II MA ENGLISH LITERATURE

LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND TRANSLATION PRACTICE

UNIT-1

Language Universals, Universal Grammar(UG)And Intertranslatability- Introduction- Historical

Background-Two Major Approaches to Language Universals- Typological Approach-

Generative approach & Universal grammar- Substantive Universal- Formal Universals.

UNIT-2

Language Variation- Differences between the approaches- Phonological universals-

Morphological Universals- Semantic Universals- Semantic Universals- Language Universals in

diachrony- Language Universals In other areas- language Universals & Translations studies-

Vocabulary- Formal equivalence.

UNIT – 1

Introduction to language universals

Language is something uniquely human. Bertrand Russell stated in 1948 that “A dog

cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his

parents were honest though poor” (Whaley 1997: 4). Language ist not only unique to humans

and diverse but there are also commonalities between languages. About five thousand languages

are spoken in the world today but there still is a basic unity that undelies their diversities. Many

of the world’s languages show similar principles. An example of such a similaritiy is word order.

In some languages such as English, French and Italian the word order is subject, verb and object.

This is the so called SOV order.

Besides similarities like this, there also exist features between some languages, which are

common to all human languages in the world and are called language universals. These language

universals classify entire languages into categories which are then based on shared properties.

Language universals are examined within the field of typology. Typology has the task of

examining cross-linguistic patterns. This means that “all typological research is based on

comparisons between languages”

(Whaley 1997: 7). Through comparing different languages with each other, one

necessarily comes into contact with universals, which hold true for a group of languages or even

for all languages. This is how language universals are placed within the field of typology.

This paper starts with defining what language universals are and why they exist. In the

main body it introduces different approaches to universals by different linguists, namely

Greenberg, Hawkins and Chomsky. The approaches of Greenberg and Chomsky will be

contrasted with each other. The comparison mainly focuses on the ideas of Bernard Comrie.

2 Explanations for their existence

In Comrie’s book Language universals and linguistic typology one can find three

approaches to explaining universals. These are namely the monogenesis, the innateness including

other psychological explanations and the functional and pragmatic explanations.

The term monogenesis means that there is a genetic origin which holds true for all

languages of the world. The hypothesis is that there once existed and ancestor language from

which all the languages of the world developed. This would also implicate that each of the

universals have been part of the ancestor language and that they have passed on through all the

stages the language went through. This would mean that every universal has to be present in all

of today’s languages. But what happens with universals that have a precondition, like

implicational universals do? Implicational universals will be explained in detail in the next

chapter under 3.2. Another question arises from this hypothesis: How are the different groups of

languages explained which were not in contact with each other all through the development of

languages? Besides that, there are fundamental differences between languages of today. How

does this hypothesis account for these? There is no proof or disproof of this thesis since there is

no possibility to recover this one ancestor language. From this we already can conclude that such

an explanation cannot be viable.

The next approach to consider is the one of the innateness and other psychological

explanations. Innateness was favoured by Chomsky. He referred to it as the Universal Grammar,

which enables the child to learn a language in such a short period as 4 or 5 years. But it is not a

satisfying explanation for the universals since it is just a name and it cannot be proven. Comrie

states that:

Advocates of innateness are simply arguing that in the absence of any alternative

coherent explanation for language universals, innateness is the only possibility they can think of.

Instead of serving to deepen our understanding of language universals, the absence of any

possibility of testing innateness as an explanation serves rather to divert researchers from

considering alternatives that my be testable. (Comrie 1981: 24)

The last approach is the one of the functional and pragmatic explanations. The argument

concerning this approach is that through certain universals language becomes more functional.

This contradicts the numerous instances where language seems to be dysfunctional. “The

existence of synonyms seems to be a needless luxury, and even more clearly the existence of

homonyms…” (Comrie 1981: 25). Still, universals may have something to do with making a

language more functional since for example a functional language with only homophons is hard

to imagine. Some strategies to reduce such dysfunctional elements must play a role and these

strategies might lead to explanations for language universals. The functional point of view is that

a language universal makes it easier to recover the semantic content from the syntactic structure.

So far it has been discussed why language universals exist and three approaches to their

explanation, given by Comrie, were laid out. The next chapter will define the different types of

universals. The categorization of language universals will go along with the one proposed by

Lindsay Whaley except for the term nonabsolute universals which is replaced by the term

tendency as Comrie calls these universals.

Although a considerable amount of languages around the world seem to have nothing in common

with each other on the surface, the majority of linguists propose that all languages share

certain universal principles. These principles are a set of rules referred to as a Universal

Grammar. It is true that the formation of sentences in Hungarian (an agglutinative language)

seems to have very little, if anything in common with the formation of sentences in Farsi

(Modern Persian, a fusional language)). It is also true that Chinese verbs are not conjugated

(inflected for tense, number, etc.), whereas Italian verbs have six conjugations. However, the

fact that these four languages all adhere to some type of sentence structure formation and use

verbs shows that at a basic level, they all share certain characteristics.

General Universal Principles

There are many features that the languages of the world seem to share. Some are more basic,

such as the notion of ‘sentence’ or ‘verb,’ some are more complex, such as Wh- movement

(content question formation). And not all of these characteristics are observable to the same

extent. The rules which all languages have in common, with either very few, or no exceptions

are called absolute universals. Consider the following statements.

· All languages are equipped with the grammatical structures needed to give orders, negate

a thought, and ask a question.

· All languages use verbs which can be interpreted as occurring in the past, present, or

future.

· All languages possess a finite set of phonemes (sounds) including vowels and consonants,

that are strung together to form syllables, and words.

· All languages share the basic categories of words, such as nouns, verbs, description words,

relative clauses, and a method for counting.

· All languages use pronouns.

· All languages include any blend of or subcategory of the basis five colors: red, blue,

yellow, black and white. Did you know that that the colors red, white, and black are included in

every language?

Those linguistic features that are shared by many but not all languages are referred to relative

universals or universal tendencies. These include the fact that most languages have nasal stops,

however several do not. Or that phonemic inventories of most languages include nasality and the

voicing of obstruents. Syllables are constructed of various combinations of vowels and

consonants, with the vowel being in the nucleus in most languages (however some permit

consonants in the nucleus, such as Berber). Most languages have a category for adjectives

however Blackfoot (an American Indian language) uses a stative verb “to be…” to describe

nouns.

Another type of universal is implicational. This means that the presence of X in a language

implies the presence of Y. For instance, according to Greenberg, languages that have gender

categories for nouns will also have gender categories for pronouns. And if a language has

gender categories, it will also have number categories.

These universal principles help linguists to not only understand the nature of all languages as

well as specific languages, but also shed light on the nature of how humans acquire and

use language.

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

Universal grammar is a theory of linguistics postulating principles of grammar shared

by all languages, thought to be innate to humans (linguistic nativism). It attempts to explain

language acquisition in general, not describe specific languages. Universal grammar proposes a

set of rules intended to explain language acquisition in child development.

Some students of universal grammar study a variety of grammars to abstract

generalizations called linguistic universals, often in the form of "If X holds true, then Y occurs."

These have been extended to a range of traits, from the phonemes found in languages, to what

word orders languages choose, to why children exhibit certain linguistic behaviors.

The idea can be traced to Roger Bacon's observation that all languages are built upon a

common grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo in them

accidental variations, and the 13th century speculative grammarians who, following Bacon,

postulated universal rules underlying all grammars. The concept of a universal grammar or

language was at the core of the 17th century projects for philosophical languages. Later linguists

who have influenced this theory include Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir and Richard Montague,

developing their version of the theory as they considered issues of the Argument from poverty of

the stimulus to arise from the constructivist approach to linguistic theory. The application of the

idea to the area of second language acquisition (SLA) is represented mainly by the McGill

linguist Lydia White.

History

The idea can be traced to Roger Bacon's observation that all languages are built upon a common

grammar, substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo accidental

variations, and the 13th century speculative grammarians who, following Bacon, postulated

universal rules underlying all grammars. The concept of a universal grammar or language was at

the core of the 17th century projects for philosophical languages. Charles Darwin described

language as an instinct in humans, like the upright posture.[1]

The idea rose to notability in modern linguistics with theorists such as Noam

Chomsky and Richard Montague, developed in the 1950s to 1970s, as part of the "Linguistics

Wars".

Chomsky's theory

Linguist Noam Chomsky made the argument that the human brain contains a limited set of rules

for organizing language. In turn, there is an assumption that all languages have a common

structural basis. This set of rules is known as universal grammar.

Speakers proficient in a language know what expressions are acceptable in their language and

what expressions are unacceptable. The key puzzle is how speakers should come to know the

restrictions of their language, since expressions which violate those restrictions are not present in

the input, indicated as such. This absence of negative evidence—that is, absence of evidence that

an expression is part of a class of the ungrammatical sentences in one's language—is the core of

the poverty of stimulus argument. For example, in English one cannot relate a question word like

'what' to a predicate within a relative clause (1):

(1) *What did John meet a man who sold?

Such expressions are not available to the language learners, because they are, by hypothesis,

ungrammatical for speakers of the local language. Speakers of the local language do not utter

such expressions and note that they are unacceptable to language learners. Universal grammar

offers a solution to the poverty of the stimulus problem by making certain restrictions universal

characteristics of human languages. Language learners are consequently never tempted to

generalize in an illicit fashion.

Evidence and support

Neurological evidence

Recent evidence suggests part of the human brain (crucially involving Broca's area, a portion of

the left inferior frontal gyrus), is selectively activated by those languages that meet Universal

Grammar requirements.[2]

Presence of creole languages

The presence of creole languages is cited as further support for this theory, especially

by Bickerton's controversial Language bioprogram theory. These languages were developed and

formed when different societies came together and were forced to devise their own system of

communication. The system used by the original speakers was an inconsistent mix of vocabulary

items known as a pidgin. When these speakers' children were acquiring their first language, they

used the pidgin input to effectively create their own original language, known as a creole. Unlike

pidgins, creoles have native speakers and make use of a full grammar.

The idea of universal grammar is supported by the creole languages by virtue of the fact that

certain features are shared by virtually all of these languages. For example, their default point of

reference in time (expressed by bare verb stems) is not the present moment, but the past. Using

pre-verbal auxiliaries, they uniformly express tense, aspect, and mood. Negative concord occurs,

but it affects the verbal subject (as opposed to the object, as it does in languages like Spanish).

Another similarity among creoles is that questions are created simply by changing a declarative

sentence's intonation, not its word order or content.

Criticism

Some linguists oppose the universal grammar theory. Geoffrey Sampson maintains that universal

grammar theories are not falsifiable and are therefore pseudo scientific theory, arguing that the

grammatical generalizations made are simply observations about existing languages and not

predictions about what is possible in a language.

Some feel that the basic assumptions of Universal Grammar are unfounded. Another way of

defusing the poverty of the stimulus argument is if language learners notice the absence of

classes of expressions in the input and, on this basis, hypothesize a restriction. This solution is

closely related to Bayesian reasoning. Elman et al. argue that the unlearnability of languages

assumed by UG is based on a too-strict, "worst-case" model of grammar.

James Hurford argues that the postulate of a "language acquisition device" essentially amounts to

the trivial claim that languages are learnt by humans, and that the LAD isn't a theory so much as

the explanandum looking for theories.[3]

The Pirahã language has been claimed by the linguist Daniel Everett to be a counterexample to

Universal Grammar, showing properties allegedly unexpected under current views of Universal

Grammar. Among other things, this language is alleged to lack all evidence for recursion,

including embedded clauses, as well as quantifiers and color terms.[4] Some other linguists have

argued, however, that some of these properties have been misanalyzed, and that others are

actually expected under current theories of Universal Grammar.[5] While most languages studied

in that respect do indeed seem to share common underlying rules, research is hampered by

considerable sampling bias. Linguistically, most diverse areas such as

tropical Africa and America, as well as the diversity of Indigenous Australian and Papuan

languages, have been insufficiently studied. Furthermore, language extinction apparently has

affected those areas most where most examples of unconventional languages have been found to

date.

Type Theory and Universal Grammar

1 Universal grammar

1.1 Mediaeval ideas

Universal grammar is an idea often attributed to mediaeval philosophy. There are two

famous quotes, appearing in Gilson (1922), and later requoted in Lyons (1968): Grammar is

substantially the same in all languages, even though it may undergo in them accidental

variations. (Roger Bacon, 13th century) He who knows grammar in one language, also knows it

in another as far as the essentials are concerned. The fact that he cannot, however, speak another

language, or understand those who speak it, arises from the difference of words and their

formations, which is accidental to grammar.

Universal grammar was severely criticized in the Renaissance time by scholars such as

Alexander Hegius and Erasmus. For many contemporary linguists, it is a notion that only an

“armchair linguist” can maintainIn the anonymous 12th century quote, languages are said to

differ only as for “words and their formations”. Even a quick translation experiment would show

a sense in which this cannot be true: an English four-word utterance is translation into a Finnish

one-word utterance, also in my house ´ = talossanikin Moreover, the stress on the word house is

important, since with another stress, the Finnish translation has two words: also in m´y house =

minunkin talossani. Nonetheless, we will see later that the idea that languages only differ as for

“words and their formations” does make some sense, after all.

1.2 Universal language in Descartes and Leibniz

In a letter to Mersenne in 1629, Descartes commented on a universal grammar and

dictionary that someone had been marketing commercially, with the promise that “anyone who

learns this (universal) language, would also know all the others as dialects of it” (Descartes

1629). Descartes found the idea na¨ıve, and raised several arguments against it. However, he also

gave his own suggestion of a universal language, such that it would establish an order among all

thoughts that can enter in the human spirit, in the same way as there is a natural order among

numbers, and as one can learn in one day the names of all numbers up to infinity and write them

in an unknown language, even though they are an infinity of different words

the invention of this language depends on the true philosophy; for it is impossible otherwise to

denumerate all thoughts of men and order them, or even distinguish them into clear and simple

ones

if anyone had well explained which are the simple ideas that are in the imagination of

men, of which all that they think is composed . . .then I would dare to hope for a universal

language easy to learn, pronounce, and write and . . . which would help judgement, representing

all things to it so distinctly that error would be almost impossible

Descartes’s suggestion is not widely known: the modern idea of universal language is

usually traced back to Leibniz’s characteristica universalis, a symbolic language permitting

mechanized reasoning by means of a calculus ratiocinator. This proposal is from 1732, and

advocates, like Descartes’s, a mathematical notation such that the elements of the notation

correspond to the elements of things and facts. The emergence of this idea in both Descartes and

Leibniz is natural, given that they both made major contributions to mathematics with notational

innovations as an important ingredient: analytic geometry in Descartes’s case, and differential

and integral calculus in Leibniz’s.

Unlike Descartes, it is not sure whether Leibniz had explicit thoughts of his universal

language as a bridge between different languages. The main aspect for both of them was that the

notation would admit of a calculus to replace creative reasoning. A contemporary variant of the

calculus idea is, of course, that a universal notation can be manipulated by a computer program,

which can decide the correctness of judgements and—if the notation serves as bridge between

languages—translate between languages.

Two dimensions of universality

Speaking of a universal grammar, or of a universal language, we have to distinct between two

senses of universality:

Horizontal universality: generality across languages, Vertical universality: generality across

subject matters.

We chose “vertical” and “horizontal” mostly because we did not find better names, but they do

suggest a major point we want to make, namely that these aspects are orthogonal. Therefore, to

assess any proposal of and any argument against a “universal grammar”, we have to find out

which sense is meant.

What Roger Bacon wrote about was explicitly about horizontal universality. Leibniz was explicit

that he meant vertical universality. Descartes was concerned about both dimensions.

The Sapir Whorf hypothesis is a famous 20th century challenge of universality, and it is clearly

about horizontal universality: No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as

representing the same social reality. The worlds in 3 which different societies live are distinct

worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached (Sapir 1929) This point raised

by Sapir is often discussed as a problem of translation between languages: not only is it difficult

to find a translation from one language to another, but it may even happen that no translation

exists, since the content expressed by the source language utterance has no counterpart in the

target language. Also vertical universality has important 20th century challenges. The

incompleteness proof of G¨odel (1931) implies that there cannot be a formal system that is

complete for all mathematics—let alone for all subject matters, of which mathematics is but a

fraction. And one of the important points in Wittgenstein’s late philosophy is that there is no

such thing as language, but just a collection of language games (Wittgenstein 1953). Nor is there

such a thing as the meaning of a word (simpliciter), but only its use in a language game. Now, an

individual language game is a unit that has a set of rules that can possibly be formalized into a

formal system; but the totality of language games cannot be formalized.

Cross-linguistic language games

The main thesis of this paper is that we can achieve horizontal universality but not vertical

universality. In other words, we can build cross-linguistic grammars on limited domains, or, “we

can translate language games”. What we call a cross-linguistic language game corresponds to an

area of multilingual activity and a tradition of translation, e.g. among scientists within one

discipline, among employees within a multinational corporation, and among sportsmen

practicing the same sport. Of course, we have to leave it open whether horizontal universality

covers all languages in the world: given a language game, we can only claim universality over

those languages in which the game can be played. Cross-linguistic equivalence based on

language games is clearly different from the genetic relatedness of languages.

There are several examples showing that shared cultural activities may be more important than

genetic relatedness: Swedish (Germanic) and Finnish (Fenno-Ugrian) are 4 largely

intertranslatable—there is even a bilinguality legislation in Finland saying that all official

documents must exist in both languages; the two Germanies after the Second World War were

reported to be drifting apart linguistically; as a non-sailor, I cannot speak about sailing with my

brother, dedicated sailor, in our native language Finnish. One criterion, or test, of horizontal

equivalence is that it is possible to translate from one language to another. This may of course

fail in practice for some technical reason; hence we can replace this criterion by “translatability

in principle”:

t is possible to express the same things in the two languages. In a sense, translatability even in

principle fails very soon: for instance, a pun based on ambiguity in one languages does not

generally translate to others as the same pun. Lots of famous examples can be found from Bible

translation. For instance, there are so-called alphabetical Psalms, where subsequent verses begin

with subsequent letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Translators have had different ambition levels in

reproducing this feature in other languages. Normally, however, we speak of translation on some

level of abstraction. A typical level is semantical: the translation of expressions as expressions

for certain things.

