The volume under review is a welcome contribution to the field of Dravidian historical linguistics (particularly phonology and etymology), whose overall impact has sadly diminished over the past two decades, with the passing away of many eminent scholars (M.B. Emeneau, Bh. Krishnamurti, K. Zvelebil, M. Andronov) and the general lack of new large-scale monographic projects on the subject. It is a logical continuation of the author's doctoral dissertation on the subject, published in 1972 (Elements of Kuṛux Historical Phonology, Leiden: Brill); the main goal of the book, as is clarified in the brief Preface, is to update the author's original results by taking into account all the new comparative data that have become available since the publication of the revised Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (DEDR) by T. Burrow and M.B. Emeneau in 1984, and “to take a fresh look at the problems discussed in the first investigation into Kuṛux historical phonology” (p. 5).

The theoretical part of the monograph is minimal, consisting of a brief introduction (pp. 15–25) and a short overview of the main lines of phonetic development from Proto-Dravidian (PDr.) to Proto-North Dravidian (PNDr.) and Proto-Kuṛux-Malto (PKM; Pfeiffer considers Kuṛux-Malto and Brahui to belong together in a single North Dravidian branch of the family), with a special note on the status and origins of the uvular series in Kuṛux-Malto (pp. 448–62). Meanwhile, the bulk of the publication is given over to an etymological dictionary of Kuṛux-Malto (pp. 27–351), arranged in the order of appearance of the corresponding entries in DEDR – a decision that makes sense, since the majority of readers will probably want to study the work from the point of view of general Dravidian historical linguistics rather than specifically Kuṛux itself. The dictionary is followed by a detailed list of correspondences between Kuṛux, Malto, and PDr. (pp. 352–447), including a section that lists all the PDr. reconstructions listed in the book. The latter detail is particularly welcome in that many sources on Dravidian etymology, including DEDR itself, tend to refrain from systematic listings of reconstructed PDr. forms, which makes it difficult to assess both the accomplishments and the remaining issues of Dravidian historical phonology on the sole basis of the comparative data itself.

Although a very large part of the dictionary essentially consists of comparative Dravidian data reprinted from DEDR (probably unnecessary, since it is hard to imagine any reader of the book who would not be familiar with that source), the overall value of the etymological entries is quite high, not just because of the inclusion of reconstructions but also because of the author's systematic investigation into the areal connections of Kuṛux-Malto that allow the identification of a large number of probable borrowings from Indo-Aryan and Munda languages which have hitherto remained unnoticed. Some of the proposed etymologies are debatable, which is always to be expected, while others offer important insights into resolving elements of phonetic chaos which often plague the pages of DEDR. To give just one example, Pfeiffer reasonably points out that Kuṛux mocca “mouth, snout” has nothing to do with Malto mudra “face”, but is rather a straightforward borrowing from Munda forms such as Santali moca “mouth”, etc. (p. 303); dozens of similar corrections can be found throughout the volume.

In terms of new results on the study of the historical evolution of Dravidian and Kuṛux-Malto phonology, the volume seems to have relatively little to say when compared with Pfeiffer's 1972 monograph, and the few changes that there are have to be sought out by the reader on her/his own; an explicit list of such changes would have been a welcome addition, because otherwise it remains unclear exactly how much of Kuṛux historical phonology has truly been “reconsidered” by the author since 1972. At least one important problem – the phonological opposition between velar and uvular consonants, typical of NDr. but not of any other Dravidian languages – despite being allocated several pages of discussion (pp. 460–2), remains as unclear as it used to be: the author makes an important typological observation, noticing the similarity in the allophonic distribution of these consonants between Kuṛux-Malto and the non-Dravidian isolate language of Kusunda, spoken nearby, but this likely areal connection still sheds very little light on how k- and q- in NDr. have managed to become separate phonemes before non-high vowels.

One surprising flaw of the study is its almost complete dependence on older publications: Pfeiffer's primary and almost exclusive sources of data are A. Grignard's dictionary of Kuṛux from 1924 and E. Droese's dictionary of Malto from 1884. While in terms of sheer quantity of lexicographic data these sources still remain unrivalled, the accuracy and detail of their phonetic notation may certainly be questioned, and in any case there is much to be gained from taking into consideration data from recent studies. Most likely, the latest work on a detailed synchronic description of Kuṛux (Masato Kobayashi and Bablu Tirkey's The Kurux Language, Brill, 2017) could not have been used for reasons of time, but many other wordlists and short dictionaries of Kuṛux and Malto have appeared in print or in the form of electronic SIL surveys over the past few decades, and although most of them are duly indicated in the bibliography, the author at best briefly mentions them in the introduction; it would have been nice to see the new data included in the main body of the etymological dictionary as well.

Nevertheless, despite the mentioned shortcomings and despite, perhaps, falling somewhat short of expectations for a study that has been no less than 46 years in the making, Kuṛux Historical Phonology Reconsidered is still a very important publication that should be required reading for anybody whose work is in any way related to the field of Dravidian etymology; and even if it offers few new insights into our understanding of Proto-Dravidian phonology, it achieves a significant breakthrough in the study of areal connections between Dravidian peoples and other early inhabitants of Northern India.