The Dravidian Languages

The Dravidian Languages
Author: Sanford B. Steever
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 565
Release: 2019-12-18
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1317525396

The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with nearly 250 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka. This authoritative reference source provides a unique description of the languages, covering their grammatical structure and historical development, plus sociolinguistic features. Each chapter combines a modern linguistic perspective with traditional historical linguistics, and a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. New to this edition are chapters on Beṭṭa Kuṟumba, Kuṛux, Kūvi and Malayāḷam, and enlarged sections in various existing chapters, as well as updated bibliographies and demographic data throughout. The Dravidian Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, and will also be of interest to readers in the fields of comparative literature, areal linguistics and South Asian studies.

The Dravidian Languages

The Dravidian Languages
Author: Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 575
Release: 2003-01-16
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1139435337

The Dravidian languages are spoken by over 200 million people in South Asia and in Diaspora communities around the world, and constitute the world's fifth largest language family. It consists of about 26 languages in total including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. In this book, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a comprehensive study of the phonological and grammatical structure of the whole Dravidian family from different aspects. He describes its history and writing systems, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also discussed. With its comprehensive coverage this book will be welcomed by all students of Dravidian languages and will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline as well as Indologists.

The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia

The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia
Author: Hans Henrich Hock
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 964
Release: 2016-05-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110423383

With nearly a quarter of the world’s population, members of at least five major language families plus several putative language isolates, South Asia is a fascinating arena for linguistic investigations, whether comparative-historical linguistics, studies of language contact and multilingualism, or general linguistic theory. This volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic research on the languages of South Asia, with contributions by well-known experts. Focus is both on what has been accomplished so far and on what remains unresolved or controversial and hence offers challenges for future research. In addition to covering the languages, their histories, and their genetic classification, as well as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics, the volume provides special coverage of contact and convergence, indigenous South Asian grammatical traditions, applications of modern technology to South Asian languages, and South Asian writing systems. An appendix offers a classified listing of major sources and resources, both digital/online and printed.

Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia

Linguistic Archaeology of South Asia
Author: Franklin Southworth
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1134317778

Linguistics Archaeology of South Asia brings together linguistics and archaeological evidence of South Asian prehistory.

Language Conflict and Language Rights

Language Conflict and Language Rights
Author: William D. Davies
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 451
Release: 2018-08-09
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1108655475

As the colonial hegemony of empire fades around the world, the role of language in ethnic conflict has become increasingly topical, as have issues concerning the right of speakers to choose and use their preferred language(s). Such rights are often asserted and defended in response to their being violated. The importance of understanding these events and issues, and their relationship to individual, ethnic, and national identity, is central to research and debate in a range of fields outside of, as well as within, linguistics. This book provides a clearly written introduction for linguists and non-specialists alike, presenting basic facts about the role of language in the formation of identity and the preservation of culture. It articulates and explores categories of conflict and language rights abuses through detailed presentation of illustrative case studies, and distills from these key cross-linguistic and cross-cultural generalizations.