Defining a level of abstraction

A natural way to define the semantic level of abstraction is to take as the starting point the things

expressed—not the languages! In other words, one can start with a formalized, mathematical

model of those things and see how it is reflected in languages—instead of starting with one of

the languages and trying to find a model for that language. This approach is opposite to the idea

of formalization exercises that are customary in elementary logic teaching.

Such an exercise consists of translating natural language sentences into logical formulae, with a

painful awareness that something is getting lost. For instance, the meaning of love is felt to be

lost when formalizing John loves Mary as love(John, Mary). It is much less painful to start from

the formula and ask how to express it in natural language! The logic textbook of Kalish and

Montague (1964) is one of the few that contains exercises in this direction: in retrospect, it can

well be seen as a precursor of Montague grammars (see next section). 5 2 Multilingual grammars

Curry’s model of multilingual grammar

The logician Curry published in 1963 a linguistic paper in which he distinguished between the

tectogrammatical structure and the phenogrammatical structure of a languge. The

tectogrammatical structure has to do with how expressions are divided into meaningful parts; the

phenogrammatical structure has to do with how expressions look like. It is the tectogrammatical

structure to which, for instance, semantics applies; that subsequent verses of a Psalm begin with

subsequent letters is rather a phenogrammatical fact.

Together with the distinction, Curry formulated a program for multilingual grammars: such a

grammar would have one tectogrammatical structure and many phenogrammatical structures.

For Curry, the tectogrammatical structure was to be described by combinatory logic.

The semantic aspect of Curry’s model was developed in great detail by Montague (1974; the

background of Montague’s work in Curry’s was pointed out by Dowty (1982)). Neither Curry

nor Montague pursued the multilingual aspect, but it is present in the works of Shaumyan (1965)

and Descl´es (1994), both building on Curry, and in a later translation project based on

Montague grammar, Rosetta (1995). It is not clear if Curry and Montague also supported vertical

universality; Montague, at least, seems to have thought that higher-order predicate calculus with

modal operators was sufficient for everything; more accurately, that the semantics of English

consists of giving truth conditions to all English sentences in a model of this calculus. 6

Grammatical Framework

The formalism GF (Grammatical Framework, Ranta 2004) adopts from Curry and Montague the

use of logic as language-independent representation level. The logic that GF uses is constructive

type theory (MartinL¨of 1984). For Curry’s tectogrammatical and phenogrammatical structure,

GF uses the computer science terminology of abstract syntax and concrete syntax (Landin 1967).

English French abstract syntax concrete syntax type theory . . .

As is standard in the study of programming languages, semantic operations such as type

checking and evaluation are performed on the abstract syntax level. Concrete syntax is the syntax

that is printed and parsed, and that the language users see. For instance, a variable declaration

can have different notations, such as those of Pascal and C: var x : Integer int x The abstract

syntax is however the same in the two cases: what matters is that a variable x of integer type is

declared.

The framework idea

Unlike Curry’s combinatory logic and Montague’s intensional logic, the type theory of

GF is not one single calculus, but a framework. This idea comes from Logical Frameworks

(Harper & al., 1986), which are type theories used as metatheories, for describing and

implementing individual logical calculi and mathematical theories.

When mathematics is formalized in a logical framework, there is no need to have one

unifying theory of mathematics in terms of which everything is defined (such as set theory): the

framework is a weak calculus, and its power comes from the individual theories and calculi that

are defined within it. The gain of using a logical framework to define logics, rather than defining

them directly, is that the framework can take 7 care of operations of “book-keeping” character,

such as inference rule application, substitution, and variable binding. The gain achieved for

implementing logic on computers can be considerable.

The logical framework idea works for both constructive and classical mathematics. de

Bruijn’s AUTOMATH is an early example (1967) for classical mathematics. That many recent

applications focus on constructive mathematics is mainly motivated by the possibility of

extracting executable programs from proofs (Nordstr¨om & al. 1990).

2.4 GF judgements and grammars

As for abstract syntax, GF is just another logical framework (in fact, very close to ALF

(Magnusson & Nordstr¨om 1994). The abstract syntax part of a grammar consists of judgements

of the following two forms:

cat C — C is a category

fun f : A — f is a function of type A

(Yet another form is definitions of a functions, but we won’t need it.)

What is not present in logical frameworks, are judgements for defining concrete syntax.

The most important forms are the following, needed for each category C and function f defined

in the abstract syntax:

lincat C = T — C has the linearization type T

lin f = t — f has the linearization function t

A grammar is a pair < A, C >

of abstract and concrete syntax. A multilingual grammar is a pair

< A, {C1, . . . , Cn} >

of an abstract syntax and a set of concrete syntaxes.

Type checking, linearization, and parsing

A GF grammar is a purely declarative definition of a language. But the formalism is so defined

that it is always possible to derive the following algorithms automatically: Type checking

decides whether a given tree in abstract syntax has a given type.

Linearization takes a tree in abstract syntax to an object in the corresponding linearization type.

Parsing takes a string into a set of abstract syntax trees (empty set: parsing fails; more than one

elements: the string is ambiguous).

The type checking algorithm is inherited from logical frameworks. The linearization algorithm

can be straightforwardly derived from the linearization rules, and it is similar to expression

evaluation in λ-calculus and functional programming. The parsing algorithm is based on a

nontrivial inversion of the linearization rules. Altogether, deriving these algorithms from a

declarative source gives an implementation gain analogous to implementing logics in a logical

framework.

As a corollary of linearization and parsing, a multilingual grammar automatically has Translation

from Ci to Cj is parsing in Ci followed by linearization in Cj .

The translation goes via A, which guarantees semantic equivalence but does not preclude

ambiguity.

Example: a fragment of arithmetic

We illustrate GF with a very small multilingual grammar, whose subject matter is arithmetic.

The abstract syntax introduces the categories of natural numbers and propositions, the number

zero, and the predicate that a number is even.

cat Nat

cat Prop

fun Zero : Nat

fun Even : Nat → Prop

An English concrete syntax can be given as follows:

lincat Nat = {s : Str}

lincat Prop = {s : Str} 9

lin Zero = {s = ”zero”}

lin Even x = {s = x.s ++ ”is” ++ ”even”}

The linearizations are records which may have many different fields. In the simplest case, as

here, there is just one field holding a string. As we will see, much of the difference between

concrete syntaxes comes from what types of records are assigned to each category.

Using the abstract syntax above, we can form the tree

Even Zero of type Prop. Using the concrete syntax, we compute the linearization of this

proposition:

{s = ”zero” ++ ”is” ++ ”even”}

Arithmetic in French

Abstract syntax abstracts away from features depending on concrete syntax. One of these

features is morphological variation, which is very different in different languages. To describe

morphological variation in the concrete syntax, we introduce a form of judgement permitting the

definition of parameter types. For instance, even in a tiny fragment of arithmetic, the French

concrete syntax will need the parameters of mood and gender:

param Mod = Ind |

Subj param Gen = Masc |

Fem Expressions for natural numbers are, linguistically, noun phrases, and have an inherent

gender, that is, a gender element belonging to the record as an extra field.

lincat Nat = s : Str g : Gen lin Zero = s = ”z´ero” g = Masc

An inherent gender in GF is a formalization of gender information such as given in a traditional

dictionary.

Expressions for propositions are, linguistically, sentences. Their formation depends on a mood

parameter, which is inherited by the verb of the sentence. In a predication sentence formed by

using an adjective, the adjective is inflected in the gender of the subject noun phrase.

lincat Prop = {s : Mod ⇒ Str}

lin Even x = {s = table {m ⇒ x.s ++ table Ind ⇒ ”est” Subj ⇒ ”soit” ff ! m ++ table Masc

⇒ ”pair” Fem ⇒ ”paire” ff ! x.g}}

The linearization of a sentence is thus a table that gives a value to each of the parameters of a

parameter type. This notion is a formalization of inflection tables occurring in traditional

grammar.

2.8 Translating between English and French

The following examples (from an enlarged fragment) show how French uses the gender to

generate different forms of the adjective.

zero is even = z´ero est pair

the sum of zero and zero is even = la somme de z´ero et de z´ero est paire

The following example shows a French construction requiring subjunctive mode of a subordinate

clause. there exists an x such that x is even = il existe un x tel que x soit pair

All the translations above are obtained via parsing into abstract syntax and subsequent

linearization into concrete syntax. They work, of course, in both directions. 3 The unity of a

language

Unity of languages lost

If we write the grammar of each language game separately, we will end up having no common

structure in the sentences zero is even, smallpox is contagious, and the weather is beautiful,

unless we find a language game that covers them all. This is counterintuitive: one would prefer

to say that all of these expressions have the same syntactic structure, which is that of a sentence

formed by adjectival predication.

A more general aspect of the problem is: if we can only describe language games, then there is

no such thing as English or French language. This is counterintuitive: when I learn French, there

is something unified that I learn—not just a set of distinct language games, but something that

enables me to play any of my old language games in a new language. What is this thing?

Resource grammars

The way we can do justice to the unity of languages, in the ordinary sense, is by raising the level

of abstraction in concrete syntax. Instead of defining linearization directly into strings and

records of strings, we use intermediate syntactic structures. For instance, instead of defining l

in Even x = {s = x.s ++ ”is” ++ ”even”}

we use an adjectival predication function and a lexical item representing the adjective even:

lin Even x = PredAP x even

These intermediate structures are collected into a resource grammar, whose aim is to define a

natural language, such as English, instead of a language game. A resource grammar is built by

considering the language independently of the various language games in which it might be used.

Although it is defined in GF just like the semantically motivated structures, no semantic

explanation is expected. On the other hand, the linearization rules of a resource grammar will be

intuitive and immediate, since the grammar has been formulated by directly observing the

concrete usage of the language.

Conclusion

We have not tried to define a universal grammar that is both vertical and horizontal, i.e.

covers everything that can be said in any language. Vertical horizontality does not seem realistic

even within one language, if one aims at the complete formalization of semantics. However, we

have found it possible to achieve horizontal universality in semantically limited domains, by

using type-theoretical abstract syntax as interlingua of translation. Moreover, we have found a

meager variant of vertical universality, on the level of resource grammars where we don’t require

semantics interpretation of the syntactic construction

LANGUAGE VARIATION

Between the speakers of any language there is variation in the way that they use their

language. This variation is demonstrated by linguistic differences in terms of sound (phonetics)

and structure (grammar). There might be only slight variations between forms of a language –

such as minor pronunciations of words or a slight changes of grammatical structure that do not

inhibit intergroup communication. Sometimes there are differences between the speech of men

and women, different social classes, and differences between age groups. People will identify

some of these features as marking the "best" or most "beautiful" form of the language, other

features will be considered nonstandard or undesireable. Some of these differences may impede

intelligibility and intergroup communication.

The study of language variation guides language development activities. For example,

when developing a writing system it is desireable for it to be useful and acceptable to the largest

number of speakers of the language. Therefore, it is important to identify the most unifying

features of the language.

SIL assessment specialists use quantitative and qualitative research methods for studying

language variation. Two important quantitative methods for studying language variation are

lexicostatistics and intelligibility tests. The lexicostatistical method involves eliciting commonly

used words from people in two or more different locations. The words are compared to identify

phonetic similarities and a percentage of similarity is computed. Intelligibility (how well a

speech variety is understood) is of two types: inherent and acquired. Inherent intelligibility is an

understanding that is unlearned and that is attributed to the (inherent) linguistic similarities (such

as sound systems and grammatical structures) that are shared by the two speech varieties. The

greater the inherent similarities shared between two varieties, the more likely that the speakers of

each will be able to understand the same literature. Acquired intelligibility, on the other hand, is

a level of comprehension of a speech variety achieved through learning.

To measure intelligibility SIL assessment specialists use the recorded text test (RTT). The RTT

method involves recording a short autobiographical story. Comprehension questions are dubbed

into the recording. The new recording is played for people in another community. The number of

correct answers to the comprehension questions gives a measure of comprehension of the speech

of the other community.

SIL assessment specialists highly value participatory methods of working with members

of the language communities. Qualitative methods of data collection, in a participatory context,

include observations, questionnaire, and interviews. Working collaboratively with the

community gains quality information and builds capacity and awareness in the local community.\

PHONOLOGICAL UNIVERSAL

Definition:

A phonological universal is a common tendency found in the phonological systems of many

languages.

Discussion:

Many phonological universals are based on principles of phonological symmetry.

Phonological universals are only tendencies. Phonological systems which do not conform to

universals are possible, but not likely.

Examples:

(Vowel systems)

Here are some phonological universals concerning vowel systems:

Symmetry

• Vowel systems tend to be symmetrical.

• The minimal vowel system includes /i a u/. All known languages are said to have these

three vowels, or slight variations of them.

Rounding

• Back vowels tend to be rounded.

• Front vowels tend to be unrounded.

A functional explanation for these vowel universals is that, in its vowel system, a language is

likely to use those vowels that are the most perceptually different from one another. This makes

it easier for the listener to distinguish between the vowels in the system.

(Consonant systems)

Here are some phonological universals concerning consonant systems:

Symmetry

• Consonant systems tend to be symmetrical.

o A correlation between point of articulation and voicing of obstruents shows up

when there are asymmetries in a consonant inventory.

▪ A language is less likely to have voiceless labial obstruents than any other

voiceless obstruents.

▪ A language is less likely to have voiced velar obstruents than any other

voiced obstruents.

• All languages are expected to have at least the following consonant phonemes:

o Voiceless plosives (stops)

o Nasals

o A grooved fricative (for example, /s/)

o A laryngeal glide (usually /h/)

Voicing

• Most obstruents are voiceless

• Most sonorants are voiced.

(Nasality)

Here are some phonological universals concerning nasality, a process that commonly interacts

with both consonants and vowels:

Consonants

• Nearly all languages have nasal consonants.

Vowels

• Nasal vowels are usually the exact counterparts of the oral vowels.

• If a language has fewer nasal vowels than oral, it is usually the mid nasal vowels that are

missing.

MORPHOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS AND DIACHRONY

Although linguistics is plausibly taken to be ‘‘the science of language,’’ the actual object

of inquiry in the field has changed considerably over time. Prior to the influence of Saussure in

the first part of the twentieth century, linguists concerned themselves primarily with the ways in

which languages have developed historically. For the next several decades, they devoted their

attention to the external facts of sounds, words and sets of utterances. With the advent of the

cognitive (or ‘‘Chomskyan’’) revolution around 1960, however, they came increasingly to see

themselves as studying the human language faculty: speakers’ knowledge of language and the

cognitive capacity that makes this possible (Anderson and Lightfoot 2002), Universal Grammar.

This is what our theories attempt to represent nowadays.

Unlike the documented facts of language history or the measurable properties of sounds

and utterances, such a cognitive faculty is not directly observable, so the question naturally arises

of how we might study it empirically. Two important modes of argument have emerged that are

generally taken to aid in this enterprise. First, if we can show that speakers know something

about their language for which relevant evidence is not plausibly present in the input on the basis

of which they learned the language, we assume that this knowledge must be a consequence of the

structure of the ‘language organ.’’ This is the argument from ‘‘the poverty of the stimulus,’’ and

(despite the skepticism of some: e.g. Pullum and Scholz 2002) it has proven to have wide

applicability, especially with respect to speakers’ knowledge of syntax.

A second line of argument is to assume that when we find that something is true of all (or

at least nearly all) of the languages we can observe, it must be true of Language more generally,

and thus a property of the human language faculty. The assumption that valid generalizations

about language typology must be reflected in constraints within linguistic theory is widely

agreed to, but is it really valid? Why should we believe that observed regularities across

languages are a good guide to the structure of the language organ?

We can note that knowledge of language arises in the individual through the application

of some learning strategy – a strategy that may be partly specific to the domain of language, and

partly more general – to the data available during a sensitive period in early life. As a result,

regularities which we find in the grammars attained by human speakers might have a variety of

sources:

The Input Data: Only systems that correspond to the evidence available can be acquired.

The Learning Process: Only languages that are accessible through the procedure

employed can be attained, so some cognitively possible grammars might not be learnable.

The Language Faculty: Only cognitively possible languages can be acquired, whatever

abstract regularities may exist in the data.

The argument that cross-linguistic regularities provide us with evidence for the structure

of Universal Grammar rests on the assumption that only the last of these is relevant. It assumes

that a complete range of input data is (at least in principle) available, and that the learning system

can (again, in principle) consider any possible account of those data, so that the only filter on the

class of grammars acquired is the nature of the cognitive system, or Universal Grammar. But

surely this is extremely implausible.

It might seem contradictory to suggest that properties of the learning process and those of

the language faculty are logically independent, but the relation between the two is clearly an

empirical matter, if one that is difficult to explore. Learners confronted with a range of primary

linguistic data apply some principled analysis to these data, and there is no guarantee that this

analysis is capable in principle of extracting every conceivable regularity. But if there are indeed

such limitations on the evidence the learning process can take into account, it is at least logically

possible that there are some systems that the cognitive faculty of language could potentially

encompass but which are unattainable on the basis of the path through which they must arise.

This issue has a substantial research history in the domain of syntax. Wexler and

Culicover (1980) argued, for example, that the learner operates solely in terms of data of

‘‘degree-2’’: that is, only evidence which is available within the scope of sentences showing at

most two levels of embedding is relevant to the systems that are attained. The importance of this

claim for our argument follows from their further argument that actual grammars in fact are

consistent with this: that is, no grammar contains properties that would require data of greater

complexity to learn regardless of whether such data actually appear in the input available to

learners. In other words, grammars dependent on the properties of sentences of degree 3 and

higher are logically possible, but empirically unattested, a fact which we could explain on the

basis of the claim that the learning system is actually constrained to attend only to degree-2 data.

