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 448   LANGUAGES  OF  SOUTH  ASIA  

TOPIC  1:  SOUTH  ASIA  AS  A  LINGUISTIC  AREA  -­  OVERVIEW  
 
Language  in  an  historical  context  
•Linguistic  records  going  back  to  three  millennia  
•Literary  languages  side  by  side  with  languages  that  lack  a  writing  system  
•Two  dozen  writing  systems  in  use  
•Many  of  the  languages  exhibit  diglossia  
•Widespread  bi-­‐  and  multilingualism,  both  individual  and  geographical  
 
 
•It  is  impossible  to  be  at  all  precise  about  either  the  number  of  languages  
spoken  in  the  region  or  the  number  of  speakers  of  each.  
 
Reasons    
•Language  vs.  dialect  status  
•Some  languages  may  still  remain  undiscovered  
•Available  statistics  vary  in  quality,  reliability  and  date  
•Political  factors  influencing  which  languages  are  recognized  and  in  the  manner  
in  which  varieties  are  grouped.  
 
However….  
•Total  number  of  languages  is  not  less  than  300  
•Some  of  these  are  at  the  risk  of  dying  out,  while  some  are  among  the  most  
widely  spoken  languages  in  the  world.  
 
Historical  factors    
There  are  two  principal  ways  in  which  historical  developments  have  contributed  
to  the  rich  linguistic  scene  of  South  Asia.    
      1.  Movement  of  populations  at  different  times  into  the  area  
from  outside.  
      2.  Divergence  within  a  language  over  time  when  different  
groups  of  speakers  have  become  relatively  isolated  from  each  other.  
 
 
•No  dating  of  the  assumed  population  movements  is  possible  with  regard  to  
Sino-­‐Tibetan  and  Austro-­‐Asiatic,    
but  …..  
•The  arrival  from  the  northwest  of  the  group  of  Indo-­‐Europeans  known  as  
Aryans  can  be  put  at  approximately  the  middle  of  the  second  millennium  BCE.  
 
Overview  of  South  Asia  
•Tentative  conclusions  of  a  trained  linguist’s  observation  of  the  language  
situation  in  South  Asia  
–In  the  great  northern  plain  in  India  –  virtual  continuum  of  speech  forms.  
–Also  interspersed  in  this  area  are  pockets  of  tribals  (Bihar,  Jarkhand,  Orissa,  WB  
and  Chattisgarh;  Bangladesh  and  Nepal)  whose  speech  forms  seem  linguistically  
unrelated  to  those  of  the  surrounding  districts.  
 
–In  other  parts  of  the  subcontinent  –  dialects  seemingly  unrelated  to  the  great  
group  of  speech  forms  of  the  northern  subcontinent  and  include  a  multiplicity  of  
language  varieties  showing  significant  coherence  in  phonology,  morphology,  
syntax,  and  vocabulary.  
–In  many  of  the  peripheral  areas  of  the  subcontinent  –  groupings  of  speech  forms  
that  are  less  homogeneous  in  overall  typology  than  observed  in  the  larger  
language  groupings  to  the  south,  and  that  clearly  represent  the  juxtaposing  of  
speech  forms  of  a  number  of  distinct  origins.    
 
–Blurred  transitional  zones  between  major  linguistic  groups  often  show  patterns  
of  bi-­‐  and  multilingualism,  wholesale  lexical,  and  in  some  cases  phonological  and  
morpho-­‐syntactic  borrowing  between  codes  and  the  use  of  compromise  codes  to  
effect  intergroup  communication.  
 
How  does  one  explain  the  standardizing  tendencies  of  the  mass  media  and  
government  education  policies?  
 
•Northern  India  
–Local  speech  varieties  seem  to  group  themselves  into  a  number  of  sub-­‐regional  
norms  (Bundeli,  Awadhi,  Bhojpuri,  Maghi,  Braj  etc.)  with  distinct  literatures  
being  composed  in  a  number  of  these  varieties.  
 
 
•Southern  India  
–Much  clearer  vertical  arrangement  between  the  substructure  and  identifiable  
level  of  languages  under  which  the  spoken  varieties  are  subsumed.  
–More  extensive  network  of  socially  conditioned  speech  alternates,  grouped  
under  the  rubric  of  single  languages.  
–Linguistically  distinct  speech  forms  conditioned  by  caste  and  other  social  
variables.  
 
How  and  why  are  these  languages  divided  into  various  families?  
•Historical  vs.  typological  reconstruction  
 
–Historical  
•Stages  in  the  history  of  a  language  family  
•Entries  at  the  top  level  indicate  more  distantly  removed  stages  of  development  
 
–Typological  
•Bottom  levels  represent  contemporary  varieties  
•Upper  levels  are  progressively  large  groupings  
 
 
•Legitimacy:  
–When  there  are  systematic  correspondences  
 
 
Comparisons  should  be  made  only  between  historically  comparable  stages.  
 
Stammbaum  Model  of  historical  reconstruction  
•Getting  to  proto-­‐forms  by  comparative  methods.  
•Daughters  of  a  common  source  all  split  off  at  the  same  time.  
•Best  suited  for  characterizing  the  development  of  “standard  languages”  by  a  
systematic  disregard  of  the  variable  output.  
 
Non-­Stammbaum  models  
•Proto-­‐languages  must  have  consisted  not  of  a  single  monolithic  language,  but  of  
a  number  of  related  geographically  distributed  ‘dialects’.  
•Linguistics  diversity  is  not  necessarily  increased  through  time.  
 
Wave  Theory  
•Bloomfield,  
“…linguistic  change  may  spread  like  waves,  over  a  speech  area,  and  each  change  
may  be  carried  out  over  a  part  of  the  area  that  does  not  coincide  with  the  part  
covered  by  an  earlier  change.  The  result  of  waves  will  be  a  network  of  
isoglosses.”  
 
Designed  to  compensate  for  the  inability  of  the  Stammbaum  to  handle  speech  
continua.  
 
Factors  that  cannot  be  accounted  for  in  an  historical  model:  
 
1.Inability  to  handle  areal  features  
 
Example:  South  Asian  Spracbund  
a.Common  core  of  phonological  units  
b.Share  set  of  syntactic  constructions  
c.Shared  type  of  lexical  items  (onomatopoetic  words)  
Himalayan  Spracbund,  Northwest  Frontier,  SriLanka  
 
-­‐When  diverse  language  varieties  borrow  features  from  a  super-­‐ordinate  
prestige  language  –  non-­‐geographic  factor  
 
2.  Substratum  village  dialects  
 
Example:  North  Indian  dialect  continuum  
 
3.  Stylistic  variation  within  dialects  and  idolects  
 
4.  Code  switching  
Example:  Hindi-­‐Punjabi,  Kannada-­‐Marathi-­‐Urdu  
 
5.  Pidginization  and  creolization  
Example:  Nagamese,  Sadani/sadri,  Bazar  Hindustani  of  Mumbai  
 
6.  Irregularities  within  purely  historical  models  of  language  families  
 
At  even  the  earliest  period  of  written  records-­‐  various  middle-­‐IA  dialects  must  
have  been  used.  
Hence  there  has  been  simultaneous  use  of  language  at  multiple  stages  in  the  
development  of  the  family.  
 
Need  for  dynamic  models  of  language  structure  and  change  
1.They  must  be  able  to  describe  the  full  range  of  linguistic  variation  used  by  an  
individual  in  a  full  range  of  social  contexts.  
2.Enumerate  constraints  on  structural  variability.  
3.Generalize  the  cumulative  linguistic  competence  of  social  groups.