DOCSLIB.ORG

It Takes Two to Tango

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
It Takes Two to Tango Language in South Asia – diversity & endangerment Anju Saxena Göteborg University/ Uppsala University presentation outline (1) South Asia: geography and linguistic situation (2) Language diversity and endangerment in South Asia Complicating factors: multilingualism is a part of the South Asian tradition unclear census figures insufficient language descriptions (3) What is happening today? South Asia (a.k.a. the Indian subcontinent) 500–1000 languages Bangladesh Bengali Bhutan Dzongkha India 2 official lgs: Hindi and English + 22 national lgs Maldives Dhivehi Nepal Nepali Pakistan Urdu and English Sri Lanka Sinhala and Tamil Several of the official languages of other South Asian countries are also national languages of India: Bengali (Bangladesh) Nepali (Nepal) Tamil (Sri Lanka) Urdu (Pakistan) Language families Indo-European (Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches + English) Dravidian Sino-Tibetan (the Tibeto-Burman branch) Austro-Asiatic (both the Munda and Mon- Khmer branches) + language isolates (the Andamanese languages, Burushaski, Nihali, Kusunda and possibly some other languages) Language families in India (source: Central Institute of Indian Languages) Great diversity 1: no of speakers Language family % speakers in population Indo-European 80.4% (78.7%+1.7%) (Indo-Aryan, Iranian) Dravidian 17.5% Tibeto-Burman 1.2% Austro-Asiatic 0.9% Great diversity 2: no of speakers 18 major lgs vs. other languages in India (1991 census) 18 scheduled (i.e., national) lgs 96.29% 96 non-scheduled languages (the 3.17% figure also includes 0.07% who speak “other languages” defined as those languages which have less than 10,000 speakers) Great diversity 3: regional variation Major Minor Minor Others lg lg 1 lg 2 A Kerala 96.6 2.1 0.3 1.0 Punjab 92.2 7.3 0.1 0.4 Gujarat 91.5 2.9 1.7 3.9 Arunachal 19.9 9.4 8.2 62.5 B Pradesh Nagaland 14.0 12.6 11.4 52.0 Importantly, these are APPROXIMATIONS No exact information about • the number of languages, and • the number of speakers of a particular language Some contributing factors: (i) dialect continua; (ii) multilingualism; (iii) incomplete census data; (iv) inadequate language descriptions and linguistic surveys Multilingualism: long tradition spanning three millenia - Societal multilingualism, e.g. language use in the life of a businessman in Mumbai: “His mother tongue is Gujarati. He lives in Mumbai [where Marathi is the dominant language]. How many languages do you think he uses in a day? In order to buy vegetables, he uses a colloquial variety of Marathi with the vegetable seller, then he travels by Metro to go into the city. As many ticketsellers are Anglo-Indians [and not Gujarati or Marathi speakers] he talks to them in colloquial Hindi. In connection with his business he comes in contact with people who speak Gujarati, Kacchi and Konkani. He communicates with them in these languages. He is educated enough to read English newspapers, and in the evenings he watches Hindi films on TV with his family.” Consequences: 1. Contact-induced changes ”India as a linguistic area” 2. Language shift A case study Language contact: Sangla Valley, Kinnaur Spoken in each village: - Kinnauri - Harijan boli -Ores Focus here: Kinnauri and Harijan boli Population: Kinnauri: 48 778 (1991 census) Harijan boli: 6 331 in Kinnaur (1998, Ethnologue) 6 331 includes all non-Kinnauri languages of this district Genetic relationships Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Himalayish Tibeto-Kinnauri West Himalayish Indo-European Kinnauri Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northern zone Western Pahari Harijan boli Previous work on these languages Kinnauri: Some work on Lower Kinnauri Harijan boli: None to date Linguistic convergence contd. Interesting patterns in kinship terms Gloss Harijan Kinnauri Comment younger brother noro bau baits bhai+-ts p. uncle bapu gato bapu tsa:ts (Kc, Kt), P. cacca m. uncle mama muma ma:m (Koci, Kotgarhi) Sk. mamàh mother ma ma ama (Tinani) p. uncle’s wife ma-ts gato ma tsats (Koci, kotgarhi) brother ate ate Possibly a kinnauri loanword oldest brother badote teg ate big[Indic]-brother[?Kinnauri] /bado ate mother’s sister mausre amni-ts, mas:i (Koci, Kotgarhi), Sk. matuhsvasa mats grandmother(p.,m.) api api àbi (Tod), àp (Tinani), àpa (Patani) dad: ‘father’s mother’ (Kc, Kotgarhi) grandfather(p., m.) tete tete tete (Darmiya, Tinani), da:d ‘father’s father, elder brother’ (Koci, Kotgarhi) Both languages becoming more similar to each other: Vigesimal counting system Gloss Kinnauri Harijan Vs. Koci, Kotgarhi (IA) 1 d ek e:k 2 ns dui dui (Sk. d(u)ve, Pa. Pk. duve) 5 a panch pa:ndz (Sk. panca) 10 s das ds (Sk. daSa) 11 sihd gyarah g:ra (Pk. egarasa, Sk. ekadaSa) 