This book is the first detailed examination of George Abraham Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India, one of the most complete sources on South Asian languages. It shows that the Survey was characterised by a composite and collaborative mode of producing knowledge, which undermines any clear distinctions between European orientalists and colonised Indians in British India. Its authority lay more in its stress on the provisional nature of its findings, an emphasis on the approximate nature of its results, and a strong sense of its own shortcomings and inadequacies, rather than in any expression of mastery over India’s languages. The book argues that the Survey brings to light a different kind of colonial knowledge, whose relationship to power was much more ambiguous than has hitherto been assumed for colonial projects in modern India. It also highlights the contribution of Indians to the creation of colonial knowledge about South Asia as a linguistic region. Indians were important collaborators and participants in the Survey, and they helped to create the monumental knowledge of India as a linguistic region which is embodied in the Survey. This volume, like its companion volume Nation and Region in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India, will be a great resource for scholars and researchers of linguistics, language and literature, history, political studies, cultural studies and South Asian studies.

George Abraham Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India is one of the most complete sources on South Asian languages. This book is the first detailed examination of the Survey. It shows how the Survey collaborated with Indian activists to consolidate the regional languages in India. By focusing on India as a linguistic region, it was at odds with the colonial state’s conceptualisation of the subcontinent, in which religious and caste differences were key to its understanding of Indian society. A number of the Survey’s narratives are detachable from its rigorous linguistic imperatives, and together with aspects of Grierson’s other texts, these contributed to the way in which Indian nationalists appropriated and reshaped languages, making them religiously charged ideological symbols of particular versions of the subcontinent. Thus, the Survey played an important role in the emergence of religious nationalism and language conflict in the subcontinent in the 20th century. This volume, like its companion volume Colonialism and Knowledge in Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India, will be a great resource for scholars and researchers of linguistics, language and literature, history, political studies, cultural studies and South Asian studies.

State wise language survey of major Indian languages and minor dialects.

Multilingualism in India is a challenging and stimulating study of the nature and structure of multilingualism in the Indian subcontinent. India, with 1652 mother tongues, between two hundred and seven hundred languages belonging to four language families, written in ten major script systems and a host of minor ones represents multilingualism unparalleled in the democratric world. With four thousand castes and communities and equal number of religious faiths and cults, its multilingualism matches its pluriculturalism.

A Major Activity Of The Sahitya Akademi Is The Preparation Of An Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature. The Venture, Covering Twenty-Two Languages Of India, Is The First Of Its Kind. Written In English, The Encyclopaedia Gives A Comprehensive Idea Of The Growth And Development Of Indian Literature. The Entries On Authors, Books And General Topics Have Been Tabulated By The Concerned Advisory Boards And Finalised By A Steering Committee. Hundreds Of Writers All Over The Country Contributed Articles On Various Topics. The Encyclopaedia, Planned As A Six-Volume Project, Has Been Brought Out. The Sahitya Akademi Embarked Upon This Project In Right Earnest In 1984. The Efforts Of The Highly Skilled And Professional Editorial Staff Started Showing Results And The First Volume Was Brought Out In 1987. The Second Volume Was Brought Out In 1988, The Third In 1989, The Fourth In 1991, The Fifth In 1992, And The Sixth Volume In 1994. All The Six Volumes Together Include Approximately 7500 Entries On Various Topics, Literary Trends And Movements, Eminent Authors And Significant Works. The First Three Volume Were Edited By Prof. Amaresh Datta, Fourth And Fifth Volume By Mohan Lal And Sixth Volume By Shri K.C.Dutt.

Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics brings together as one set, mini-sets, or individual volumes, a series of previously out-of-print classics from a variety of academic imprints. With titles ranging from Applied Linguistics and Language Learning to Experimental Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, this set provides in one place a wealth of important reference sources from a wide range of authors expert in the field.

This book examines the frequencies of the six possible basic word (or constituent) orders (SOV, SVO, VSO, VOS, OSV, OVS) provides a typologically grounded explanation for those frequencies in terms of three independent, functional principles of linguistic organization. From a database of nearly 1,000 languages and their basic constituent orders, a sample of 400 languages was produced that is statistically representative of both the genetic and areal distributions of the world’s languages. This sample reveals the following relative frequencies (in order from high to low) of basic constituent order types: (1) SOV and SVO, (2) VSO, (3) VOS and OVS, (4) OSV. It is argued that these relative frequencies can be explained to be the result of the possible interactions of three fundamental functional principles of linguistic organization. Principle 1, the thematic information principle, specifies that initial position is the cross-linguistically favoured position for clause-level thematic information. Principle 2, the verb-object bonding principle, describes the cross-linguistic tendency for a transitive verb and its object to form a more tightly integrated unit, syntactically and semantically, than does a transitive verb and its subject. Principle 3, the animated principle, describes the cross-linguistic tendency for semantic arguments which are either more animate or more agentive to occur earlier in the clause. Each principle is motivated independently of the others, drawing on cross-linguistic data from more than 80 genetically and typologically diverse languages. Given these three independently motivated functional principles, it is argued that the relative frequency of basic constituent order types is due to the tendency for the three principles to be maximally realized in the world’s languages. SOV and SVO languages are typologically most frequent because such basic orders reflect all three principles. The remaining orders occur less frequently because they reflect fewer of the principles. The 1,000-language database and the genetic and areal classification frames are published as appendices to the volume.

This book rethinks Northeast India as a lived space, a centre of interconnections and unfolding histories, instead of an isolated periphery. Questioning dominant tropes and assumptions around the Northeast, it examines socio-political and historical processes, border issues, the role of the state, displacement and development, debates over natural resources, violence, notions of body and belonging, movements, tensions and relations, and strategies, struggles and narratives that frame discussions on the region. Drawing on current and emerging research in Northeast India studies, this work will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics, human geography, sociology and social anthropology, history, cultural studies, media studies and South Asian studies.