Prof. (Dr.) Anvita Abbi (Padma Shri) Ph.D. (Cornell University, USA). Formerly Professor of Linguistics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
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Prof. (Dr.) Anvita Abbi (Padma Shri) Ph.D. (Cornell University, USA). Formerly Professor of Linguistics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. [email protected] Web: www.andamanese.net Currently: Visiting Research Professor, B.B. Borkar Chair, Goa University, Goa Eminent linguist and social scientist, Anvita Abbi has carried out first-hand field research on all six language families of India extending from the Himalayas to the Andaman Islands. She identified the sixth language family of India, viz. Great Andamanic (2003). Her results were later corroborated by the geneticists (2005). She has widely published in the areas of areal typology, language change, language documentation, structures of tribal and minority languages, language policy and education, and analysis of ethno-linguistic aspects of language use. An author and editor of 22 books published nationally and internationally, Prof. Abbi’s work on tribal and other minority languages of South Asia has been exemplary and has bagged several national and international awards including the Padma Shri in 2013 by the President of India and the Kenneth Hale Award in 2015 by the Linguistic Society of America for “outstanding lifetime contributions to the documentation and description of languages of India” and Rashtriya Lok-Bhasha Sammaan in 2003 for her contribution to tribal languages of India. She was nominated as “India Chair’ for Vancouver, BC, Canada by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in 2016. In the past She has occupied positions of Guest Scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig, Germany, Leverhulme Professor at SOAS, University of London, England, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, and Visiting Professorships in Heidelberg and Würzburg in Germany and at Simon Fraser University, B.C., Vancouver, Canada. She has been advisor to the UNESCO on language issues and has been serving as advisor to many national institutes, universities, the MHRD and the UGC. She was the founder Director of the Centre for Oral and Tribal Literature at Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. She is a member of the editorial board of several international journals of Linguistics. She taught Linguistics at JNU for 38 years. Currently she is busy documenting endangered languages of the Nicobar Islands under the SPPEL of the CIIL, Mysore. https://elar.soas.ac.uk/Collection/MPI64241 Forthcoming Publication in Press Voices from the Lost Horizon: Stories and Songs of the Great Andamanese. Niyogi Publishers. Delhi. .