Language Variation in South Asia

✍ Scribed by William Bright

• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 186
• Edition: 1ST
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

South Asia presents the linguist with a bewildering variety of regional dialects, social dialects, formal and informal registers, literary standards, languages, writing systems, and language families. Written over a period of more than twenty years, these essays by a leading authority on South Asian language cover a broad range of topics in South Asian linguistics. The essays address social dialect, structural borrowing, areal linguistics, the relation between literary and colloquial standards, and the role of written language in South Asian culture from the times of the ancient Indus Valley civilization. Offering a sociolinguistic approach, and encompassing both descriptive and historical studies, this collection of twelve of Bright's most important essays reflects his extensive research on the linguistics of South Asia.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 16
1. Linguistic Change in Some Indian Caste Dialects......Page 20
2. Sociolinguistic Variation and Language Change with A. K. Ramanujan......Page 28
3. Dravidian Metaphony......Page 36
4. Language, Social Stratification, and Cognitive Orientation......Page 54
5. Complex Verb Forms in Colloquial Tamil with J. Lindenfeld......Page 61
6. Phonological Rules in Literary and Colloquial Kannada......Page 82
7. Hindi Numerals......Page 91
8. The Dravidian Enunciative Vowel......Page 103
9. How Not to Decipher the Indus Valley Inscriptions......Page 135
10. Archaeology, Linguistics, and Ancient Dravidian......Page 141
11. Written and Spoken Language in South Asia......Page 147
Bibliography......Page 166
B......Page 180
F......Page 181
K......Page 182
M......Page 183
P......Page 184
S......Page 185
Z......Page 186