HOMBURGER, Lilias. U.K. 1880 — 1969. Mlle. French Linguist, with mixed German-English-French background. Began her career as missionary. Studied linguistics (Meillet), Dravidian and African languages. As directeur d’études taught African linguistics at É.P.H.É. L. S. Senghor was among her students there. She proposed wide-reaching theories about the unity of African languages and their common origin with Old Egyptian and eventually added even Dravidian and Basque to this supposed linguistic unity.

Publications: On African linguistics, e.g. Études de linguistique négro-africaine. 96 p. P. 1939.

– Short articles about the supposed African connection of Dravidian, e.g. “Les Dravidiens en Afrique”, Actes du XXIe Congrès Intern. des Orientalistes, Paris 1948, P. 1949, 387f.; “L’Inde et l’Egypte”, JA 243, 1955, 129f.; “Indians in Africa”, Man 56, 1956, 18-21; “Les Dravidiens et l’Afrique (du sindo-africain)”, Proc. of the 8th Intern. Congress of Linguistics, Oslo 1958, 617.

– In Journal des Africanistes: “Eléments dravidiens en peul”, 18, 1948, 135-143; “Les Telougous et les dialectes mandés”, 21, 1951, 113-126; “L’Inde et l’Afrique”, 25, 1955, 13-18; “Les sonantes en sindo-africain”, 34, 1964, 281-298.

– Les langues négro-africaines et les peuples qui les parlent. 1941, nouvelle éd. revue et augmentée d’un chapitre sur le sindo-africain. 161 p. P. 1957; rev. transl. of the 1st ed. The Negro-African languages. 7+275 p. L. 1949.

Sources: Stray notes in Internet; French Wikipédia briefly.