Language Variation in South Asia

ISBN-13: 9780195063653 / Angielski / Twarda / 1990 / 192 str.

William Bright

Opis

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.

Recenzje

`The range of Bright's interests with regard to South Asian languages is well illustrated in the book.` `In reading over these papers one is struck by several qualities of Bright's writing. One of these is the meticulousness of Bright's descriptive studies of Dravidian linguistic systems.` `...this book serves a desirable function in gathering together those of Bright's papers that detail his thinking on the role of variation within the South Asian linguistic landscape.` `The work will be of particular interest to Dravidianists, as well as to students of other South Asian language families whose research has an areal dimension or incorporates facets of socially conditioned variation.` Journal of the American Oriental Society