20 niza eisa bi (Kc, Kt) (20+1) nizo d eisa ek (20+3) nizo sum eisa trawn tej, tej bi: (20+11) nizo sihd eisa gyarah 2x20+1 nisnizo d dweesa ek 2x20+10 nisnizo ry dweesa das pdza (Sk. pancaSat) 100 ra raah S: (Sk. Satam) 2x100 ns ra dui raah Cultural convergence Common festivals: • Phulaich, • Phaguli Village god: Shri Naranji Some observations about the “caste system” in this region • Classical Vedic caste system: Brahmins, Ksatriya, Vaisya, Sudra and ontouchables • Interesting application of this caste system in this region: Kinnauris (TB) as Rajputs (thus, Ksatriyas in the traditional caste system), and Harijans (IA) as Scheduled castes (thus, Shudra/untouchables in the traditional system) • Symbolic One language = One culture? Stable multilingualism in modern times? Drastic changes in socio-cultural spheres in recent times Increasing bilingualism: Rate of bilingualism (concerning the 114 lgs named in the census) 1961 census 9.7% 1991 census 19.44% About the census figures: Positive that there is a census every 10 year in India (since 1881) but language data are self-reported all languages with less than 10,000 speakers are classified under the heading “Other” Linguistic descriptions, surveys? The only reliable survey till date is Grierson’s Linguistic survey of India (1887-1907) several attempts since then some descriptions of some lgs available many languages and linguistic situations undocumented and undescribed A case in point: Kinnaur vast geographical area If we concentrate our attention on Kinnauri, a lot of “dialectal” variation no comparative work done Kinnauri: Dialectal variation Gloss Chitkul Sangla mother ama ama father au bɔba daughter ačɪ čɪmed woman mɔrɪŋmi tsʰɛtss food kɔn kʰɔu morning čʰaŋmo sɔm day niri laye come tɔŋ bannu What’s happening today? The “success story” of Santhali languages in Jharkhand: Indo-Aryan (e.g. Sadari, Hindi, Bengali) Dravidian (Kurux, Malto) Austro-Asiatic (e.g. Mundari, Ho, Santhali) Hindi and English are dominant lgs Two opposing trends: (i) promoting English (ii) promoting some lesser-known languages – in particular Santhali – of this region, e.g. as a subject in schools and in University; newpapers Other activities A new linguistic survey is launched in India Nepal has introduced new regulations which, at least in principle, promote other languages than Nepali Language documentation at various places in India, Nepal and Bhutan (financed by national & international agencies) International efforts CNRS (Lacito Archive) Uppsala/Gothenburg Vienna Bern projects in Australia, USA and Germany among others To conclude, there is a need to consolidate our efforts in describing and documenting these lesser-known languages so that they no longer remain lesser-known.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Grammatical Gender in Hindukush Languages
    Grammatical gender in Hindukush languages An areal-typological study Julia Lautin Department of Linguistics Independent Project for the Degree of Bachelor 15 HEC General linguistics Bachelor's programme in Linguistics Spring term 2016 Supervisor: Henrik Liljegren Examinator: Bernhard Wälchli Expert reviewer: Emil Perder Project affiliation: “Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush Region,” a research project supported by the Swedish Research Council (421-2014-631) Grammatical gender in Hindukush languages An areal-typological study Julia Lautin Abstract In the mountainous area of the Greater Hindukush in northern Pakistan, north-western Afghanistan and Kashmir, some fifty languages from six different genera are spoken. The languages are at the same time innovative and archaic, and are of great interest for areal-typological research. This study investigates grammatical gender in a 12-language sample in the area from an areal-typological perspective. The results show some intriguing features, including unexpected loss of gender, languages that have developed a gender system based on the semantic category of animacy, and languages where this animacy distinction is present parallel to the inherited gender system based on a masculine/feminine distinction found in many Indo-Aryan languages. Keywords Grammatical gender, areal-typology, Hindukush, animacy, nominal categories Grammatiskt genus i Hindukush-språk En areal-typologisk studie Julia Lautin Sammanfattning I den här studien undersöks grammatiskt genus i ett antal språk som talas i ett bergsområde beläget i norra Pakistan, nordvästra Afghanistan och Kashmir. I området, här kallat Greater Hindukush, talas omkring 50 olika språk från sex olika språkfamiljer. Det stora antalet språk tillsammans med den otillgängliga terrängen har gjort att språken är arkaiska i vissa hänseenden och innovativa i andra, vilket gör det till ett intressant område för arealtypologisk forskning.
