The Dravidian Languages - Sanford B. Steever
KORTE INHOUD
The Dravidian language family is the world's fourth largest with over 175 million speakers across South Asia from Pakistan to Nepal, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka as well as having communities in Malaysia, North America and the UK. Four of the languages, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu are official national languages and the Dravidian family has had a rich literary and cultural influence. This authoritative reference source provides unique descriptions of 12 of these languages, covering their historical development alongside discussions of their specialised linguistic structures and features. Each chapter combines modern linguistic theory with traditional historical linguistics and a uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. Two further chapters provide general information about the language family - the introduction, which covers the history, cultural implications and linguistic background, and a separate article on Dravidian writing systems. This volume i...
