LINGUIST List 13.171

Tue Jan 22 2002

Books: Dravidian Languages

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Joyce Reid, Dravidian Languages: The Dravidian Languages by Krishnamurti

The Dravidian Languages

Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, University of Hyderabad, India

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.

Contents:

1. Introduction; 
2. Descriptive phonology; 
3. The writing systems of the literary languages; 
4. Historical and comparative phonology; 
5. Word formation: roots, stems, formatives; 
6. Nominals; 
7. The verb; 
8. Adjectives, adverbs and clitics; 
9. Syntax; 
10.Lexicon; 
11.Conclusions.

Cambridge Language Surveys

2002/c. 450 pp./20 figures/3 maps/5 tables
0-521-77111-0/Hb/List: $80.00*

Cambridge University Press
http://www.cup.org