Lightfoot (1989) carried this argument somewhat further in arguing that in fact the learning

procedure is limited to data of degree-0: that is, that only evidence which can be derived from the

simplest structures is necessary to account for the syntactic systems that are actually attested.

Again, this would follow from the fact that only ‘‘degree-0’’ evidence is taken into consideration

by the learning process

Both Wexler and Culicover and Lightfoot are at pains to show that their claims are

indeed empirical: that is, that there are logically possible grammars that could only be acquired

on the basis of more complex data than that which they claim is employed by the learner, but

which are not in fact attested among the languages of the world. It is certainly at least logically

possible that the language faculty itself is perfectly capable of comprehending such grammars.

Universals of Semantics

A semantic universal is any aspect of meaning that is somehow represented in all

languages. To first characterize the two terms of this subject separately, semantics pertains to

conceptual material as it is organized by language. It ranges from single linguistically

represented concepts to principles of conceptual organization.

Universality has properties varying along three parameters. The "level" of a universal is

"absolute" (Greenberg’s (e.g., 1963) term) if it is realized in every individual language. But its

level is here termed "abstractive" if the universal is part of the language faculty but not of every

language. This second abstractive level can in turn be realized in the three following ways, each

exemplified below. An abstractive universal is "inventorial" if each language draws its own

selection of elements of a certain type from a relatively closed inventory of such elements. An

abstractive universal is "typological" if languages fall into a typology on the basis of manifesting

one or another out of a relatively small set of (combinations of) certain elements in an otherwise

common system. An abstractive universal is "implicational" (Greenberg’s term) if one linguistic

feature can appear in a language only if another feature -- itself abstractive -- also appears there.

Another parameter of universality is its "weighting". At the extremes of weighting, a

universal is either positive or negative. At such extremes, an absolute universal feature is either

present in or absent from all languages, while an abstractive universal feature is either part or not

part of the language faculty. But while some features pertaining to an abstractive universal may

appear in all or no languages, other features can range from appearing in most down to few

languages -- behavior that must also be regarded as part of the language faculty. Traditionally,

such non-extremes have been termed "tendencies". But to promote the idea of a gradient

hierarchy from positive down to negative, and to highlight the fact that such tendencies are

themselves properties of the language faculty, such non-extremes will here be termed "positively

tending abstractive universals" or "negatively tending abstractive universals" -- with whatever

further modifiers it might take to indicate the degree.

A final parameter of universality is its "subject" -- the particular linguistic phenomenon

that manifests the universal property. For a semantic universal, this can range from a specific

concept, through a conceptual category or set of such categories, to a conceptual system, and can

extend as well to principles of conceptual organization.

All the forms of universality in this framework presumably have a cognitive basis, and

this will be addressed below where feasible.

The framework can be illustrated by much within the present author’s work. A positive

absolute universal is that the morphemes of every language are divided into two subsystems, the

open-class, or lexical, and the closed-class, or grammatical (see Talmy (2000a ch. 1). Open

classes have many members and can readily add more. They commonly include (the roots of)

nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Closed classes have relatively few members and are difficult to

augment. They include bound forms -- inflections, derivations, and clitics -- and such free forms

as prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners. Closed-classes can also be implicit, as with word

order patterns, lexical categories, and grammatical relations.

A semantic difference correlates with this formal difference. The meanings that open-

class forms can express are almost unrestricted, whereas those of closed-class forms are highly

constrained. This constraint first applies to the conceptual categories they can refer to. For

example, many languages around the world have closed-class forms in construction with a noun

that indicate the number of the noun’s referent, but no language has closed-class forms indicating

its color. A positive abstractive universal accordingly is that the grammatical morphemes of a

language can represent an approximately closed set of conceptual categories, such as those for

number, gender, tense, aspect, causality, and status. Excluded are color, and indefinitely many

more such as food and religion -- the corresponding negative absolute universal.

A further semantic constraint on grammatical forms is that, even within represented

conceptual categories, only certain member concepts can be grammatically expressed and not

others. Thus, a positive abstractive universal is that, within the category of number, a bound

closed-class form can represent such concepts as `singular’, `dual’, `plural’, and `paucal’, while a

free closed-class form can also represent such concepts as `no’, `some’, `many’, and `all’. But

the corresponding negative absolute universal is that no language’s closed-class forms represent

concepts such as `even’, `odd’, `dozen’, `countable’, or any other concept pertaining to number.

Open-class morphemes are not subject to these same semantic constraints on categories

or member concepts. This is shown by the existence of such morphemes as food, even and odd.

However, even open-class morphemes exhibit a few semantic constraints. Thus, on the

one hand, the meaning of a morphemic verb can incorporate particulars of aspect that can in turn

interact with external closed-class aspectual forms. On the other hand, it is a negative absolute

universal that the meaning of no morphemic verb incorporates a tense that can in turn interact

with external closed-class tense forms. If not for this exclusion, we might expect to find a verb

like (to) went that could be used in a construction like I am wenting to mean `I was going’, or in

a construction like I will went to mean `I will have gone’.

Comparably, proper nouns like Manhattan or Shakespeare exist that refer to a specific

bounded portion of the space-time continuum. But a negative absolute universal is that there are

no "proper verbs" or "proper adjectives" with the same property. That is, both can be "type

specific" but they are "token-neutral". Thus, there is never a verb like (to) Deluge referring

uniquely to the so-conceived spatio-temporally bounded event of the biblical flood, as in some

sentence like: After it Deluged, Noah landed the ark.

Due to the semantic constraints on the closed-class subsystem, the total set of conceptual

categories and their respective sets of member concepts that can ever be represented by closed-

class forms constitutes an approximately closed inventory. This inventory is

universally available. No language has closed-class forms representing all of the conceptual

categories and member concepts in the inventory. Rather, each language draws in a unique

pattern from the inventory for its particular set of grammatically expressed meanings.

Accordingly, this inventory is a positive abstractive universal of the language faculty, not an

absolute universal overtly manifested in all languages. In turn, the pattern in which individual

languages select their particular sets of grammatically expressed conceptual categories and

member concepts from the inventory is governed by a principle of semantic representativeness.

No language draws all of its grammatically expressed concepts from one category, say, from

aspect alone, but rather draws them from across the range of available categories. The specifics

of this principle are not yet clear, but its realization in all languages makes it a positive absolute

universal.

Talmy (2006) observes that closed-class forms representing spatial schemas cross-

linguistically draw their conceptual categories and member concepts from only a portion of the

general inventory, hence, from what can be considered a spatially relevant sub-inventory. For

example, out of all the member concepts within the "number" category earlier cited as available

to languages for various grammatical specifications, only four ever play a role in closed-class

spatial schemas. These are `one’, `two’, `several’, and `many’. Accordingly, the spatially

relevant sub-inventory is also a positive abstractive universal, and is embedded within the

general inventory, itself having the same type of universality.

Although the main closed-class inventory as a whole is abstractive, that is, with its

components merely available for inclusion in individual languages, some components of it might

well be represented grammatically in all languages, hence may constitute a positive absolute

universal. One candidate might be the concept `negative’ -- along with the conceptual category

of polarity to which it belongs. Between positive absolute universals like these and such negative

absolute universals as the exclusion of color from grammar, the components of the inventory lie

along a gradient hierarchy. Thus, the category of number may be a positively tending abstractive

universal, represented in many but perhaps not all languages. And the category of rate with the

member concepts `fast’ and `slow’ is a negatively tending abstractive universal, represented in

only a few languages.

The next issue is what determines the conceptual categories and member concepts

included in the inventory as against those excluded from it. No single global principle is evident,

but several semantic constraints with broad scope have been found. One of these, the "topology

principle", applies to the meanings -- or "schemas" -- of closed-class forms referring to space,

time or certain other domains. This principle excludes Euclidean properties such as absolutes of

distance, size, shape, or angle from such schemas, and thus constitutes a negative absolute

universal. Instead, these schemas exhibit such topological properties as "magnitude neutrality"

"shape neutrality", and "bulk neutrality" -- the corresponding positive absolute universal.. To

illustrate magnitude neutrality, the spatial schema of the English

preposition across prototypically represents motion along a path from one edge of a bounded

plane perpendicularly to its opposite. But this schema is abstracted away from magnitude. Hence,

the preposition can be used equally well in The ant crawled across my palm, and in The bus

drove across the country. Apparently, no language has two different closed-class forms whose

meanings differ only with respect to magnitude for this or any other spatial schema.

Another semantic constraint on concepts available in the inventory pertains to the

meanings of conjunctions that head a subordinate clause in a complex sentence (Talmy 2000a ch.

5). Where such conjunctions relate two clauses whose events are in temporal sequence and often

also in a cause-effect sequence, with one exception the conjunctions are lexicalized to take the

earlier (and causal) event in the subordinate clause, leaving the later (and caused) event in the

main clause, and never the other way around. The exception is that -- in addition to an after-type

conjunction, which obeys the constraint -- languages can also have a before-type conjunction.

Thus, beside We left after we ate, English has We ate before we left. But all other cases follow a

negative absolute universal. Thus, beside a because-type conjunction that obeys the constraint, as

in English We stayed home because they arrived, English has no inverse conjunction lexicalized

to express the hyphenated phrase in *They arrived to-the-occasioning-of-the-event-that we

stayed home -- and seemingly no other language does either. Comparably, beside an although-

type conjunction, as in We went out even though they arrived, there is never a conjunction

lexicalized to represent the hyphenated phrase in *They arrived in-ineffective-counteracting-of-

the-event-that we went out. Talmy (2000a ch. 5) bases a cognitive account for this unidirectional

lexicalization on an earlier event’s natural function as Ground for a later event as Figure. And it

details a similar unidirectionality in conjunctions for the temporal inclusion of one event in

another, the contingency of one event on another, and the substitution of one event for another.

Based on their formal and semantic differences, treated so far, a further major finding is

that the two types of form classes exhibit a functional difference. In the conceptual complex

evoked by any portion of discourse, the open-class forms contribute most of the content, while

the closed-class forms determine most of the structure. This division of labor in cognitive

function amounts to a positive absolute universal: the open-class subsystem as a whole

represents conceptual content and the closed-class subsystem as a whole represents conceptual

structure (for illustration, see Talmy 2000a ch. 1). Although individual open- and closed-class

forms in general or in a particular sentence may perform the opposite functions, the subsystems

overall are universally dedicated to their respective content and structure functions. Further, the

function of the closed-class subsystem to structure conceptual content presumably accounts for

the negative absolute universals that constrain its semantics. The crucial conclusion -- again a

positive absolute universal -- is that the closed-class subsystem is perhaps the most fundamental

conceptual structuring system of language.

The main focus so far has been on semantic abstractive universality that involves an

inventory, but we now switch to a type that involves a typology. Talmy (2000b ch. 1, 2, 3)

examines such typologies for a "extended Motion event" (the capitalized form covers both

motion and location). This larger event consists of a Motion event proper and a Co-event that

usually represents the Manner or the Cause of the Motion. In turn, the event of Motion consists

of four components -- the moving or stationary "Figure", its state of "Motion" (moving or being

located), its "Path" (path or site), and the "Ground" that serves as its reference point. What may

be a positive absolute universal is that every language has coordinated lexicalization patterns and

syntactic constructions to represent all the components of an extended Motion event directly and

colloquially over at most two clauses. But the particular lexical and syntactic categories in which

the semantic components are characteristically represented is not an absolute universal. Rather,

each language has a characteristic pattern of such semantic-formal associations and -- unlike the

inventory case where each language is unique -- the patterns range over a relatively small set and

so constitute a typology. The "framing" typology is based on where the Path characteristically

appears. It divides languages into two main types. In a "satellite-framed" language such as

English, the Path is characteristically expressed by a satellite and/or preposition -- like

the into in The bottle floated into the cave. But in a "verb-framed" language such as Spanish, it

characteristically appears in the main verb -- like the entr´ in La botella entr´ (flotando) a la

cueva: `The bottle entered (floating) to the cave’.

Finally, we turn to the implicational type of abstractive universality. It in turn has two

forms. In the only form Greenberg posited -- what might be called "other-directed" -- the

presence of one feature in a language licenses the presence of a certain different feature. It was

seen above that, among subordinating conjunctions that relate two events in time, a `before’-type

conjunction was unusual in placing the later event in the subordinate clause. A possible

implicational universal is that only if a language has a conjunction expressing `after’ can it have

one expressing `before’.

An abstractive implicational universal is "self-directed" if a certain feature that is not an

absolute universal but occurs in only some languages always exhibits a certain characteristic --

one from a range of potential characteristics -- when it does occur. This can be seen in the

phenomenon of "fictivity", where the meanings of morphemes in a sentence belong literally to

one semantic category, but function systematically to represent the opposite semantic category

(Talmy 2000a, ch. 2). In the type called "fictive motion", a sentence with morphemes referring

literally to motion instead depicts a static scene. In one type of fictive motion, "emanation", the

motion formulation evokes the conceptualization of something intangible emerging from a

source traveling in a straight line through space, and impinging on a distal object, where in fact

nothing can be perceived as moving. Many languages, including English, can use a fictive

formulation to represent various types of emanation. For example, English can express a

"readiation path", as in Light shone from the sun into the cave; a "shadow path", as in The pole

threw its shadow against the wall, or in The pole’s shadow fell on the wall; and a "sensory path",

as in I looked into / past the valley.

Not all languages, though, can represent such situations in terms of fictive motion, so that

fictivity here is not an absolute universal. Such languages instead tend to use non-fictive

formulations like "The sun illuminated the inside of the cave"; "The pole’s shadow is on the

wall"; and "I regarded the interior of the valley". But if a language does use fictive motion to

depict an emanation, the path of the emanation is always in the same single direction. Thus,

radiation is never represented as moving from an object toward the sun, as in *Light shone from

my hand onto the sun; nor as moving outward from a third point, as in *The light shone onto my

hand and the sun from a point between us. Comparably, a shadow is never represented as

moving from the silhouette to the object, as in *The shadow jumped from the wall onto the pole.

And a sensory path is never represented as moving from a perceived object to a perceiver acting

agentively (though it can be for an unintentional perceiver), as in *That distant valley looked into

my eyes. This semantic pattern -- the unidirectionality of fictive emanation -- is thus a positive

abstractive universal that is implicationally self-directed.

Further, an "active-determinative" principle appears to govern this universal direction of

emanation. Of the two objects, the more active or determinative one is conceptualized as the

source. Thus, relative to my hand, the sun is brighter, hence, more active, and must be treated as

the source of radiative emanation. My agency in looking is more active than the inanimate

perceived object, so I am treated as the source of sensory emanation. And the pole is more

determinative -- I can move the pole and the shadow will also move, but I cannot perform the

opposite operation of moving the shadow and getting the pole to move -- so the pole is treated as

the source of shadow emanation. In turn, this principle might itself derive from the

unidirectionality of agency, as detailed further in Talmy (2000a, ch. 2).

Many further semantic universals can be cited. In fact, most semantic findings of

cognitive linguistics in general and of Talmy (2000a, b) in particular are universal in character.

For example, universals for the representation of force interaction and causality are set forth in

Talmy (2000a ch. 4, 7, 8) of temporal aspect in Talmy (2000a ch. 3); and of Figure-Ground

organization in Talmy (2000a ch. 5). The domains treated above were chosen for this short

article because together they illustrate all the parameters initially outlined for universality.

To mention one further tradition of universalist semantics, the "natural semantic

metalanguage" of Wierzbicka (e.g.. 1996) and Goddard (e.g.. 2001) is prominent and extensively

developed. This NSM theory posits that a specific set of fundamental concepts -- "semantic

primes" -- exists; that it is represented in every language by specific morphemes of that

language; and that all other morphemically expressed concepts in the language can be

represented by syntactically well-formed combinations of the morphemic primes. In terms of the

initial framework, NSM as a whole thus represents positive absolute universality.

UNIT- IV

Language, Culture, and Translations In south Asia- Introduction- The notion

“South Asia”- The notion of “Culture- The notion of “Translation”- The notion of

“Language”- Language Culture, and Translation in South Asia: An overview-

Language in South Asia- Culture in South Asia- Translation in South Asia.

Languages of South Asia

Most languages spoken in India belong either to the Indo-

European (c. 74%), the Dravidian (c. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (c. 1.2%),

or the Tibeto-Burman (c. 0.6%) families, with some languages of

the Himalayas still unclassified. The SIL Ethnologue lists 461 living languages for

India.

Hindustani is the most widespread language of India. The Indian census

takes the widest possible definition of "Hindi" as the broad variety of the Hindi

languages. The native speakers of Hindi so defined account for 39% of Indians.

Bengali is the second most spoken language of South Asia, found in

both Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. The International

Mother Language Day was created by UNESCO to commemorate the Bengali

language.[1] Other notable languages include Punjabi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil,

Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Pashto, Malayalam and Konkani.

Indian English is recorded as the native language of 226,449 Indians in the

2001 census. English is the second "language of the Union" besides Hindi.

Thirteen languages account for more than 1% of Indian population each, and

between themselves for over 95%; all of them are "scheduled languages of the

constitution."

Scheduled languages spoken by less than 1% of Indians

are Santali (0.64%), Manipuri (0.14%), Bodo (0.13%), Dogri (0.01%, spoken

in Jammu and Kashmir). The largest language that is not "scheduled"

is Bhili (0.95%), followed by Gondi (0.27%), Tulu (0.17%) and Kurukh (0.099%)

Official languages of the Union

The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be

the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of

English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into

effect, i.e., on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to

much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially Dravidian-

speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi at all. As a

result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act,

1963,[19] [20][21][22][23][24] which provided for the continued use of English for official

purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.