    [Show full text]
  • A Structural Analysis of Dogri Temporal Markers
    Dialectologia 23 (2019), 235-260. ISSN: 2013-2247 Received 11 April 2017. Accepted 8 OctoBer 2017. A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF DOGRI TEMPORAL MARKERS Tanima ANAND & Amitabh VIKRAM DWIVEDI Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India** [email protected] / amitabhvikram @yahoo.co.in Abstract The present paper aims to investigate the structural and semantic properties of the temporal markers in Dogri language. It centralizes at investigating the modifications which are carried out in Dogri for the previous generalizations of the already formulated tense theories propounded by Comrie (1985), Olphen (1975), Guru (1982), Kuryɬowicz (1956), Partee (1973), and alike. The study focuses on the linguistic realization of tense in Dogri where the grammaticalization and lexicalization of temporal markers is discussed. It employs a quantitative approach and considers linguistic typology as a frame of reference to study the range of variation in tense, also taking into consideration the apparent anomalies and deviations which Dogri occupies within the boundaries of the already generated theories of grammatical tense. The present study involves the analysis of the discourse, both written and spoken. The discourse is corpus constituting the spontaneous Dogri spoken in the standardized form in the Jammu region. Keywords structural, semantic, cross-linguistic, typology, empirically, corpus, Dogri ANÁLISIS ESTRUCTURAL DE LOS MARCADORES TEMPORALES EN DOGRI Resumen Este trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar las propiedades estructurales y semánticas de los marcadores temporales en la lengua dogri. Se centra en la investigación de las modificaciones llevadas a cabo en dogri por las generalizaciones previas de las ya formuladas teorías sobre el tiempo verbal propuestas por Comrie (1985), Olphen (1975), Guru (1982), Kuryɬowicz (1956), Partee (1973) y otros.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of South Asian Linguistics
    Volume 8, Issue 1 July 2018 Journal of South Asian Linguistics Volume 8 Published by CSLI Publications Contents 1 Review of The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Contemporary Guide 3 Farhat Jabeen 1 JSAL volume 8, issue 1 July 2018 Review of The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Contemporary Guide Farhat Jabeen, University of Konstanz Received December 2018; Revised January 2019 Bibliographic Information: The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Contemporary Guide. Edited by Hans Heinrich Hock and Elena Bashir. De Gruyter Mouton. 2016. 1 Introduction With its amazing linguistic diversity and the language contact situation caused by centuries of mi- gration, invasion, and cultural incorporation, South Asia offers an excellent opportunity for linguists to exercise their skill and challenge established theoretical linguistic claims. South Asian languages, with their unique array of linguistic features, have offered interesting challenges to prevalent formal linguistic theories and emphasized the need to expand their horizons and modify their theoretical assumptions. This book is the 7th volume of The World of Linguistics series edited by Hans Heinrich Hock. The current book is jointly edited by Hans Heinrich Hock and Elena Bashir, two excellent South Asian linguists with extensive experience of working in the field on a number of South Asian languages. At more than 900 pages, the volume is divided into ten sections pertaining to different linguistic levels (morphology, phonetics and phonology, syntax and semantics), grammatical traditions to study South Asian languages, sociological phenomena (contact and convergence) and sociolinguistics of South Asia, writing systems, as well as the use of computational linguistics approach to study South Asian languages in the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Language and Literature
    1 Indian Languages and Literature Introduction Thousands of years ago, the people of the Harappan civilisation knew how to write. Unfortunately, their script has not yet been deciphered. Despite this setback, it is safe to state that the literary traditions of India go back to over 3,000 years ago. India is a huge land with a continuous history spanning several millennia. There is a staggering degree of variety and diversity in the languages and dialects spoken by Indians. This diversity is a result of the influx of languages and ideas from all over the continent, mostly through migration from Central, Eastern and Western Asia. There are differences and variations in the languages and dialects as a result of several factors – ethnicity, history, geography and others. There is a broad social integration among all the speakers of a certain language. In the beginning languages and dialects developed in the different regions of the country in relative isolation. In India, languages are often a mark of identity of a person and define regional boundaries. Cultural mixing among various races and communities led to the mixing of languages and dialects to a great extent, although they still maintain regional identity. In free India, the broad geographical distribution pattern of major language groups was used as one of the decisive factors for the formation of states. This gave a new political meaning to the geographical pattern of the linguistic distribution in the country. According to the 1961 census figures, the most comprehensive data on languages collected in India, there were 187 languages spoken by different sections of our society.
