddhist literature at University College London. He edited Pali texts 1869–74 and compiled the first Pali dictionary, which became the foundation of Pali studies, 1872–75.

In two papers, published in 1873 and 1875, he conclusively proved that Sinhalese, until then generally considered to be a Dravidian language, belongs to the Indo-European family.