The Dravidian Languages (Routledge Language Family Series) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415100232 ISBN 13: 9780415100236

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with over 175 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka as well as having communities in Malaysia, North America and the UK. Four of the languages, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu are official national languages and the Dravidian family has had a rich literary and cultural influence.
This authoritative reference source provides unique descriptions of 12 of these languages, covering their historical development alongside discussions of their specialised linguistic structures and features. Each chapter combines modern linguistic theory with traditional historical linguistics and a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. Two further chapters provide general information about the language family - the introduction, which covers the history, cultural implications and linguistic background, and a separate article on Dravidian writing systems.
This volume includes languages from all 4 of the Dravidian family's subgroupings: South Dravidian e.g. Tamil, Kannada; South Central Dravidian e.g. Telugu, Konda; Central Dravidian e.g. Kolami; North Dravidian e.g. Brahui, Malto.
Written by a team of expert contributors, many of whom are based in Asia, each language chapter offers a detailed analysis of phonology, morphology, syntax and followed by a list of the most relevant further reading to aid the independent scholar.
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, South Asian studies and Oriental studies.

About this title

Review

"'Steever sets out the aim of this volume as being to enable 'the layman or linguist... to satisfy his curiosity about these individual languages'... The volume succeeds in Steever's aim, while in addition suggesting a number of interesting questions for further investigation' - Bernard Comrie, Journal of Linguistics, Vol. 36 [2000]"

Synopsis

The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with over 175 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka as well as having communities in Malaysia, North America and the UK. Three of the languages, Tamil, Kannada and Tulu, are official national languages and the Dravidian family has had a rich literary and cultural influence. This reference source aims to provide descriptions of 11 of these languages, covering their historical development alongside discussions of their specialized linguistic structures and features. It combines modern linguistic theory with traditional historical linguistics and aims to allow for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. The introduction covers the history, cultural implications and linguistic background of the Dravidian language family, while chapters provide general information and details about its writing systems. It also includes languages from all four of the Dravidian family's subgroupings: South Dravidian (Tamil), Kannade South Central Dravidian (Telugu), and Konda Central Dravidian (Kolam).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415100232
• ISBN 13: 9780415100236
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 454
• Editor: Steever Sanford B.