    [Show full text]
  • Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski
    Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session Volume 40 Article 5 1996 Verb agreement and case marking in Burushaski Stephen R. Willson SIL-UND Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers Part of the Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Willson, Stephen R. (1996) "Verb agreement and case marking in Burushaski," Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session: Vol. 40 , Article 5. DOI: 10.31356/silwp.vol40.05 Available at: https://commons.und.edu/sil-work-papers/vol40/iss1/5 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session by an authorized editor of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Verb Agreement and Case Marking in Burushaski Stephen R. Willson 1 Burushaski verb agreement and case marking phenomena are complex and have not been described adequately by any current theory ofsyntax. In particular, no explanation has yet been given as to why a variety of nominals can trigger agreement in the verbal prefix. In some cases the apparent subject triggers this agreement, in others the direct object appears to do so, in others the indirect object, in others the possessor of the direct object, in others a benefactive or source nominal. Also, the constraints on the usage of ergative, absolutive and oblique case, and other indicators ofgrammatical relations on nominals, have been insufficiently characterized in the literature on Burushaski.
    [Show full text]
  • Multilingual Practices in Kullu (Himachal Pradesh, India)
    Multilingual practices in Kullu (Himachal Pradesh, India) Julia V. Mazurova, the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences Project participants Himachali Pahari Grammar description and lexicon of Kullui Fieldwork research Kullui – an Indo-Aryan language of the Himachali Pahari (also known as Western Pahari) • Expedition 2014 Fund of Fundamental Linguistic Research, project 2014 “Documentation of Kullui (Western Pahari)”, supervisor Julia Mazurova • Expedition 2016 Russian State Fund for Scientific Research № 16-34-01040 «Grammar description and lexicon of Kullui», supervisor Elena Knyazeva Goals of the research Linguistic goals • Documentation of Kullui on the modern linguistic and technical level: dictionary, corpus of morphologically glossed texts with audio and video recordings. • Theoretical research of the Kullui phonology and grammar • Fieldwork research of the Himachali dialectal continuum • Description of the areal and typological features of the Himachali dialectal continuum Goals of the research Socio-linguistic goals • Linguistic situation in the region. Functional domains of the languages • Geographical location of the Kullui language • Differences between Kullui and neighbor dialects • Choosing informants • Evaluating of the language knowledge of the speakers • Language vitality • Variation in Kullui depending on age, gender, social level, education and other factors Linguistic situation in India ➢ Official languages of the Union Government of India – Hindi and English ➢ Scheduled languages (in States of India)
    [Show full text]
  • A Nthropology N Ew Sletter
    Special theme: Languages and Linguistics at an Ethnological Museum National Museum of Language is a window into the human mind and reflects human activities, Ethnology while linguistics is an academic field where languages are analyzed from a scientific view-point. As an ethnological museum, Minpaku has a strong focus Osaka on fieldwork, which is necessary for linguists and ethnologists to study languages and learn about human beings and their diversity. Essays in this Number 39 issue present glimpses of the thoughts of linguists at Minpaku who combine linguistic fieldwork and later analysis at their desks. What is unique to December 2014 researchers at Minpaku, however, is that we are also involved with exhibitions for the public and have everyday communication with Anthropology Newsletter anthropologists in other fields. Languages do not exist without humans and humans do not exist without language. We believe that linguistic research is a good starting point on the path to a better understanding of who we are. MINPAKU Yak and Pig, Glacier and Sea Noboru Yoshioka National Museum of Ethnology Why do many Japanese-language dictionaries contain the word yaku [jakɯ] ‘yak’? When I was in the field, this question all of a sudden struck me. To make sure that my facts were correct, I checked the desktop dictionaries that I was carrying — a pocket-size dictionary published in 1979, a student dictionary published in 1996, and one Contents published in 2008 — and confirmed that all of these actually contained Languages and Linguistics the word as I had thought. Living in at an Ethnological Museum Japan, it is hard to see real yaks.
