The Indo-Aryan languages are spoken by at least 700 million people throughout India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands. They have a claim to great antiquity, with the earliest Vedic Sanskrit texts dating to the end of the second millennium B.C. With texts in Old Indo-Aryan, Middle Indo-Aryan and Modern Indo-Aryan, this language family supplies a historical documentation of language change over a longer period than any other subgroup of Indo-European. This volume is divided into two main sections dealing with general matters and individual languages. Each chapter on the individual language covers the phonology and grammar (morphology and syntax) of the language and its writing system, and gives the historical background and information concerning the geography of the language and the number of its speakers.

With nearly a quarter of the world’s population, members of at least five major language families plus several putative language isolates, South Asia is a fascinating arena for linguistic investigations, whether comparative-historical linguistics, studies of language contact and multilingualism, or general linguistic theory. This volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic research on the languages of South Asia, with contributions by well-known experts. Focus is both on what has been accomplished so far and on what remains unresolved or controversial and hence offers challenges for future research. In addition to covering the languages, their histories, and their genetic classification, as well as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics, the volume provides special coverage of contact and convergence, indigenous South Asian grammatical traditions, applications of modern technology to South Asian languages, and South Asian writing systems. An appendix offers a classified listing of major sources and resources, both digital/online and printed.

First published in 1972, The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language (Vol. 3) is the updated supplement to the two-volume The Origin and Development of the Bengali Language. It contains certain additions and corrections to the first systematic and detailed history of a Modern Indo-Aryan Language written by an Indian, and incidentally, as it is comparative in its treatment, taking into consideration facts in other Indo-Aryan speeches, it is an invaluable contribution to the scientific study of the Modern Indo-Aryan languages as a whole. This book will be of interest to students of language, linguistics and South Asian studies.

State wise language survey of major Indian languages and minor dialects.

Kurux (Oraon), with Malto and Brahui a member of the North Dravidian subfamily of the Dravidian languages, is spoken primarily in the Indian state of Jharkhand. The objective of the present study is to investigate the evolution of the Kurux phonemic system. This evolution can be described as a sequence of the Proto-Dravidian stage, the processes of sound change that followed upon this stage, the Pre-Kurux-Malto stage, and the further processes of sound change which led to modern Kurux. Both stages and both sets of processes of sound change are reconstructed in detail, proceeding from the Kurux etyma included in the revised edition of the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary (1984), from which selections had to be made, however: Items of non-Dravidian (Indo-Aryan, Munda, Persian) origin as well as doubtful cases had to be identified and left out of account, so that the Proto-Dravidian reconstructions presented here are based on only 43 per cent of the Kurux etyma registered in the revised edition of the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary. Additional subjects dealt with include identification of the comparative evidence available for Proto-North-Dravidian, discussion of features that can serve as isoglosses for the North Dravidian subfamily, and considerations regarding the original home of the speakers of North Dravidian languages.

Linguistics Archaeology of South Asia brings together linguistics and archaeological evidence of South Asian prehistory.

In his ambitious survey of the Indo-Aryan languages, Colin Masica has provided a fundamental introduction which will interest not only general and theoretical linguists but also students of one or more of these languages who want to acquaint themselves with the broader linguistic context. Generally synchronic in approach, concentrating on the phonology, morphology and syntax of the modern representatives of the group, the volume also covers their historical development, areal context, writing systems and aspects of sociolinguistics. The survey is organised not on a language-by-language basis but by topic, so that salient theoretical issues may be discussed in a comparative context.