In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use

of English, but it was met with protests from states such as Maharashtra, Tamil

Nadu, Punjab, West

Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry, Nagaland, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. Some of

these protests also turned violent.[25] As a result, the proposal was

dropped,[26][27] and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of

English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the

legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by

each house of the Indian Parliament.[28]

The position was thus that the Union government continues to use English in

addition to Hindi for its official purposes[29] as a "subsidiary official

language",[30] but is also required to prepare and execute a program to

progressively increase its use of Hindi.[31] The exact extent to which, and the areas

in which, the Union government uses Hindi and English, respectively, is

determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official Languages Act,

1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made by the

Department of Official Language under these laws.

South Asia

Evidence of Neolithic culture has been found throughout the modern states

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

that represent South Asia (also known as the Indian subcontinent). Since 3,300

B.C. in modern-day northeastern Afghanistan, in Pakistan and northwestern India a

sophisticated Bronze Age cultural tradition emerged, that after only a few centuries

fully flourished in urban centers. Due to the high quality of its arts, crafts,

metallurgy and buildings, the accomplishments in urban planning, governance,

trade and technology etc. it has been classified as one of the principal Cradles of

civilization. Referred to as the Indus Valley Civilisation or Harappan Civilisation it

thrived for almost 2.000 years until the onset of the Vedic period (c. 1500 – c. 600

B.C.).[36][37] The great significance of the Vedic texts (that don't mention cities or

urban life) for South Asian culture, their impact on family, societal organisation,

religion, morale, literature etc. has never been contested. The Indus Valley

Civilisation on the other hand has only come to light by means of 20th century

archaeology. Scholars, who employ several periodization models argue over

whether South Asian tradition is consciously committed to the Harappan culture.

Declining climatic conditions, (aridification) and population displacement (Indo-

Aryan migration) are regarded as to have caused the fatal disruption of the Harappa

culture, that was superseded by the rural Vedic culture.[

Following the Indo-Aryan settlement in the Indo-Gangetic Plain and the

establishment of the characteristic social groups (Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas

and Shudras) in the caste system based on the Jāti model in the Varna order, the

tribal entities variously consolidated into oligarchic chiefdoms or kingdoms (the

16 Mahajanapadas), beginning in the sixth century B.C. The late Vedic political

progress results in urbanization, strict social hierarchy, commercial and military

rivalries among the settlers, that have spread all over the entire sub-

continent.[42] The large body of Vedic texts and literature, supported by the

archaeological sequence allows researchers to reconstruct a rather accurate and

detailed image of the Vedic culture and political organisation.

The Vedas constitute the oldest work of Sanskrit literature and form the basis of

religious, ethic and philosophic ideas in South Asia. They are widely, but not

exclusively regarded the basics and scriptural authority on worship, rituals,

ceremonies, sacrifices, meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge for the

future Hindu and Buddhist cosmology. Commentaries and discussions also focus

on the development of valid political ideas and concepts of societal progress

and ethic conformity.[43]

Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are major religions of South

Asia. After a long and complex history of cosmological and religious development,

adoption and decline, the Hindu-synthesis[44] and the late but thorough introduction

of Islam about 80% of modern-day Indians and Nepalis identify as

Hindus.[45] In Sri Lanka and Bhutan most people adhere to various forms of

Buddhism.[46] Islam is the predominant religion in Afghanistan,

the Maldives (99%), Pakistan (96%) and Bangladesh (90%).

Afghanistan and Pakistan are situated at the western periphery of South

Asia, where the cultural character has been made by both, Persia, a civilization

rooted in Mesopotamia and the Indosphere.[50] Pakistan is split with its two western

regions of Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sharing a greater Iranic heritage

due to the native Pashtuns and Baloch people of the regions. Its two eastern regions

of Punjab and Sindh share cultural links to Northwest India. Bangladesh and the

Indian state of West Bengal share a common heritage and culture based on

the Bengali language. The Culture of India is diverse and a complex mixture of

many influences. Nepal is culturally linked to both India and Tibet and the varied

ethnic groups of the country share many of the festivals and cultural traditions used

and celebrated in North and East India and Tibet. Nepali, the dominant language of

Nepal uses the Devanagari alphabet which is also used to write many North Indian

languages.[51][52] Bhutan is a culturally linked to Tibet and India. Tibetan

Buddhism is the dominant religion in Bhutan and the Tibetan alphabet is used to

write Dzongkha, the dominant language of Bhutan. There is a cultural and

linguistic divide between North and South India. Sri Lanka is culturally tied to

both India and Southeast Asia.[53] Sinhala, the dominant language in the country is

written in Sinhala script which is derived from the Kadamba-Pallava alphabet,

certain cultural traditions, and aspects of its cuisine, for example, show South

Indian influences. Cultural festivals, aspects of its cuisine and Theravada

Buddhism, the dominant religion in Sri Lanka, show a Southeast Asian affinity.[54]

Indo-Aryan languages are spoken in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sinhala of Sri

Lanka and most of North, West and East India and Nepal. Dravidian languages are

spoken in South India and in Sri Lanka by the Tamil community. Tibeto-Burman

languages are spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and North & North East India. Iranic

Languages are spoken in Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The

main languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari.

Parliamentary proceedings and laws[edit]

The Indian constitution distinguishes the language to be used

in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws are to be made.

Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either

Hindi or English. The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be

phased out at the end of fifteen years unless Parliament chose to extend its use,

which Parliament did through the Official Languages Act, 1963.[32] Also, the

constitution permits a person who is unable to express themselves in either Hindi

or English to, with the permission of the Speaker of the relevant House, address the

House in their mother tongue.[33]

In contrast, the constitution requires the authoritative text of all laws, including

Parliamentary enactments and statutory instruments, to be in English, until

Parliament decides otherwise. Parliament has not exercised its power to so decide,

instead merely requiring that all such laws and instruments, and all bills brought

before it, also be translated into Hindi, though the English text remains

authoritative.[34]

Judiciary[edit]

The constitution provides, and the Supreme Court of India has reiterated,

that all proceedings in the Supreme Court (the country's highest court) and the

High Courts shall be in English.[35] Parliament has the power to alter this by law

but has not done so. However, in many high courts, there is, with consent from the

president, allowance of the optional use of Hindi. Such proposals have been

successful in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.[36]

Administration[edit]

The Official Language Act provides that the Union government shall use

both Hindi and English in most administrative documents that are intended for the

public, though the Union government is required by law to promote the use of

Hindi.[19][37] The Official Languages Rules, in contrast, provide for a higher degree

of use of Hindi in communications between offices of the central government

(other than offices in Tamil Nadu, to which the rules do not

apply).[38] Communications between different departments within the central

government may be in English and Hindi (though the English text remains

authoritative), although a translation into the other language must be provided if

required.[39] Communications within offices of the same department, however,

must be in Hindi if the offices are in Hindi-speaking states,[40] and in either Hindi

or English otherwise with Hindi being used in proportion to the percentage of staff

in the receiving office who have a working knowledge of

Hindi.[41] Notes and memos in files may be in English and Hindi (though the

English text remains authoritative), with the Government having a duty to provide

a translation into the other language if required.[42]

Besides, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to

a government officer or authority has a constitutional right to submit it in any

language used in India.

Implementation[edit]

Various steps have been taken by the Indian government to implement the

use and familiarisation of Hindi extensively. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar

Sabha headquartered at Chennai was formed to spread Hindi in South Indian states.

Regional Hindi implementation offices

at Bengaluru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhopal, Delhi an

d Ghaziabad have been established to monitor the implementation of Hindi in

Central government offices and PSUs.

Annual targets are set by the Department of Official Language regarding the

amount of correspondence being carried out in Hindi. A Parliament Committee on

Official Language constituted in 1976 periodically reviews the progress in the use

of Hindi and submits a report to the President. The governmental body which

makes policy decisions and established guidelines for the promotion of Hindi is

the Kendriya Hindi Samiti (est. 1967). In every city that has more than ten central

Government offices, a Town Official Language Implementation Committee is

established and cash awards are given to government employees who write books

in Hindi. All Central government offices and PSUs are to establish Hindi Cells for

implementation of Hindi in their offices.[43]

In 2016, the government announced plans to promote Hindi in government

offices in Southern and Northeast India.[44][45]

The Indian constitution does not specify the official languages to be used by

the states for the conduct of their official functions and leaves each state free to,

through its legislature, adopt Hindi or any language used in its territory as its

official language or languages.[46] The language need not be one of those listed in

the Eighth Schedule, and several states have adopted official languages which are

not so listed. Examples include Kokborok in Tripura and Mizo in Mizoram.

Legislature and administration[edit]

The constitutional provisions in relation to use of the official language in

legislation at the State level largely mirror those relating to the official language at

the central level, with minor variations. State legislatures may conduct their

business in their official language, Hindi or (for a transitional period, which the

legislature can extend if it so chooses) English, and members who cannot use any

of these have the same rights to their mother tongue with the Speaker's permission.

The authoritative text of all laws must be in English unless Parliament passes a law

permitting a state to use another language, and if the original text of a law is in a

different language, an authoritative English translation of all laws must be

prepared.

The state has the right to regulate the use of its official language in public

administration, and in general, neither the constitution nor any central enactment

imposes any restriction on this right. However, every person submitting

a petition for the redress of a grievance to any officer or authority of the state

government has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in that

state, regardless of its official status.

Besides, the constitution grants the central government, acting through

the President, the power to issue certain directives to the government of a state in

relation to the use of minority languages for official purposes. The President may

direct a State to officially recognize a language spoken in its territory for specified

purposes and in specified regions if its speakers demand it and satisfy him that a

substantial proportion of the State's population desires its use. Similarly, States and

local authorities are required to endeavor to provide primary education in the

mother tongue for all linguistic minorities, regardless of whether their language is

official in that State, and the President has the power to issue directions he deems

necessary to ensure that they are provided these facilities.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia divides into Mainland Southeast Asia, that

encompasses Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and West Malaysia,

and Maritime Southeast Asia, that includes Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore,

the Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Christmas

Island.[55][56] At the crossroads of the Indian and East Asian maritime trade routes

since around 500 B.C., the region has been greatly influenced by the culture of

India and China. The term Indianised Kingdoms is a designation for numerous

Southeast Asian political units, that had to a varying degree adopted most aspects

of India's statecraft, administration, art, epigraphy, writing and architecture. The

religions Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam gradually diffused into local cosmology.

Nonetheless, the Southeast Asian nations have very diversely adapted to these

cultural stimuli and evolved their distinct sophisticated expression in lifestyle, the

visual arts and most notably in architectural accomplishments, such as Angkor

Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur in Indonesia.

Buddhist culture has a lasting and significant impact in mainland Southeast

Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam); most Buddhists in

Indochina practice Theravada Buddhism. In the case of Vietnam, it is also

influenced much by Confucianism and the culture of China. Myanmar has also

been exposed to Indian cultural influences. Before the 14th

century, Hinduism and Buddhism were the dominant religions of Southeast Asia.

Thereafter, Islam became dominant in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Southeast

Asia has also had a lot of Western influence due to the lasting legacy

of colonialism. One example is the Philippines which has been heavily influenced

by the United States and Spain, with Christianity (Catholicism) as the dominant

religion. East Timor also demonstrates Portuguese influence through colonialism,

as is also a predominantly Christian nation.

A common feature found around the region are stilt houses. These houses

are elevated on stilts so that water can easily pass below them in case of a flood.

Another shared feature is rice paddy agriculture, which originated in Southeast

Asia thousands of years ago. Dance drama is also a very important feature of the

culture, utilizing movements of the hands and feet perfected over thousands of

years. Furthermore, the arts and literature of Southeast Asia is very distinctive as

some have been influenced by Indian (Hindu), Chinese, Buddhist,

and Islamic literature.

South Asian Translations, and the Lack of Them

Over the past few weeks, Mahmud Rahman/Asymptote has been publishing a four-

part series “On the Dearth of South Asian Translations in the U.S.”

The whole series is worth reading, and below are a few key bits to whet your

appetite . . . First off, from Part I:

A small percentage of literary books published in the U.S. are translations. The

translation program at the University of Rochester maintains yearly databases of

translated titles available in the U.S. South Asian languages barely make these

lists: in the last five years, out of 2121 books, only 19 were from South Asian

languages (only Urdu, Hindi, Bangla, Tamil). No surprise that European languages

dominate, but given the vibrant literature from South Asia and a somewhat

growing interest in translated literature, it’s a serious problem when so few titles

and literature from so few languages find their way to American readers. [. . .]

Michael Orthofer of the Literary Saloon blog, which covers global literature, notes:

“Over the past several decades, a steady flow of English-writing authors with

strong Indian (and, to a much lesser extent, Pakistani and Bangladeshi)

connections/roots but also great familiarity with “the West,” from Anita Desai to

Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amit Chaudhuri, Vikram Chandra, etc. etc. have

filled the role of “Indian” writers for the West—and that’s been more or less good

enough for them. (Even the outliers—less Western-connected R.K. Narayan, or

someone like Raja Rao—have written in English). Indian writers writing in Indian

languages presumably just seem too great a risk, when Indian slots can easily be

filled with writers who ‘know’ Western audiences better.” [. . .]

Of course it did not help when an influential voice such as Rushdie introduced

Indian writing in The New Yorker in June 1997 with words like these:

“This is it: The prose writing—both fiction and nonfiction—created in [the post-

independence] period by Indian writers working in English is proving to be a

stronger and more important body of work than most of what has been produced in

the eighteen “recognized” languages of India. . . . The true Indian literature of the

first postcolonial half century has been made in the language the British left

behind.” [. . .]

Jason Grunebaum, writer, translator, and lecturer in Hindi at the University of

Chicago, notes the practical side of the issue. “It’s a zero-sum game when it comes

to bookstore shelf space: for every work published from a South Asian writer

written in English, that means one less space for a translation.”

No one in publishing admits to this possible partiality. But it’s well known that

mainstream publishers tend to be conservative with their choices. It’s not likely

this will change without some remarkable new development. Daisy Rockwell

suggests that this could happen when “a high profile translation breaks through

with a major publishing house.”

In other words, something like a Bolaño or Knausgård. [. . .]

Part II is the one that’s probably most relevant to me personally. In this part,

Mahmud focuses on a few failures to get books published in the U.S./UK despite

having come out (in English translation) in India, and then highlights the (literal

handful) of successes.

First off, here’s one of the typical stories:

Daisy Rockwell is a painter, writer, and translator. From 1992-2006, she

made a detour into academia, from which she emerged with a Ph.D. in South Asian

literature and a book on the Hindi author Upendranath Ashk. She had become

interested in his writing as a grad student.

In an interview with CNN last year, she said: “Ashk asked me to undertake a

short story collection shortly before his death, which I did somewhat reluctantly as

I was more interested in translating his long novel, Falling Walls (something I’m

finally working on now). It ended up being his dying wish to me, however, so I

saw the project through. I finished most of the work around 2000, but had a very

hard time finding a publisher, even in India.”

Her translation of Ashk’s Hats & Doctors came out from Penguin India in

2013. About her approach to U.S. publishers, she wrote: “I have tried and so far

failed to get my translation published in the U.S., on numerous occasions. I have

another work forthcoming and I will try with that too. We’ll see what happens. I

haven’t had any explanations. So far I’ve approached them myself. Next up, my

agent. Mostly I’ve tried academic presses and small presses. I haven’t tried that

many, but since no one maintains a South Asia list, really, the entire thing feels

kind of scatter shot and I’ve gotten discouraged easily.”

It’s amazing how many books are available in translation from

HarperCollins India, Oxford India, and Penguin India that are never even

submitted to American publishing houses. It’s messed up and unfortunate, and a

very short-sighted.

In the last three years, however, a few translators report some success.

Fran Pritchett, who’s been teaching modern South Asian literature at Columbia,

first published her translation of Basti, Intizar Husain’s partition novel in Urdu, in

1995 from HarperCollins India. It was reissued in 2007 by OUP in Delhi. Last year

it was picked up by NYRB Classics. Fran writes, “I didn’t contact NYRB about the

new edition of Basti; they contacted me and were very interested. I was glad to

agree, and to cooperate in every way, but I don’t have much insight into why they

chose Basti.”

When I reached Edwin Frank, Editor of NYRB Classics, he said that Andy

McCord, a writer who translates from Urdu and has ties to the subcontinent, had

brought Basti to his attention more than a decade ago. NYRB will be publishing

the translation of Anantamurthy’s Samskara in 2015. About their choices, he

explained that they have published a number of titles from and about the sub-

continent, including Nirad Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian,

Ackerley’s Hindoo Holiday, Kolatkar’s Jejuri, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English,

August. “It’s a world that is of interest to me and, I hope, to our readers. These,

with the exception of Kolatkar, are all works written in English. It makes sense to

go on and publish some of the great works that aren’t, and these are among them.”

There’s a lot more to quote from—like Jason Grunebaum’s letter to the New

York Times that led to Yale picking up _The Girl with the Golden Parasol_—but

you should just read it all yourself.

Part III is about trying to bring South Asian literature to the attention of

foreign publishers, and the role that a supporting cultural institution could play in

this:

I had a few exchanges with Will Evans, founder of Deep Vellum. As a new

kid on the block based in Dallas, Texas, Evans is effervescent about Deep

Vellum’s mission. Starting out with a list of five impressive titles translated from

French, Russian, Spanish, and Icelandic, their initial plan is to publish ten books a

year. In a recent interview with this blog, Evans confidently declared, “Deep

Vellum is going to publish translations of literature from every language.”

My conversation with him about South Asian translations revealed that

visibility is a problem. Larger publishers may have resources to scout out

interesting titles (though one doesn’t see this go beyond certain languages and

regions). But smaller publishers rely on information channels that are already in

place.

