The Dravidian Languages
The Dravidian Languages
The Dravidian languages are spoken by nearly 200 million people in South Asia and in diaspora communities around the world. They include Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu, as well as over 20 non-literary languages. Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, one of the most eminent Dravidianists of our time, provides a linguistic overview of the Dravidian language family. He describes its history and writing system, discusses its structure and typology, and considers its lexicon. Distant and more recent contacts between Dravidian and other language groups are also covered.
- The Dravidian language family covers several widely spoken South Asian languages (including Tamil); in all there are some 200 million speakers of these languages
- The author, one of the most eminent scholars in this field, has held visiting appointments in the US, Australia and Japan, and is a member of the Indian National Academy of Letters
- The book will be of interest to linguists in various branches of the discipline, and also to Indologists
Reviews & endorsements
"The state of the art in historical Dravidian studies. Krishnamurti's careful scholarship, detailed analysis, and even-handedness in dealing with different views make this a landmark volume that will serve as a touchstone for future generations of Dravidologists." Anthropological Linguistics
"This volume deserves to be on the bookshelf of every Dravidianist, and will serve as a distinguished source book for material on historical and comparative Dravidian linguistics for some time to come" - Sanford B. Steever, new Canaan, CT
Product details
April 2006Paperback
9780521025126
576 pages
228 × 151 × 33 mm
0.842kg
1 map 69 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Phonology: descriptive
- 3. The writing systems of the literary languages
- 4. Phonology: historical and comparative
- 5. Word formation: roots, stems, formatives, derivational suffixes and nominal compounds
- 6. Nominals: nouns, pronouns, numerals and time and place adverbs
- 7. The verb
- 8. Adjectives, adverbs and clitics
- 9. Syntax
- 10. Lexicon
- 11. Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Indexes.