    [Show full text]
  • Correlation of the Burushaski Pronominal System with Indo-European and Phonological and Grammatical Evidence for a Genetic Relationship
    Correlation of the Burushaski Pronominal System with Indo-European and Phonological and Grammatical Evidence for a Genetic Relationship Ilija Çasule Macquarie University The Burushaski personal and demonstrative pronominal system is correlated in its entirety with Indo-European. This close correlation, together with the extensive grammatical correspondences in the nominal and verbal systems (given as an addendum), advances significantly the hypothesis of the genetic affiliation of Burushaski with Indo-European. The article includes a comprehensive discussion of the Burushaski-Indo-European phonological and lexical correspondences. It proposes that Burushaski is an Indo- European language which at some stage of its development was in contact with an agglutinative system. 1. Introduction 1.1. Brief overview of sources and previous studies Being a language with undetermined genetic affiliation, Burushaski has attracted considerable interest, especially in the last twenty years, but also earlier. There have been many attempts to relate it to languages as diverse as Basque, Nubian, Dravidian, various Caucasic as well as Yeniseian languages, Sino-Tibetan and Sumerian (for a brief overview, see Bashir 2000:1-3). These endeavors have failed mostly because of unsystematic or inconsistent correspondences, incorrect internal reconstruction, excessive semantic latitude and incoherent semantic fields, root etymologizing and especially lack of grammatical and derivational evidence. Burushaski is spoken by around 90,000 people (Berger 1990:567) in the Karakoram area in North-West Pakistan at the junction of three linguistic families — the Indo- European (Indo-Aryan and Iranian), the Sino-Tibetan and the Turkic. Its dialectal differentiation is minor. There are Volume 40, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2012 60 Ilija Çasule three very closely related dialects: Hunza and Nager with minimal differences, and the Yasin dialect, which exhibits differential traits, but is still mutually intelligible with the former two.
    [Show full text]
  • Linguistic History and Language Diversity in India: Views and Counterviews
    J Biosci (2019) 44:62 Indian Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1007/s12038-019-9879-1 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV) Linguistic history and language diversity in India: Views and counterviews SONAL KULKARNI-JOSHI Deccan College, Pune, India (Email, [email protected]) This paper addresses the theme of the seminar from the perspective of historical linguistics. It introduces the construct of ‘language family’ and then proceeds to a discussion of contact and the dynamics of linguistic exchange among the main language families of India over several millennia. Some prevalent hypotheses to explain the creation of India as a linguistic area are presented. The ‘substratum view’ is critically assessed. Evidence from historical linguistics in support of two dominant hypotheses –‘the Aryan migration view’ and ‘the out-of-India hypothesis’–is presented and briefly assessed. In conclusion, it is observed that the current understanding in historical linguistics favours the Aryan migration view though the ‘substratum view’ is questionable. Keywords. Aryan migration; historical linguistics; language family; Out-of-India hypothesis; substratum 1. Introduction the basis of social, political and cultural criteria more than linguistic criteria. The aim of this paper is to lend a linguistic perspective on This vast number of languages is classified into four (or the issue of human diversity and ancestry in India to the non- six) language families or genealogical types: Austro-Asiatic linguists at this seminar. The paper is an overview of the (Munda), Dravidian, Indo-Aryan (IA) and Tibeto-Burman; major views and evidences gleaned from the available more recently, two other language families have been literature.