Evans writes, “I don’t know many translators from South Asia, and the

pipelines for information that exist from the French, German, and various Spanish

language cultural programs don’t seem to exist in South Asia, which is a shame,

because as long as there are good books to be published, of course I’m interested,

and so are all my other favorite publishers.”

“It would also be awesome if some cultural organizations were formed to

promote the literatures of South Asia in a meaningful way. Their inspiration could

be like the German Book Office, who are an invaluable resource for the promotion

of German literature in the U.S. Their New Books in German publication is a great

way of knowing what is coming out from German publishers, and they coordinate

a massive network of German publishers, translators, and authors, and they go out

of their way to connect American publishers with the right books from Germany.

I’d love that from South Asia, though of course we’re talking about a massively

disparate area, not linguistically or culturally unified. But such efforts could go a

long way in each individual culture or territory to making their literature more

prevalent in English translation in the U.S. & U.K.”

Evans also points to the example of Korea. “The Korean literary

organization LTI has done wonders for the promotion of Korean literature in

English in recent years, because they are dedicated to using culture as a way of

expanding Korean culture abroad more generally. And you don’t see the same

thing from South Asian governments.”

Part VI is about the need for translators, and the role that they could play:

Today there are many South Asians here who have taken up creative writing. Some

have become prominent. Very few have tried translation. Moazzam Sheikh, a

writer who’s also a translator, says: “This situation can only be reversed if we

South Asians had a different relationship with the languages of our parents. Just

imagine if only a handful of South Asian writers in the U.S. spent some time

translating!”

There are also many academics from South Asia who teach literature in the

U.S. Only a minority among them become familiar with non-English writing from

South Asia. Arnab Chakladar, who teaches at Carleton College, noted in an essay

in Postcolonial Text: “Most relevant here is the educational background of the

large majority of Indian literary scholars who arrived in the USA beginning in the

late 1980s and whose careers, as graduate students and faculty, parallel the rise of

South Asian literary studies as a more or less discrete sub-discipline in the

American academy. While this group is multilingual, the primary medium of

instruction through their school and college years would have been English. In

high school they would likely have had another Indian language as a ‘second

language’ and read a very limited amount of fiction and poetry in this language,

but would not have developed any coherent sense of its literary tradition.”

However this problem does not affect simply those who’ve been educated in

English. Jason Grunebaum points me towards a major failing from the

subcontinent: the absence of contemporary literature from high school curricula.

“Another idea that’s fairly obvious but bears emphasizing, particularly for Hindi

literature, would be the wholesale shakeup of the CBSE (secondary school) Hindi

curriculum in India. I’m sure the situation is similar for other Indian languages

(though I always imagine that the grass is always greener on the other side), but if

the sole aim of the CBSE curriculum had been to design a language and literature

curriculum so boring and irrelevant that it would be guaranteed to make all

students hate Hindi language and literature, they couldn’t have done a better job.

It’s amazing how many Hindi students who come to the University of Chicago

from India with their CBSE-tainted notions of Hindi literature and then later

discover here that Hindi literature can (gasp!) be exciting and fun.”

Notion of South Asia

South Asia did not exist in colonial times--at least not in the sense we

understand that regional label today. For the British, their empire in India defined

the entire region. Since the end of that empire, a number of reasons have made

South Asia a preferred label when discussing the region. Topping that list of

reasons was the partition of British India into India (a.k.a. Bharat) and Pakistan in

1947, and later, the creation of Bangladesh. Of course, the parcelling out of Asia

(and other parts of the world) into regional blocks we are familiar with today--e.g.,

South-East Asia or Central Asia--are to a large extent, also products of the cold-

war era. Strategic interests of the United States dictated the study of regions after

the end of the Second World War.

The emergence of the United States, first as the major Anglophone power,

and now as a unique global superpower, has ensured that the labels they originally

deployed have come to be used virtually universally across the globe.‘South Asia’

as the description of a particular region is a product of that historical process, even

though the category ‘South Asia’ came into common circulation only after the end

of British colonialism. In this essay I seek to argue that the notion of South Asia as

we know it today has a critically important historical legacy reaching back to the

colonial era. Only by understanding that historical background can we understand

the intellectual, political and emotional baggage this label carries from that past.

Only by taking into account that history, can we comprehend the range of

problems with which we are confronted when we deploy this category today.

What is South Asia? Who is a part of South Asia and who is not? Bodies

such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) dictate

that the label South Asia be used to refer to a region comprising of the sovereign

states of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Yet

SAARC simply assumes the existence of an entity called South Asia instead of

defining it. If South Asia is simply an expression of geographical proximity, then

why, for instance, is Myanmar (Burma) not a part of South Asia, while the

Maldives are? Why do some descriptions include Afghanistan in South Asia, while

others, including those of SAARC, do not? These questions don’t have answers we

can simply deduce from ‘objective’ geographic realities. If fact, these questions

themselves reveal that there is nothing natural or objective about South Asia. Most

attempts to define the region are fairly arbitrary, and the boundaries this region

encompasses, somewhat uncertain. The notion of South Asia today is a product not

of proximity, nor is it based on a shared world-view. Rather, South Asia is the

product of a variety of global, regional, and local political processes, which in turn,

reflect different configurations of power relations and history.

And history does not easily give up its hold. In most conversations not

constrained by strict diplomatic protocol, South Asia continues to be used as a

synonym for what was British India. A recent textbook, widely used in the region

and in the west, is titled Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy.

Despite the title, however, this work focuses entirely on the history of British India

and the post-colonial states which emerged from it. Some SAARC members would

no doubt object to the fact that there is no history of Nepal and Sri Lanka in that

book, and Bhutan and the Maldives hardly merit a footnote. The contrast between

the title and contents of the book, however, do reveal the ways in which history

shapes most notions of South Asia we use today, and why that category remains,

despite many relevant objections, impossible to separate from notions of British

India.

Britain acquired an empire in India, not in a ‘fit of absent-mindedness’ as a

prominent British historian suggested, but certainly in a piecemeal fashion. A mix

of opportunism, greed, and national rivalries drove the acquisition of this empire

over a period of a hundred years from the middle of the eighteenth century. The

acquisition was facilitated by outright military conquest, diplomatic manoeuvres,

and the use of dubious quasi-legal doctrines. Much of the actual work of territorial

expansion was carried out by individuals nominally working for the East India

Company (hereafter referred to as the EIC or simply the Company), but who, over

time, began to function much more as representatives of the Crown and then the

British Parliament. A major revolt in 1857 put an end to most of the territorial

expansion and certainly ended the role of the EIC in governance. The Company

territories now came under the direct control of the Crown and Parliament, and the

reigning monarch, Queen Victoria, was formally invested with the title of Empress

of India in 1877.

It was easier to declare Victoria the Empress of India than it was to actually

create a unified British India out of the tremendous regional diversity the

Company, and then the Crown, succeeded to in the subcontinent. The presence of a

large number of states nominally under the control of native princes visibly

demonstrated the limits of such an endeavour. This was the result of Victoria’s

own proclamation in 1858, which guaranteed the integrity of India’s remaining

princes. But even within the areas under their control, the British were not as

successful as they would have liked, in transforming zamindars of the north,

merchants of the west, plantation workers of the east, or priests of the south into

homogenised Indian subjects of the empire. It is important to keep in mind that the

EIC and then the Crown did not replace a single, centralised empire in India.

Rather, the EIC displaced a number of vibrant regional states, which in turn had

overthrown or ignored their former overlords of the Mughal dynasty. Moreover,

British power was acquired over a long period of time. The new rulers of the

region had to try and cobble together a British India from a welter of different

regional entities. Through common laws, a common currency, lines of

communication cutting across the subcontinent, and with the help of institutions

such as the civil service (not for nothing was it called the steel frame of the Raj),

the British attempted to create out of regional diversities, a centralised empire in

India. This was not an easy task, and to a large extent, this was a project which

remained incomplete.

Yet, incomplete does not mean insignificant. Economically, culturally and

for strategic reasons, ‘India’ became central to the British imperial mission, and in

turn the empire had profound transformative impacts on the people it sought to

incorporate. It has become a fashion, of late, for revisionists of imperial history to

argue that British imperialism was merely a blip in the long history of continuities

in the subcontinent. It is suggested that the British Raj was in fact completely

undermined by local interests, and that what appeared to be new in this era--

whether imperial governance strategies or nationalist responses to these--were no

more than a continuation of older forms of politics with new labels. The artisans

who were deprived of a living with the competition from machine-made yarn and

fabrics, the peasants who were made subject to vagaries of an international market

at terms unfavourable to them, the soldiers who fought to expand or defend

imperial interests across the world, or the indentured workers who were herded

into plantations in India and overseas, would, no doubt, disagree with this

revisionist assessment of the Raj.

Equally, India was important not only to ensure the economic prosperity of the

British Empire, but was central to the very self-imagination of Britain and British

nationalism. To defend these imperial interests, initially the Company, and then the

Crown sought to extend their domain from India to include modern day Sri Lanka,

they annexed territories from the Nepali kingdom, incorporated for a while what

was then known as Burma into British India, and suffered serious setbacks in their

attempts to seek control over Afghanistan. If today these territories are, in some

eyes, seen as part of South Asia, then it is certainly due to this attempt by the

British to expand or defend their empire in India. Equally, when other lexicons

regard South Asia to be synonymous with India, then that too is part of the same

colonial legacy.

The notion of India and its product, the notion of South Asia, are also the

products of nationalisms directed against the colonial rulers. Yet most ofthese

nationalisms too were a ‘derivative discourse’--to use a phrase coined by Partha

Chatterjee. Drawing their arguments from a vocabulary and world-view, in a large

part borrowed from that of the rulers, educated middle-class nationalists used

imperial categories to mount what became challenges to the British empire. Early

nationalists though, took pride in their loyalty towards the British empire. Their

demands for greater representation in the institutions of colonial governance--

whether on councils or in the civil service--were couched in the rhetoric that as

natives they were better placed to represent the needs of the loyal subjects of that

empire.

That their identification with the empire soon turned to a project of emphasising

the cultural differences between British rulers and their native subjects, was in

large measure a product of colonial racism which delighted in ridiculing the

aspirations of ‘brown sahibs’ to positions of equality with that of the rulers.

However, whether they reacted, resisted, responded, opposed or accommodated

with the structures of empire, for most part, organisations such as the Indian

National Congress, and the All India Muslim League, as their very names indicate,

worked within and were limited by, the territorial framework established by the

colonial presence in the region. Thus the All India Muslim League, though

concerned with a wider, global, Islamic community, never sought to represent

Muslims outside of the area circumscribed by British paramountcy. The Indian

National Congress too, did not seek to extend its scope of operations to, say, Sri

Lanka or Burma, which were deemed to be outside of ‘India’ proper by the British

authorities. Administrative boundaries of British India clearly limited and curtailed

the geographic extent of nationalisms within colonial India.

More significant perhaps than the territorial limits imposed by colonialism,

was the extent to which colonialism circumscribed the very imagination of

nationalists. Nothing illustrates the devastating legacy of these frameworks better

than the partition of the sub-continent. Ultra-nationalist historians aside, most

analysts today would agree with the proposition that it was the inability or the

unwillingness of the major participants to break with colonially constructed

categories of thought and politics which resulted in the partition of 1947. The

political division of British India into two nation-states was certainly not the

product of religious plurality alone. Rather it was the product, ultimately, of a

colonial imagination, which translated religious diversity into political distinctions

and created political institutions, which furthered those distinctions. There is

always the danger in analysis of this sort, however, of attributing all agency for

historical change to British colonialism. In fact, the structures and imaginations of

colonialism would have been of little significance in this context, had they not also

served the interests of middle-class nationalist who inhabited these structures and

furthered the devastating reach of the colonial imagination. Religious nationalism,

or what is called communalism in South Asia, was a product of colonialism taken

to new and devastating heights by self-serving nationalist leaderships.

In all fairness though, it must be said that not all nationalisms were self-

serving, though even many of these alternative visions did come to be co-opted or

marginalised by colonial political processes and institutions. A variety of radical

visions of the nation, not necessarily tied to the structures of colonial rule

flourished among a population where a majority had reasons for disaffection from

not only the colonial rulers, but also their immediate, native, superiors. Mohandas

(Mahatma) Gandhi’s vision and rhetoric addressed much of this disaffection. The

towering presence of Gandhi in the nationalist arena need not, however, blind us to

the popularity of more revolutionary and socially transformative imaginations of

the nation which co-existed with and at times were as popular as the world

envisioned by the Mahatma. However, there is no doubt that Gandhi’s critique of

modernity, and his call for total non-cooperation with colonial institutions in the

1920s, became the starting point of mass nationalist politics in British India. Yet

even in the 1920s middle class leaders of Gandhi’s own party, the Indian National

Congress (INC), participated, and indeed revelled in the power and patronage they

could access through participating in the elections and institutions sponsored by the

colonial state. The leadership of the Muslim League, was, if anything, even more

elitist and self-serving than that of the INC at that time. By the middle of the fourth

decade of the twentieth century, different sections of the middle-class nationalist

leadership (as well as the colonial authorities, of course) were concerned by the

potential threat to their own interest posed by Gandhian ideas and the revolutionary

potential of popular nationalisms. They eventually succeeded in marginalising

these all together, so as to define a ‘mainstream’ of politics primarily concerned

with elections, councils, and control over institutions of the state.

The partition of 1947 was a product of the inability of the participants in the

new mainstream of politics to come to an agreement about how to share power

between them. The elections of 1937 were a watershed event in this history. The

INC did spectacularly well in these elections, while the Muslim League fared

disastrously. Envisioning themselves as the new rulers of India, the INC leadership

adopted the high moral ground and rhetoric very similar to that deployed by the

British colonial administrators. Claiming that they were the sole representatives of

Indian nationalism, the INC now began to relegate the Muslim League to the status

of a party which represented sub-national or ‘communal’ interests. The League, in

turn, replied by insisting that there were not one, but two nations in British India, a

Hindu nation represented by the INC and a Muslim one, of which they were the

‘sole spokesmen’.

The coming of the Second World War did not interrupt this conflict.

Moreover, the massive outbreak of popular anti-colonial violence during the Quit

India movement of 1942, outside the control of the major nationalist parties,

worried the British leadership considerably. The end of the war saw Britain

economically impoverished, militarily exhausted, and under mounting pressure

from the Indians, the international community, and even large sections of their own

population, to relinquish control over India. After a few failed attempts at

brokering a compromise between the League and the INC, the British decided to

divide British India between the two and quit with as much speed as possible.

Meanwhile some nationalist leaders, for their own limited political purposes, were

escalating popular anger against other religious communities. The real tragedy of

the partition--the death of over a million people and the forcible displacement of

around 10 million--was a result both of the actions of a short-sighted nationalist

leadership and the hasty transfer of power, which left little time to prepare people

for the momentous changes with which they were to be confronted.

There is a lot to be said for names. A rose by any other name is not a rose.

The new Pakistani leadership protested the appropriation of the label ‘India’ by the

INC leadership for their section of the country. Even today, most official Pakistani

communication uses ‘Bharat’ rather than ‘India’ to refer to its eastern neighbour.

The INC, on the other hand truly believed that it succeeded to the British legacy of

being the paramount power in the region. Thus, when thinking about South Asia,

the Indian state has often sought the same role as a regional hegemon as the one

enjoyed by the empire in its heyday. One could argue that the totally avoidable war

with China in 1962 was a product of remnants of this misguided belief. Of course

Pakistan was a visible and vocal obstacle to this ‘imperial’ imagination of South

Asia. But in the Indian imagination, Pakistan was, and to a large extent continues

to be, regarded as an artificial creation, brought into being from naturally-existing

India by the machinations of the British and some self-serving Muslim politicians.

The description of partition as a ‘tragedy’ in this context, refers not to the millions

of dead and displaced, but to the very existence of Pakistan. The Indian state

helped their argument regarding Pakistan’s artificiality somewhat by supporting

Bengali separatism in eastern Pakistan, and even going to war for the ‘liberation’

of Bangladesh. The colonial legacy continues to haunt the Indian imagination of

South Asia, particularly in the way it seeks to represent its role in the region as a

benevolent though vastly superior lord of the manor. There is no doubt that this is

an imagination which the Indian leadership needs to transcend, if it is to avoid the

sort of disasters it has perpetrated in the past-whether it be the China debacle of

1962 or sending an Indian peace keeping force to deal with ethnic conflict in Sri

Lanka. We cannot, however, transcend what we don’t first recognise.

That the notion of South Asia today is rife with problems is not hidden from

any one. To begin to discuss these problems and their possible resolutions, we need

to realise that this regional label itself has a history. The region continues to be

configured through a geographic and cultural imagination created during colonial

times. South Asia today is India-centric, but only in part due to it being the largest

and most powerful state in the region. This India centricness is equally the product

of a history where the region itself was defined in terms of British interests and

objectives, to which India was central. If the Indian state acts as the big brother of

the region, then that too is the product of the same history. Claiming that the

situation today is the product of history does not, of course, mean we accept the

status quo or do not try to change it. But in order to solve a problem we need first

to understand it, and in understanding South Asia today, we ignore the historical

baggage this category carries with it only at our own peril.

Notions of 'Culture'

For all this apparent ubiquity, the term ‘cultural studies’ remains an

unusually ‘polysemic’ sign. (Millner/Browitt 1)

The academic field of ‘Cultural Studies’ has experienced a major worldwide

growth in the last 25 years of the 20th century. (cf. Millner/Browitt 1) Everyone

uses and discusses the abstract noun ‘culture’, but its exact meaning varies to such

an extent, that it seems necessary to examine the different notions of culture: As a

matter of fact, ‘culture’ is one of the most complex words of the English language;

only ‘nature’ denotes more meanings. (cf. Eagleton 1) One can say that there is

hardly anything that is not culture.

