Full Description
The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with nearly 250 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka. This authoritative reference source provides a unique description of the languages, covering their grammatical structure and historical development, plus sociolinguistic features. Each chapter combines a modern linguistic perspective with traditional historical linguistics, and a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages.
New to this edition are chapters on Beṭṭa Kuṟumba, Kuṛux, Kūvi and Malayāḷam, and enlarged sections in various existing chapters, as well as updated bibliographies and demographic data throughout.
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, areal linguistics and South Asian studies.
Contents
1 Introduction to the Dravidian Languages
Sanford B. Steever
2 The Dravidian Scripts
William Bright
Part I: South Dravidian
3 Old Tamil
Thomas Lehmann
4 Modern Tamil
E. Annamalai and Sanford B. Steever
5 Malayalam
P. Sreekumar
6 Betta Kurumba
Gail Coelho
7 Kannada Sanford B. Steever
8 Tulu
D.N.S. Bhat
Part II: South-Central Dravidian
9 Old Telugu
P. Ramanarasimham
10 Telugu
Bh. Krishnamurti
11 Koṇḍa
Bh. Krishnamurti and Brett A. Benham
12 Gonḍi
Sanford B. Steever
13 Kūvi
Sanford B. Steever
Part III: Central Dravidian
14 Kolami
P.S. Subrahmanyam
15 Gadaba
Peri Bhaskararao
Part IV: North Dravidian
16 Malto
Sanford B. Steever
17 Kurux
Masato Kobayashi and Tetru Oraon
18 Brahui
Josef Elfenbein