    [Show full text]
  • BHADARWAHI:AT YPOLOGICAL SKETCH Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI
    BHADARWAHI: A TYPOLOGICAL SKETCH Amitabh Vikram DWIVEDI Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India [email protected] Abstract This paper is a summary of some phonological and morphosyntactice features of the Bhadarwahi language of Indo-Aryan family. Bhadarwahi is a lesser known and less documented language spoken in district of Doda of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by the main verb. Keywords: Indo-Aryan; less documented; SOV; aspiration; infixation Povzetek Članek je nekakšen daljši povzetek fonoloških in morfosintaktičnih značilnosti jezika badarvahi, enega izmed članov indo-arijske jezikovne družine. Badarvahi je manj poznan in slabo dokumentiran jezik z območja Doda v regiji Jammu v Kašmirju. Tipološko je zanj značilen dominanten osebek in besedni red: osebek, predmet, povedek. Glagoli se povečini ujemajo s samostalniškimi frazami, ki lahko v stavku zavzemajo katerikoli položaj ne da bi spremenile pomen stavka. Nadaljna značilnost jezika badarvahi je tudi to, da indirektni predmeti ponavadi stojijo pred direktnimi predmeti.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of Language Contact Between Jarawa and Aka-Bea: the Languages of South Andaman1
    Acta Orientalia 2011: 72, 1–40. Copyright © 2011 Printed in India – all rights reserved ACTA ORIENTALIA ISSN 0001-6483 In search of language contact between Jarawa and Aka-Bea: The languages of South Andaman1 Anvita Abbi and Pramod Kumar Cairns Institute, Cairns, Australia & Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Abstract The paper brings forth a preliminary report on the comparative data available on the extinct language Aka-Bea (Man 1923) and the endangered language Jarawa spoken in the south and the central parts of the Andaman Islands. Speakers of Aka-Bea, a South Andaman language of the Great Andamanese family and the speakers of Jarawa, the language of a distinct language family (Abbi 2006, 2009, Blevins 2008) lived adjacent to each other, i.e. in the southern region of the Great Andaman Islands in the past. Both had been hunter-gatherers and never had any contact with each other (Portman 1899, 1990). The Jarawas have been known for living in isolation for thousands of years, coming in contact with the outside world only recently in 1998. It is, then surprising to discover traces of some language-contact in the past between the two communities. Not a large database, but a few examples of lexical similarities between Aka-Bea and Jarawa are 1 The initial version of this paper was presented in The First Conference on ASJP and Language Prehistory (ALP-I), on 18 September 2010, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. We thank Alexandra Aikhnevald for helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper. 2 Anvita Abbi & Pramod Kumar investigated here.
    [Show full text]
  • Download SARVA.Pdf
    The SARVA (South Asia Residual Vocabulary Assemblage) Project1 F. C. Southworth, University of Pennsylvania (Emeritus) (last updated 21 September 2005) 1. Goals and background. Etymological research in South Asian languages has turned up large numbers of words in languages of all families which are of unknown origin, many of which are probably remnants of otherwise unknown ancient languages. In addition, there are language remnants (such as Nahali/Nihali) and isolated languages (such as Burushaski) which may possibly belong to formerly more widespread language families. The goal of the Project is to assemble all words showing early language contact among the (known and unknown) languages of the subcontinent, in order to provide data for the reconstruction of the history of language contact in the region, from the time of the earliest knowable South Asian linguistic strata, including inferences regarding the locations of these strata in time and space. Though the SARVA Dictionary takes the form of an etymological dictionary, the Project is not concerned only with the origins of individual words. Our ultimate concern is the discovery of patterns of linguistic interaction that will lead to reconstructions of the times, places, and cultural circumstances under which prehistoric language contact took place in the subcontinent. Recent work in archaeobotany by Dorian Fuller (e.g. Fuller 2002, 2003) has made clear the possibility of relating the history of plants to linguistic history, including correlations between the domestication and spread of cultivated plants and the linguistic origins and distribution of plant names. There is good reason to hope that in the not too distant future it will be possible to relate the history of Fuller five early agricultural regions to specific linguistic groups, and to get a much more detailed understanding of the interactions of those groups from at least the 3rd millennium BCE onward.
    [Show full text]