To begin with, the consultation of a renowned dictionary provides a first

glimpse of the polysemic use of ‘culture’. According to the Collins Cobuild

Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary the term signifies the following (342):

1. Culture consists of activities such as the arts and philosophy, which are

considered to be important for the development of civilization and of people’s

mind. […]

2. A culture is a particular society or civilization, especially considered in relation

to its beliefs, way of life, or art. […]

3. The culture of a particular organization or group consists of the habits of the

people in it and the way they generally behave. […]

In order to further investigate the different notions of ‘culture’, it seems

necessary to approach the concept historically. The field of Cultural Studies arose

from the postwar debate about the nature of social and cultural change. (cf. Hall

12/22) New developments such as mass media, mass society and England’s role in

a postcolonial world, were taken into account. In 1964, Richard Hoggart founded

the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham, in order to

engage in the matter of cultural change as “politics by other means.” (Hall 12)

Thus, the field of cultural studies as a multidisciplinary approach to culture, with

literary criticism as its main constituent was born. (cf. Milner/Browitt 6)

According to Stuart Hall, Hoggart’s deputy and later successor, the field had

developed out of the Crisis of the Humanities whose followers expanded the

current meaning of elite-culture to popular culture. (cf. Assmann 220f)

Furthermore, they were concerned to treat culture as warplace of identity politics,

to rearrange their literary canon and to demand an increased inclusion of social and

cultural minorities. (cf. Assmann 30). Pioneering works were Hoggart’s Uses of

Literary (1957) and William’s Culture and Society 1780-1950 (1958). (cf. Hall II.,

13f) Their main aim was to engage in ‘real’ problems, to bring together practice

and theory, as well as to figure out how the world works. (cf. Hall 17f)

Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society 1780-1950 attached four meanings

to culture: “an individual habit of mind; the state of intellectual development of a

whole society; the arts; and the whole way of life of a group or people.”

(Milner/Browitt 2) Apparently, he dismissed the first meaning “an individual habit

of mind.” (Milner/Browitt 2), but later on reintroduced it, grouped the second and

third meaning together and contrasted them to the fourth “anthropological”

meaning (cf. Milner/Browitt 2f). In a later work, Williams differentiated between

three definitions of culture: the ’ideal’, the ‘documentary’ and the ‘social’ one. (cf.

Williams 48) The ‘ideal’ would be culture as “a state or human perfection, in terms

of certain absolute or universal values.” (Williams 48) Secondly, the

‘documentary’ critically analyses culture as “the body of intellectual and

imaginative work, in which […] human thought and experience are variously

recorded.” (Williams 48) Thirdly, the ‘social’ definition describes “a particular

way of life.” (Williams 48) Cultural tradition at last is a sum of continual (re-

)selection and interpretation, “a part of man’s general evolution, to which many

individuals and groups contribute.” (Williams 56) Thus, it is an active process.

Williams claims that those three general categories must be equally included in any

adequate theory of culture. (cf. Williams 50) His approach to the concept of

‘culture’ demonstrates the complexity of its idea:

[It] is nowhere more graphically demonstrated than in the fact that its most eminent

theorist in post-war Britain, Raymond Williams, defines it at various times to mean

a standard of perfection, a habit of mind, the arts, general intellectual development,

a whole way of life, a signifying system, a structure of feeling, the interrelation of

elements in a way of life, and everything from economic production and the family

to political institutions. (Eagleton 36)

The Yale professor of English and Comparative Literature, Geoffrey

Hartmann also differs between the general idea of ‘culture’ and one specific

culture (cf. Milner/Browitt 4) Furthermore, he suggests culture as a counter

position to society and as one of the four fields to which politics, society and

economics also belong (cf. Milner/Browitt 4): “While for Williams society still

remained a generality, or a commonality, for Hartman it has already become a

multicultural plurality of particulars.” (Milner/Browitt 4) Andrew Milner and Jeff

Browitt argue that ‘culture’ can be seen as a concept of civil society, as introduced

by Marx and Weber, which forms together with politics of the state and economics

of the market a trichotomy. (cf. Milner/Browitt 5)

One of the most complete definitions of ‘culture’ is provided by Aleida

Assmann in her Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft: She differentiates between

six uses of the term of which the first three are value-free and the latter ones value-

bearing (cf. 13/17):

Firstly used in the second half of the 17th century, the term ‘culture’ derives

of the latin root colere and originally referred to an activity: the “tending of natural

growth, either in animals or in plants” (Milner/Browitt 3) This legacy can still be

seen in the terms ‘agriculture’ and ‘horticulture’. (cf. Assmann 13) Assmann’s first

use of ‘culture’ refers, hence, to any human occupation that is systematically

pursued, cared for, cultivated and upgraded. (cf. 13) Andrew Edgar and Peter

Sedgwick argue similarly that ‘culture’ starts “at the point at which humans

surpass whatever is simply given in their natural inheritance” (102) or as Terry

Eagleton puts it: “culture is just everything which is not genetically transmissible.”

Notions of Translation

Catford in Choliludin (2007: 4) states that translation may be defined as

follows: the replacement of textual material in one language (Source Language) by

equivalent textual material in another language (Target Language). Nida and Taber

in Choliludin (2007: 3) say that translating consists of reproducing the closest

natural equivalence of the source language message in the receptor language,

firstly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.

Massoud in Abdellah (2002: 2) gives criteria for a good translation: 1) A

good translation is easily understood. 2) A good translation is fluent and smooth. 3)

A good translation is idiomatic. 4) A good translation conveys, to some extent, the

literary subtleties of the original. 5) A good translation distinguishes between the

metaphorical and the literal. 6) A good translation reconstructs the cultural or

historical context of the original. 7) A good translation makes explicit what is

implicit in abbreviations and in allusions to sayings, songs, and nursery rhymes. 8)

A good translation will convey, as much as possible, the meaning of the original

text.

El Shafey in Abdellah (2002: 2) proposes criteria for a good translation

based on three main principles: 1) The knowledge of the grammar of the source

language plus the knowledge of the vocabulary, as well as good understanding of

the text to be translated. 2) The ability of the translator to reconstitute the given

text (SL text) into the TL. 3) The translation should capture the style or atmosphere

of the original text; it should have all the ease of an original composition.

UNIT IV

LANGUAGE FAMILIES OF SOUTH INDIA

Languages spoken in India belong to several language families, the major

ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indians and the

Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians.[6][7] Languages spoken by the

remaining 2.31% of the population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-

Kadai and a few other minor language families and isolates.[8]:283 India has the

world's fourth highest number of languages (427), after Nigeria (524), Indonesia

(710) and Papua New Guinea (840).[9]

Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language of the

Union is Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the extant English. Later, a

constitutional amendment, The Official Languages Act, 1963, allowed for the

continuation of English alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely until

legislation decides to change it.[2] The form of numerals to be used for the official

purposes of the Union are "the international form of Indian numerals",[10][11]

which are referred to as Arabic numerals in most English-speaking countries.[1]

Despite the misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India; the

Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national

language.[12][13]

The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages,[14]

which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status

and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the

distinction of classical language to Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil

and Telugu. Classical language status is given to languages which have a rich

heritage and independent nature.

According to the Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages

and 1599 other languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due

to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census

recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers

and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people.[15] Two contact

languages have played an important role in the history of India: Persian[16] and

English.[17] Persian was the court language during the Mughal period in India. It

reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British

colonisation.[18] English continues to be an important language in India. It is used

in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government. Hindi, the most

commonly spoken language in India today, serves as the lingua franca across much

of North and Central India. Bengali is the second most spoken and understood

language in the country with a significant amount of speakers in Eastern and

North- eastern regions. Marathi is the third most spoken and understood language

in the country with a significant amount of speakers in South-Western regions.[19]

However, there have been concerns raised with Hindi being imposed in South

India, most notably in the states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.[20][21]

Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Punjab and other non-Hindi regions have also

started to voice concerns about Hindi.[22]

Linguistic history of India

The Southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The

Dravidian languages are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent.[23] Proto-

Dravidian languages were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started

disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE.[24] The

Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji),

South-Central (Telugu–Kui), and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada).[25]

The Northern Indian languages from the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-

European family evolved from Old Indic by way of the Middle Indic Prakrit

languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. The Indo-Aryan languages

developed and emerged in three stages — Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE to 600

BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan stage (600 BCE and 1000 CE) and New Indo-Aryan

(between 1000 CE and 1300 CE). The modern north Indian Indo-Aryan languages

all evolved into distinct, recognisable languages in the New Indo-Aryan Age.[26]

Persian, or Farsi, was brought into India by the Ghaznavids and other Turko-

Afghan dynasties as the court language. Culturally Persianized, they, in

combination with the later Mughal dynasty (of Turco-Mongol origin), influenced

the art, history and literature of the region for more than 500 years, resulting in the

Persianisation of many Indian tongues, mainly lexically. In 1837, the British

replaced Persian with English and Hindustani in Perso-Arabic script for

administrative purposes and the Hindi movement of the 19th Century replaced

Persianised vocabulary with Sanskrit derivations and replaced or supplemented the

use of Perso-Arabic script for administrative purposes with Devanagari.[16][27]

Each of the northern Indian languages had different influences. For example,

Hindustani was strongly influenced by Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, leading to the

emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu as registers of

the Hindustani language. Bangla on the other hand has retained its Sanskritic roots

while heavily expanding its vocabulary with words from Persian, English, French

and other foreign languages.[28][29]

Inventories

List of languages by number of native speakers in India

The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was

carried out by Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1898 to 1928. Titled the

Linguistic Survey of India, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544

dialects.[30] However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in

distinguishing between "dialect" and "language",[30] use of untrained personnel

and under-reporting of data from South India, as the former provinces of Burma

and Madras, as well as the princely states of Cochin, Hyderabad, Mysore and

Travancore were not included in the survey.[31]

Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the

terms "language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. Ethnologue, produced by

the Christian evangelist organisation SIL International, lists 461 tongues for India

(out of 6,912 worldwide), 447 of which are living, while 14 are extinct. The 447

living languages are further subclassified in Ethnologue as follows:-[32][33]

Institutional – 63

Developing – 130

Vigorous – 187

In trouble – 54

Dying – 13

The People's Linguistic Survey of India, a privately owned research

institution in India, has recorded over 66 different scripts and more than 780

languages in India during its nationwide survey, which the organisation claims to

be the biggest linguistic survey in India.[34]

The People of India (POI) project of Anthropological Survey of India

reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633

Indian communities.[35]

Census of India figures

The Census of India records and publishes data with respect to the number

of speakers for languages and dialects, but uses its own unique terminology,

distinguishing between language and mother tongue. The mother tongues are

grouped within each language. Many of the mother tongues so defined could be

considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is

especially so for many mother tongues with tens of millions of speakers that are

officially grouped under the language Hindi.

1951 Census

Separate figures for Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi were not issued, due to the

fact the returns were intentionally recorded incorrectly in states such as East

Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, PEPSU, and Bilaspur.[36]

1961 Census

The 1961 census recognised 1,652 mother tongues spoken by 438,936,918

people, counting all declarations made by any individual at the time when the

census was conducted.[37] However, the declaring individuals often mixed names

of languages with those of dialects, subdialects and dialect clusters or even castes,

professions, religions, localities, regions, countries and nationalities.[37] The list

therefore includes languages with barely a few individual speakers as well as 530

unclassified mother tongues and more than 100 idioms that are non-native to India,

including linguistically unspecific demonyms such as "African", "Canadian" or

"Belgian".[37]

1991 Census

The 1991 census recognises 1,576 classified mother tongues.[38] According

to the 1991 census, 22 languages had more than a million native speakers, 50 had

more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining

accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million

Indians in 1991).[38][39]

2001 Census

As per the census of 2001, there are 1635 rationalised mother tongues, 234

identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages.[15] Of these, 29 languages

have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have

more than 10,000 native speakers.[40] There are a few languages like Kodava that

do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu).[41]

2011 Census

According to the most recent census of 2011, after thorough linguistic

scrutiny, edit and rationalization on 19,569 raw linguistic affiliation, the census

recognizes 1369 rationalized mother tongues and 1474 names which were treated

as ‘unclassified’ and relegated to ‘other’ mother tongue category.[42] Among, the

1369 rationalized mother tongues which are spoken by 10,000 or more speakers,

are further grouped into appropriate set that resulted into total 121 languages. In

these 121 languages, 22 are already part of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution

of India and other 99 are termed as "Total of other languages" which is one short as

of the other languages recognized in 2001 census.[43]

Dravidian languages

Linguistic classification One of the world's primary language

families

Proto-language Proto-Dravidian

Subdivisions

Northern

Central

South-Central

Southern

ISO 639-2 / 5 dra

Linguasphere 49= (phylozone)

Glottolog drav1251[1]

Dravidian map.svg

Distribution of the Dravidian languages

Part of a series on

Dravidian culture and history

Dravidische Sprachen.png

Origins[show]

History[show]

Culture[show]

Language[show]

Religion[show]

Regions[show]

People[show]

Politics[show]

Portal:Dravidian civilizations

The Dravidian languages are a language family spoken by more than 215

million people, mainly in southern India and northern Sri Lanka, with pockets

elsewhere in South Asia.[2] Since the colonial era, there have been small but

significant immigrant communities outside South Asia in Mauritius, Hong Kong,

Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Britain, Australia, France, Canada,

Germany and the United States.

The Dravidian languages are first attested in the 2nd century BCE as Tamil-

Brahmi script inscribed on the cave walls in the Madurai and Tirunelveli districts

of Tamil Nadu.[3][a] The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are (in

descending order of number of speakers) Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam,

all of which have long literary traditions. Smaller literary languages are Tulu and

Kodava.[4] There are also small groups of Dravidian-speaking scheduled tribes,

who live outside Dravidian-speaking areas, such as the Kurukh in Eastern India

and Gondi in Central India.[5]

Only two Dravidian languages are spoken exclusively outside the post-1947

state of India: Brahui in the Balochistan region of Pakistan and Afghanistan; and

Dhangar, a dialect of Kurukh, in parts of Nepal and Bhutan.[6][better source

needed] Dravidian place names along the Arabian Sea coasts and Dravidian

grammatical influence such as clusivity in the Indo-Aryan languages, namely

Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Marwari, and Sindhi, suggest that Dravidian languages

were once spoken more widely across the Indian subcontinent.[7][8]

Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been

brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third

millennium BCE[9][10] or even earlier,[11][12] the Dravidian languages cannot

easily be connected to any other language family and could well be indigenous to

India.[13][14][15][b]

Etymology

The origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa is the word Tamiḷ.[17] Kamil

Zvelebil cites the forms such as dramila (in Daṇḍin's Sanskrit work

Avanisundarīkathā) damiḷa (found in the Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) chronicle

Mahavamsa) and then goes on to say, "The forms damiḷa/damila almost certainly

provide a connection of dr(a/ā)viḍa " with the indigenous name of the Tamil

language, the likely derivation being "*tamiṟ > *damiḷ > damiḷa- / damila- and

further, with the intrusive, 'hypercorrect' (or perhaps analogical) -r-, into

dr(a/ā)viḍa. The -m-/-v- alternation is a common enough phenomenon in Dravidian

phonology".[18]

Furthermore, another Dravidianist and linguist, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, in

his book Dravidian Languages states:[19]

Joseph (1989: IJDL 18.2:134-42) gives extensive references to the use of the term

draviḍa, dramila first as the name of a people, then of a country. Sinhala BCE

inscriptions cite dameḍa-, damela- denoting Tamil merchants. Early Buddhist and

Jaina sources used damiḷa- to refer to a people of south India (presumably Tamil);

damilaraṭṭha- was a southern non-Aryan country; dramiḷa-, dramiḍa, and draviḍa-

were used as variants to designate a country in the south (Bṛhatsamhita-,

Kādambarī, Daśakumāracarita-, fourth to seventh centuries CE) (1989: 134–138).

It appears that damiḷa- was older than draviḍa- which could be its Sanskritization.

Based on what Krishnamurti states (referring to a scholarly paper published

in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics), the Sanskrit word draviḍa

itself is later than damiḷa since the dates for the forms with -r- are centuries later

than the dates for the forms without -r- (damiḷa, dameḍa-, damela- etc.).

Discovery

The 14th century Sanskrit text Lilatilakam, which is a grammar of

Manipravalam, states that the spoken languages of present-day Kerala and Tamil

Nadu were similar, terming them as "Dramiḍa". The author doesn't consider the

"Karṇṇāṭa" (Kannada) and the "Andhra" (Telugu) languages as "Dramiḍa",

because they were very different from the language of the "Tamil Veda"

(Tiruvaymoli), but states that some people would include them in the "Dramiḍa"

category.[20]

In 1816, Alexander D. Campbell suggested the existence of a Dravidian language

family in his Grammar of the Teloogoo Language,[21] in which he and Francis W.

Ellis argued that Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu and Kodava

descended from a common, non-Indo-European ancestor.[22] In 1856 Robert

Caldwell published his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian

Family of Languages,[23] which considerably expanded the Dravidian umbrella

and established Dravidian as one of the major language groups of the world.

Caldwell coined the term "Dravidian" for this family of languages, based on the

usage of the Sanskrit word ददददददद (Dravidā) in the work Tantravārttika by

Kumārila Bhaṭṭa.[24] In his own words, Caldwell says,

The word I have chosen is 'Dravidian', from Drāviḍa, the adjectival form of

Draviḍa. This term, it is true, has sometimes been used, and is still sometimes used,

in almost as restricted a sense as that of Tamil itself, so that though on the whole it

is the best term I can find, I admit it is not perfectly free from ambiguity. It is a

term which has already been used more or less distinctively by Sanskrit

philologists, as a generic appellation for the South Indian people and their

languages, and it is the only single term they ever seem to have used in this

manner. I have, therefore, no doubt of the propriety of adopting it.[25]

The 1961 publication of the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary by T.

Burrow and M. B. Emeneau proved a notable event in the study of Dravidian

linguistics.[26]

Classification

The Dravidian languages form a close-knit family. Most scholars agree on

four groups: South (or South Dravidian I), South-Central (or South Dravidian II),

Central, and North Dravidian, but there are different proposals regarding the

relationship between these groups. Earlier classifications grouped Central and

South-Central Dravidian in a single branch. On the other hand, Krishnamurti

groups South-Central and South Dravidian together.[27]

South Dravidian (or South Dravidian I)[27][28]

Tamil–Kannada

Tamil languages, including Tamil

Malayalam languages, including Malayalam

Irula

Toda–Kota

Toda

Kota

Kodava

Kurumba

Kannada languages

Kannada

Badaga

Koraga

Tulu

Kudiya

South-Central Dravidian (or South Dravidian II)[27][29]

Telugu

Chenchu

Gondi-Kui

Gondi languages, including Gondi

Konda

Mukha-Dora

Manda

Pengo

Kuvi

Kui

Central Dravidian[27][29]

Kolami

Naiki

Gadaba

Ollari

Kondekor

Duruwa

North Dravidian[27][30]

Kurukh–Malto

Kurukh (Oraon, Kisan)

Malto (Kumarbhag Paharia, Sauria Paharia)

Brahui

Some authors deny that North Dravidian forms a valid subgroup, splitting it into

Northeast (Kurukh–Malto) and Northwest (Brahui).[31] Their affiliation has been

proposed based primarily on a small number of common phonetic developments,

including:

In some words, *k is retracted or spirantized, shifting to /x/ in Kurukh and Brahui,

/q/ in Malto.

In some words, *c is retracted to /k/.

Word-initial *v develops to /b/. This development is, however, also found in

several other Dravidian languages, including Kannada, Kodagu and Tulu.

McAlpin (2003)[32] notes that no exact conditioning can be established for

the first two changes, and proposes that distinct Proto-Dravidian *q and *kʲ should

be reconstructed behind these correspondences, and that Brahui, Kurukh-Malto,

and the rest of Dravidian may be three coordinate branches, possibly with Brahui

being the earliest language to split off. A few morphological parallels between

Brahui and Kurukh-Malto are also known, but according to McAlpin they are

analyzable as shared archaisms rather than shared innovations.

In addition, Ethnologue lists several unclassified Dravidian languages: Allar,

Bazigar, Bharia, Malankuravan (possibly a dialect of Malayalam), and Vishavan.

Ethnologue also lists several unclassified Southern Dravidian languages: Mala

Malasar, Malasar, Thachanadan, Ullatan, Kalanadi, Kumbaran, Kunduvadi,

Kurichiya, Attapady Kurumba, Muduga, Pathiya, and Wayanad Chetti. Pattapu

may also be Southern.

A computational phylogenetic study of the Dravidian language family was

undertaken by Kolipakam, et al. (2018).[33] Kolipakam, et al. (2018) supports the

internal coherence of the four Dravidian branches South (or South Dravidian I),

South-Central (or South Dravidian II), Central, and North, but is uncertain about

the precise relationships of these four branches to each other. The date of

Dravidian is estimated to be 4,500 years old.[33]

Distribution

Speakers of Dravidian languages, by language

Telugu (32.6%)

Tamil (29.4%)

Kannada (16.6%)

Malayalam (14.5%)

Gondi (1.2%)

Brahui (0.9%)

Tulu (0.8%)

Kurukh (0.8%)

Beary (0.7%)

Others (2.5%)

Since 1981, the Census of India has reported only languages with more than

10,000 speakers, including 17 Dravidian languages. In 1981, these accounted for

approximately 24% of India's population.[34][35]

In the 2001 census, they included 214 million people, about 21% of India's total

population of 1.02 billion.[36] In addition, the largest Dravidian-speaking group

outside India, Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka, number around 4.7 million. The total

number of speakers of Dravidian languages is around 227 million people, around

13% of the population of the Indian subcontinent.

The largest group of the Dravidian languages is South Dravidian, with almost

150 million speakers. Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam make up around 98% of the

speakers, with 75 million, 44 million and 37 million native speakers, respectively.

The next-largest is the South-Central branch, which has 78 million native

speakers, the vast majority of whom speak Telugu. The total number of speakers of

Telugu, including those whose first language is not Telugu, is around 84 million

people. This branch also includes the tribal language Gondi spoken in central

India.

The second-smallest branch is the Northern branch, with around 6.3 million

speakers. This is the only sub-group to have a language spoken in Pakistan —

Brahui.

The smallest branch is the Central branch, which has only around 200,000

speakers. These languages are mostly tribal, and spoken in central India.

Languages recognized as official languages of India appear here in boldface.

North Dravidian languages

Language Number of speakers Location

Brahui 2,430,000 Balochistan (Pakistan), Afghanistan

Kurukh 2,280,000 Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar

Malto 234,000 Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal

Kurambhag Paharia 12,500 Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha

Central Dravidian languages

Language Number of speakers Location

Kolami 122,000 Maharashtra, Telangana

Duruwa 51,000 Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh

Ollari 15,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh

Naiki 10,000 Maharashtra

South-Central Dravidian languages

Language Number of speakers Location

Telugu 81,100,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and parts of Tamil Nadu,

Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands,

Puducherry, United States, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Mauritius,

Australia, South Africa, Canada, UK, UAE, Myanmar, France, Singapore and

Réunion.

Gondi 2,980,000 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana,

Odisha, Andhra Pradesh

Kui 942,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh

Koya 360,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh

Madiya 360,000 Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra

Kuvi 155,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh

Pengo 350,000 Odisha

Pardhan 135,000 Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh

Khirwar 36,400 Chhattisgarh (Surguja district)

Chenchu 26,000 Andhra Pradesh, Telangana

Konda 20,000 Andhra Pradesh, Odisha

Muria 15,000 Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha

Manda 4,040 Odisha

South Dravidian languages

Language Number of speakers Location

Tamil 75,000,000 Tamil Nadu, Puducherry (including Karaikal), parts of Andhra

Pradesh (Chittoor district), Karnataka (Bangalore, Kolar), Kerala (Palakkad,

Idukki, Trivandrum districts), Andaman and Nicobar, Sri Lanka, Singapore,

Malaysia, Mauritius, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany,

Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman,

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa, Myanmar,

Réunion[37][38][unreliable source?]

Kannada 44,000,000 Karnataka, Kerala (Kasaragod district, Wayanad district,

Kannur district, Kozhikode district, Malappuram district) and Maharashtra

(Solapur, Sangli), Tamil Nadu (Salem, Ooty, Coimbatore, Krishnagiri, Chennai),

Andhra Pradesh (Ananthpur, Kurnool), Telangana (Hyderabad Medak and

Mehaboobnagar), United States, Australia, Germany, UK, UAE, Bahrain

Malayalam 37,000,000 Kerala, Lakshadweep, Mahe district of Puducherry,

Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu districts of Karnataka, Coimbatore, The Nilgiris

and Kanyakumari districts of Tamil Nadu, UAE, United States, Saudi Arabia,

Kuwait, Oman, UK, Qatar, Bahrain, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore

Tulu 1,850,000 Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada, Udupi districts) and Kerala

(Kasaragod district), Across Maharashtra especially in cities like Mumbai, Thane

and Gulf Countries(UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain)[39]

Beary 1,500,000 Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada, Udupi districts) and Kerala

(Kasaragod district) and Gulf Countries(UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,

Bahrain)

Irula 200,000 Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris district), Karnataka (Mysore district)

Kurumba 180,000 Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris district)

Badaga 133,000 Karnataka (Mysore district), Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris

district)

Kodava 114,000 Karnataka (Kodagu district)

Jeseri 65,000 Lakshadweep

Yerukala 58,000 Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil

Nadu, Telangana

Betta Kurumba 32,000 Karnataka (Chamarajanagar district, Kodagu

district, Mysore district), Kerala (Wayanad district), Tamil Nadu (Nilgiri District)

Kurichiya 29,000 Kerala (Kannur district, Kozhikode district, Wayanad

district)

Ravula 27,000 Karnataka (Kodagu district), Kerala (Kannur district,

Wayanad district)

Mullu Kurumba 26,000 Kerala (Wayanad district), Tamil Nadu (The

Nilgiris District)

Sholaga 24,000 Tamil Nadu, Karnataka (Mysore district)

Kaikadi 26,000 Madhya Pradesh (Betul district), Maharashtra (Amravati

district)

Paniya 22,000 Karnataka (Kodagu district), Kerala, Tamil Nadu

Kanikkaran 19,000 Kerala, Tamil Nadu (Kanyakumari district, Tirunelveli

district)

Malankuravan 18,600 Tamil Nadu (Kanyakumari district), Kerala

(Kollam district, Kottayam district, Thiruvananthapuram district)

Muthuvan 16,800 Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore

district, Madurai district)

Koraga 14,000 Karnataka (Dakshina Kannada, Udupi districts) and

Kerala (Kasaragod district)

Kumbaran 10,000 Kerala (Kozhikode district, Malappuram district,

Wayanad district)

Paliyan 9,500 Kerala (Idukki district, Ernakulam district, Kottayam district),

Tamil Nadu, Karnataka

Malasar 7,800 Kerala (Palakkad district), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore district)

Malapandaram 5,900 Kerala (Kollam district, Pathanamthitta district), Tamil

Nadu (Coimbatore district, Madurai district, Viluppuram district)

Eravallan 5,000 Kerala (Palakkad district), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore district)

Wayanad Chetti 5,000 Karnataka, Kerala (Wayanad district), Tamil Nadu

(Coimbatore district, The Nilgiris District, Erode district)

Muduga 3,400 Kerala (Palakkad district), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore district,

The Nilgiris District)

Thachanadan 3,000 Kerala (Malappuram district, Wayanad district)

Kadar 2,960 Kerala (Thrissur district, Palakkad district), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore

district)

Toda 1,560 Karnataka (Mysore district), Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris district)

Attapady Kurumba 1,370 Kerala (Palakkad district)

Kunduvadi 1,000 Kerala (Kozhikode district, Wayanad district)

Mala Malasar 1,000 Kerala (Palakkad district), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore

district)

Pathiya 1,000 Kerala (Wayanad district)

Kota 930 Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris district)

Kalanadi 750 Kerala (Wayanad district)

Holiya 500 Madhya Pradesh (Balaghat district, Seoni district),

Maharashtra, Karnataka

Aranadan 200 Kerala (Malappuram district)

Unclassified Dravidian languages

Language Number of speakers Location

Pattapu 200,000+ Andhra Pradesh

Bharia 197,000 Chhattisgarh (Bilaspur district, Durg district, Surguja

district), Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar

Allar 350 Kerala (Palakkad district, Malappuram district)

Vishavan 150 Kerala (Ernakulam district, Kottayam district, Thrissur district)

Proposed relations with other families

Language families in South Asia

The Dravidian family has defied all of the attempts to show a connection

with other languages, including Indo-European, Hurrian, Basque, Sumerian,

Korean and Japanese.[citation needed] Comparisons have been made not just with

the other language families of the Indian subcontinent (Indo-European,

Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, and Nihali), but with all typologically similar

language families of the Old World. Nonetheless, although there are no readily

detectable genealogical connections, Dravidian shares strong areal features with

the Indo-Aryan languages, which have been attributed to a substratum influence

from Dravidian.[40]

Dravidian languages display typological similarities with the Uralic language

group, suggesting to some a prolonged period of contact in the past.[41] This idea

is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of

scholars, including Robert Caldwell,[42] Thomas Burrow,[43] Kamil Zvelebil,[44]

and Mikhail Andronov.[45] This hypothesis has, however, been rejected by some

specialists in Uralic languages,[46] and has in recent times also been criticised by

other Dravidian linguists such as Bhadriraju Krishnamurti.[47]

In the early 1970s, the linguist David McAlpin produced a detailed proposal

of a genetic relationship between Dravidian and the extinct Elamite language of

ancient Elam (present-day southwestern Iran).[48] The Elamo-Dravidian

hypothesis was supported in the late 1980s by the archaeologist Colin Renfrew and

the geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, who suggested that Proto-Dravidian was

brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent.[49][50]

(In his 2000 book, Cavalli-Sforza suggested western India, northern India and

northern Iran as alternative starting points.[51]) However, linguists have found

McAlpin's cognates unconvincing and criticized his proposed phonological rules as

ad hoc.[52][53][54] Elamite is generally believed by scholars to be a language

isolate, and the theory has had no effect on studies of the language.[55] In 2012,

Southworth suggested a "Zagrosian family" of West Asian origin including

Elamite, Brahui and Dravidian as its three branches.[56]

Dravidian is one of the primary language families in the Nostratic proposal,

which would link most languages in North Africa, Europe and Western Asia into a

family with its origins in the Fertile Crescent sometime between the Last Glacial

Period and the emergence of Proto-Indo-European 4,000–6,000 BCE. However,

the general consensus is that such deep connections are not, or not yet,

demonstrable.[57]

Prehistory

The origins of the Dravidian languages, as well as their subsequent

development and the period of their differentiation are unclear, partially due to the

lack of comparative linguistic research into the Dravidian languages. Though some

scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India

by migrations in the fourth or third millennium BCE[9][10] or even

earlier,[11][12] the Dravidian languages cannot easily be connected to any other

language, and they could well be indigenous to India.[13][b] Proto-Dravidian was

spoken in the 4th or 3rd millennium BCE,[58][59] and it is thought that the

Dravidian languages were the most widespread indigenous languages in the Indian

subcontinent before the advance of the Indo-Aryan languages.[14]

Proto-Dravidian and onset of diversification

As a proto-language, the Proto-Dravidian language is not itself attested in

the historical record. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction. It

was suggested in the 1980s that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium

BCE, and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium

BCE.[58] According to Krishnamurti, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in

the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the

early part of the third millennium."[60] Krishnamurti further states that South

Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including Pre-Telugu)

split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off

at around the same time.[61] Kolipakam et al. (2018) estimate the Dravidian

language family to be approximately 4,500 years old.[59]

Several geneticists have noted a strong correlation between Dravidian and

the Ancestral South Indian (ASI) component of South Asian genetic makeup.

Narasimhan et al. (2018) argue that the ASI component itself resulted from a

mixture of Iranian-related agriculturalists, moving southeast after the decline of the

Indus Valley Civilization (early 2nd millennium BCE), and hunter-gatherers native

to southern India. They conclude that one of these two groups may have been the

source of proto-Dravidian.[62] Introduction from the northwest would be

consistent with the location of Brahui and with attempts to interpret the Indus

script as Dravidian.[63] On the other hand, reconstructed Proto-Dravidian terms

for flora and fauna provide some support for a south Indian origin.[64]

Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley civilisation (3,300–1,900 BCE), located in Northwestern

Indian subcontinent, is sometimes suggested to have been Dravidian.[65] Already

in 1924, when announcing the discovery of the IVC, John Marshall stated that (one

of) the language(s) may have been Dravidic.[66] Cultural and linguistic similarities

have been cited by researchers Henry Heras, Kamil Zvelebil, Asko Parpola and

Iravatham Mahadevan as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the

ancient Indus Valley civilisation.[67][68] The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late

Neolithic (early 2nd millennium BCE, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone celt

allegedly marked with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant

for the Dravidian identification.[69][70]

Yuri Knorozov surmised that the symbols represent a logosyllabic script and

suggested, based on computer analysis, an underlying agglutinative Dravidian

language as the most likely candidate for the underlying language.[71] Knorozov's

suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several

readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption.[72]

Linguist Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language

are "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family".[73] Parpola led a

Finnish team in investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis. Based on a

proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some agreeing

with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the "fish"

sign with the Dravidian word for fish, "min") but disagreeing on several other

readings. A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his

book Deciphering the Indus Script.[74]

Northern Dravidian pockets

Kurukh people, Malto people, and Brahui language

Although in modern times speakers of the various Dravidian languages have

mainly occupied the southern portion of India, in earlier times they probably were

spoken in a larger area. After the Indo-Aryan migrations into north-western India,

starting ca. 1500 BCE, and the establishment of the Kuru kingdom ca. 1100 BCE,

a process of Sanskritisation of the masses started, which resulted in a language

shift in northern India. Southern India has remained majority Dravidian, but

pockets of Dravidian can be found in central India, Pakistan and Nepal.

The Kurukh and Malto are pockets of Dravidian languages in central India,

spoken by people who may have migrated from south India. They do have myths

about external origins.[75] The Kurukh have traditionally claimed to be from the

Deccan Peninsula,[76] more specifically Karnataka. The same tradition has existed

of the Brahui,[77][78] who call themselves immigrants.[79] Holding this same

view of the Brahui are many scholars[80] such as L. H. Horace Perera and M.

Ratnasabapathy.[81]

The Brahui population of Pakistan's Balochistan province has been taken by

some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict population, perhaps indicating that

Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted

by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.[82][83][84] However, it has been argued

that the absence of any Old Iranian (Avestan) loanwords in Brahui suggests that

the Brahui migrated to Balochistan from central India less than 1,000 years ago.

The main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi, is a western Iranian

language like Kurdish, and arrived in the area from the west only around 1000

CE.[85] Sound changes shared with Kurukh and Malto also suggest that Brahui

was originally spoken near them in central India.[86]

Dravidian influence on Sanskrit

Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit

Dravidian languages show extensive lexical (vocabulary) borrowing, but

only a few traits of structural (either phonological or grammatical) borrowing from

Indo-Aryan, whereas Indo-Aryan shows more structural than lexical borrowings

from the Dravidian languages.[87] Many of these features are already present in

the oldest known Indo-Aryan language, the language of the Rigveda (c. 1500

BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian.[88]

Vedic Sanskrit has retroflex consonants (ṭ/ḍ, ṇ) with about 88 words

Rigveda having unconditioned retroflexes.[89][90] Some sample words are Iṭanta,

Kaṇva, śakaṭī, kevaṭa, puṇya and maṇḍūka. Since other Indo-European languages,

including other Indo-Iranian languages, lack retroflex consonants, their presence

Indo-Aryan is often cited as evidence of substrate influence from close contact of

the Vedic speakers with speakers of a foreign language family rich in retroflex

consonants.[89][90] The Dravidian family is a serious candidate since it is rich in

retroflex phonemes reconstructible back to the Proto-Dravidian stage.[91][92][93]

In addition, a number of grammatical features of Vedic Sanskrit not found in

its sister Avestan language appear to have been borrowed from Dravidian

languages. These include the gerund, which has the same function as in

Dravidian.[94] Some linguists explain this asymmetrical borrowing by arguing that

Middle Indo-Aryan languages were built on a Dravidian substratum.[95] These

scholars argue that the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian

structural features in Indic is language shift, that is, native Dravidian speakers

learning and adopting Indic languages due to elite dominance.[96] Although each

of the innovative traits in Indic could be accounted for by internal explanations,

early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the

innovations at once; moreover, it accounts for several of the innovative traits in

Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed.[97]

Grammar

The most characteristic grammatical features of Dravidian languages are:[44]

Dravidian languages are agglutinative.

Word order is subject–object–verb (SOV).

Most Dravidian languages have a clusivity distinction.

The major word classes are nouns (substantives, numerals, pronouns), adjectives,

verbs, and indeclinables (particles, enclitics, adverbs, interjections, onomatopoetic

words, echo words).

Proto-Dravidian used only suffixes, never prefixes or infixes, in the construction of

inflected forms. Hence, the roots of words always occurred at the beginning.

Nouns, verbs, and indeclinable words constituted the original word classes.

There are two numbers and four different gender systems, the ancestral system

probably having "male:non-male" in the singular and "person:non-person" in the

plural.

In a sentence, however complex, only one finite verb occurs, normally at the end,

preceded if necessary by a number of gerunds.

Word order follows certain basic rules but is relatively free.

The main (and probably original) dichotomy in tense is past:non-past. Present

tense developed later and independently in each language or subgroup.

Verbs are intransitive, transitive, and causative; there are also active and passive

forms.

All of the positive verb forms have their corresponding negative counterparts,

negative verbs.

Phonology

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Dravidian languages are noted for the lack of distinction between aspirated

and unaspirated stops. While some Dravidian languages have accepted large

numbers of loan words from Sanskrit and other Indo-Iranian languages in addition

to their already vast vocabulary, in which the orthography shows distinctions in

voice and aspiration, the words are pronounced in Dravidian according to different

rules of phonology and phonotactics: aspiration of plosives is generally absent,

regardless of the spelling of the word. This is not a universal phenomenon and is

generally avoided in formal or careful speech, especially when reciting. For

instance, Tamil does not distinguish between voiced and voiceless stops. In fact,

the Tamil alphabet lacks symbols for voiced and aspirated stops. Dravidian

languages are also characterized by a three-way distinction between dental,

alveolar, and retroflex places of articulation as well as large numbers of liquids.

Proto-Dravidian

Proto-Dravidian had five short and long vowels: *a, *ā, *i, *ī, *u, *ū, *e, *ē, *o,

*ō. There were no diphthongs; ai and au are treated as *ay and *av (or

*aw).[98][92][99] The five-vowel system is largely preserved in the descendent

subgroups.[100]

The following consonantal phonemes are reconstructed:[91][92][101]

Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal

Plosives *p *t *ṯ *ṭ *c *k

Nasals *m *n *ṉ (??) *ṇ *ñ

Fricatives (*h)

Flap/rhotic *r *ẓ (ḻ, r̤)

Lateral *l *ḷ

Glides *w [v] *y

Numerals

See also: List of numbers in various languages

The numerals from 1 to 10 in various Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages (here

exemplified by Indo Aryan language Sanskrit and Iranian language Persian).[102]

Number Southern South-Central Central Northern Proto-

Dravidian Indo-Aryan Iranian

Tamil Kannada Malayalam Kodava Tulu Beary Telugu Gondi

Kolami Kurukh Brahui Sanskrit Persian

1 oṉṟu ondu onnu ond onji onnu okaṭi undi okkod oṇṭa asiṭ *onṯu

1 éka yek

2 iraṇṭu eraḍu raṇḍu danḍ raḍḍ jend renḍu raṇḍ irāṭ indiŋ irāṭ

*iraṇṭu 2 dvi do

3 mūṉṟu mūṟu mūnnu mūṉd mūji mūnnu mūḍu muṇḍ

mūndiŋ mūnd musiṭ *muH- tri seh

4 nāṉku nālku nālu nāl nāl nāl nālugu nāluṇg nāliŋ nāx

čār (II) *nāl catúr cahār

5 aintu aidu añcu añji ayN añji ayidu saiyuṇg ayd 3 pancē (II)

panč (II) *cay-m- pañca panj

6 āru āṟu āṟu ār āji ār āṟu sāruṇg ār 3 soyyē (II)

šaš (II) *cāṯu ṣáṣ śeś

7 ēẓu ēlu ēẓu ēḻ yēl ēl ēḍu yeḍuṇg ēḍ 3 sattē (II)

haft (II) *ēẓ saptá haft

8 eṭṭu eṇṭu eṭṭu eṭṭ enma ett enimidi armur enumadī 3 aṭṭhē

(II) hašt (II) *eṇṭṭu aṣṭá haśt

9 oṉpatu 5 ombattu ompatu 5 oiymbad ormba olimbō

tommidi unmāk tomdī 3 naiṃyē (II) nōh (II) *toḷ/*toṇ

náva noh

10 pattu hattu pattu patt patt patt padi pad padī 3 dassē (II) dah

(II) *paH(tu) dáśa dah

This is the same as the word for another form of the number one in Tamil

and Malayalam, used as the indefinite article ("a") and when the number is an

attribute preceding a noun (as in "one person"), as opposed to when it is a noun (as

in "How many are there?" "One").

The stem *īr is still found in compound words, and has taken on a meaning

of "double" in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. For example, irupatu (20,

literally meaning "double-ten"), iravai (20 in Telugu), "iraṭṭi" ("double") or iruvar

("two people", in Tamil) and "ippatthu" (ipp-hatthu, double ten", in Kannada).

The Kolami numbers 5 to 10 are borrowed from Telugu.

The word tondu was also used to refer to the number nine in ancient Sangam texts

but was later completely replaced by the word onpadu.

These forms are derived from "one (less than) ten". Proto-Dravidian *toḷ is still

used in Tamil and Malayalam as the basis of numbers such as 90, thonnooru as

well as the Kannada tombattu.

Words indicated (II) are borrowings from Indo-Iranian languages (in Brahui's case,

from Balochi).

Literature

Jambai Tamil Brahmi inscription dated to the early Sangam age

Four Dravidian languages, viz. Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, have

lengthy literary traditions.[103] Literature in Tulu and Kodava is more recent.[103]

Recently old literature in Gondi has been discovered as well.[104]

The earliest known Dravidian inscriptions are 76 Old Tamil inscriptions on cave

walls in Madurai and Tirunelveli districts in Tamil Nadu, dating from the 2nd

century BCE.[3] These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script

called Tamil Brahmi.[105] In 2019, the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department

released a report on excavations at Keeladi, near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, including a

description of potsherds dated to the 6th century BCE inscribed with personal

names in the Tamil-Brahmi script.[106] However, the report lacks the detail of a

full archaeological study, and other archaeologists have disputed whether the

oldest dates obtained for the site can be assigned to these potsherds.[107] The

earliest long text in Old Tamil is the Tolkāppiyam, a work on Tamil grammar and

poetics preserved in a 5th-century CE redaction, whose oldest layers could date

from the late 2nd century or 1st century BCE.[108]

Kannada is first known from the Halmidi inscription (450 CE). A 9th-

century treatise on poetics, the Kavirajamarga, is the first literary work.[109] The

earliest Telugu inscription, from Erragudipadu in Kadapa district, is dated 575. The

first literary work is an 11th-century translation of part of the Mahābhārata.[109]

The earliest Malayalam text is the Vazhappally copper plate (9th century). The first

literary work is Rāmacaritam (12th century).[3]

Dravidian Language Family

The Dravidian language family is one of the largest language families in the

world. The vast majority of linguists believe that the Dravidian language family is

completely unrelated to any other language family. The family includes 73

languages spoken by over 222 million people in southern India, Sri Lanka, certain

areas of Pakistan, and in Nepal. Commerce and emigration have also spread

Dravidian languages, particularly Tamil, to Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, Fiji,

Madagascar, Mauritius, Guyana, Martinique and Trinidad. The only Dravidian

language spoken entirely outside of India is Brahui with over two million speakers

mainly in Pakistan and 200,000 speakers in Afghanistan (Ethnologue).

The Dravidian language family was first recognized as an independent

family in 1816. The term Dravidian was introduced by Robert A. Caldwell in his

Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South Indian Family of Languages

(1856).

Dravidian languages are mostly spoken in the south of the Indian

subcontinent, while Indo-Aryan languages are concentrated in the north. It is

thought that Dravidian languages were native to the Indian subcontinent and were

originally spread across all of India. The Indo-Aryan languages were introduced by

Aryan invaders from the north. They pushed speakers of the original Dravidian

languages out of the northern portion into the southern part of India.

Dravidian languages are usually broken up into the following groups, largely

based on their geographical distribution. The table below lists only languages with

60,000 or more speakers.

Central

Kolami (Northwestern & Southeastern) 60,000 India

Duruwa 75,000 India

Northern

Brahui 2.2 million Pakistan, Afghanistan

Kurux (Kurukh) 2 million India

Sauria Paharia (Malto) 122,000 India

South Central

Maria Dandami 200,000 India

Gondi Southern 250,000 India

Gondi Northern 1.9 million India

Maria 134,000 India

Pardhan 117,000 India

Koya 330,000 to 10 million India

Kui 717,000 India

Kuvi 300,000 India

Telugu 70 million India

Southern

Badaga 245,000 India

Kannada 35 million India

Kodagu 122,000 India

Kurumba 180,000 India

Malayalam 35 million India

Tamil 66 million India

Yerukula 300,000 India

Tulu 1.9 million India

Status

Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada are four of the 22 official

languages and 14 regional languages of India. They are used in administration,

education, business, and the media. All four possess a great wealth of written texts.

All four have accommodated social, political, technical, and economic changes that

occurred in 20th-century India.

Dialects

The dialects of Dravidian languages have evolved along several dimensions:

geographic.e.g., Malayalam has 10 distinct regional varieties

religious, e.g., there may be differences in the speech of Christians,

Hindus, and Muslims within a single geographic area

caste-based, e.g., among the Hindus, the speech of members of the

highest caste differs from that of members of a medium-high caste,

and these, in turn, differ from the speech of members of the low caste

diglossic, e.g., the speech of the educated elite may be characterized

by a greater degree of code-switching between the indigenous

language and English

formal vs. informal, e..g, the formal style is used in most writing as

well as in radio and TV programs, and in public speaking, whereas the

informal style is used for daily spoken communication

Structure

Sound system

Despite some differences, the sound systems of Dravidian languages share

some common features.

Vowels

Most Dravidian languages have five or more vowels that can be either long

or short. Vowel length makes a difference in the meaning of otherwise identical

words.

Consonants

The consonant systems of Dravidian languages generally share these

features:

contrast between aspirated vs. unaspirated stops and affricates, e.g.,/ p—pʰ,

t—tʰ, k—kʰ, b—bʰ, d—dʰ, g—gʰ/. Aspirated consonants are produced with a

strong puff of air that accompanies their release.

contrast between and apical vs. retroflex consonants, e.g.,/ t—ʈ, d—ɖ, n—ɳ,

l—ɭ/. Apical consonants are produced with the tip of the tongue touching the roof

of the mouth, whereas retroflex consonants are produced with the tongue curled, so

that its underside comes in contact with the roof of the mouth.

variety of nasal consonants.

restricted number of consonant clusters which occur mostly in initial and

medial position

Stress

Stress in Dravidian languages usually falls on the first syllable.

Listen » Ashokamitran, a Tamil writer, read from his works in Tamil

Listen » Lalita Kumari, a Telugu writer, read from her works in Telugu

Listen » Sara Aboobacker, a Kannada writer, read from her works in

Kannada

Listen » Balachandran Chullikad, a Malayalam writer, read from his works

in Malayalam

Grammar

All Dravidian languages are agglutinative, i.e., i.e., grammatical relations are

indicated by the addition of suffixes to stems. These are strung together one after

another, resulting on occasion in very long words. Like all agglutinative languages,

Dravidian languages use postpositions rather than prepositions to mark

grammatical relations.

Nouns

There are two numbers: singular and plural. Plural is marked by a suffixes.

The number of cases varies from language to language.

There are no articles.

Some Dravidian languages have three genders: masculine, feminine and

neuter. In other languages, nouns belong to two classes: rational and irrational;

rational nouns include humans and deities (women may be rational or irrational,

depending on the language/dialect); irrational nouns include animals, objects, and

everthing else. These classifications are not absolute.

Personal pronouns are marked for person, case and number. Gender is

marked only in the third person singular.

1st person plural can be inclusive, i.e., include both speaker and addressee,

or exclusive, i.e., exclude the addressee.

3rd person plural pronoun is used as a respectful form of address

Demonstrative pronouns are differentiated by considerations of

proximity/remoteness as well as by levels of respect towards the referent.

Adjectives are not inflected for number, gender, or case.

Verbs

Dravidian verbs are inflected for tense, mood, voice, causativity, and

attitude. The basic word order is Subject-Object-Verb.

Verbs

Telugu verbs consist of a root followed by suffixes expressing tense, mood,

negation, causativity, person, number, and gender which follow each other in a

prescribed sequence. In most Dravidian languages, verbs agree with their subjects

in gender, number and person. Subject pronouns are normally dropped since the

information about the subject is carried by the verb itself. Dravidian verbs have the

following distinguishing features of verbs in most Dravidian languages. Not all

languages have all of these features:

two numbers: singular and plural

three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter

three persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd

two voices which are not equivalent to the active-passive or reflexive-

nonreflexive division of voices in Indo-European languages

three simple tenses (present, past, and future) marked by simple suffixes,

and a series of compound tenses marked by auxiliary verbs

a special verb paradigm in which a negative-tense marker is suffixed to the

verb stem forming a negative tense

four moods which indicate whether the action of the verb is unreal, possible,

potential, or real

transitivity and intransitivity

attitude expressed by auxiliary verbs to show the speaker’s feelings towards

an event expressed by the verb, e.g., pejorative opinion, antipathy, relief, etc.

Word order

The standard word order in Dravidian languages is Subject-Object-Verb.

However, other orders are possible because Inflectional endings take care of

keeping clear grammatical relations and roles in the sentence. There are special

markers for topic (what the sentence is about, or old information) and focus (new

information). Constituents with old information precede constituents with new

information, or those that carry most emphasis. Modifiers usually precede the

words they modify.

Vocabulary

The most important sources of early loanwords in Dravidian languages have

been Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit. Different Dravidian languages borrowed words

from neighboring Indo-Aryan languages spoken in India to differing degrees. For

instance, Tamil has the lowest number of Indo-Aryan loanwords, while in

Malayalam and Telugu the percentage of loanwords is substantially higher. In

modern times, Dravidian language borrowed from Urdu, Portuguese, and English.

In Tamil, there is currently a movement to remove as many borrowings from

Sanskrit as possible. All four major Dravidian languages (Tamil, Telugu,Kannada,

Malayalam) have succeeded in developing new technical terms, using English,

Sanskrit, and indigenous models. Modern Dravidian languages use compounding

and reduplication to form new words. In addition, there are numerous

onomatopoeic words.

Below are numerals 1-10 in four major Dravidian languages in romanization.

Kannada

ondu

eraɖu

muuru

naa(lak)ku

aydu

aaru

eeɭu

eɳʈu

ombhattu

hattu

Malayalam

onnu

randu

munnu

nallu

anch

aaru

ezhu

ettu

empathu

pattu

Tamil

oṉṟu

iraṇṭu

mūṉṟu

nāṉku

ainthu

āṟu

ēḻu

eṭṭu

oṉpathu

paththu

Telugu

okați

rendhu

múdhu

nálugu

aidhu

áru

yédhu

yenimidi

tommidhi

padhi

Writing

Dravidian languages are written with syllabic alphabets in which all

consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics, above, below, before or after

consonants indicate change to a different vowel or suppression of the inherent

vowel. When they appear the the beginning of a syllable, vowels are written as

independent letters. When certain consonants occur together, special conjunct

symbols are used which combine the parts of each letter.Below are the names of

four languages written in their native scripts. Dravidian languages, Tamil script

Telugu Telugu script

Kannada

Malayalam

UNIT V

Creative Translation Exercise Ideas for Language Learners

Now that you know some basic steps for using translation exercises wisely,

let’s look at some of the best exercises to grow your grammar and vocabulary

through translation.

1. Translate Your Own Diary/Journal

If you keep a diary or journal, why not translate it?

Most people don’t realize that their very own words are some of the best

things to study because they contain information that’s highly relevant to their own

lives.

It’s difficult to find the vocabulary that you’ll use on a daily basis, but your

journal contains vocabulary that you use frequently, so translating that diary or

journal will allow you to learn those extra vocabulary words quickly and

efficiently.

You also won’t have to worry about imitating someone else’s

communication style and voice. Over time, you’ll notice that the act of translating

your own personal writing into your target language will actually allow you to

express yourself more fluidly and completely.

After you’ve translated a journal entry, you can check your work on Google

Translate using the strategies discussed above.

Another great option is to submit your journal entries in your target language

to HiNative for corrections and suggestions from native speakers. You can get tips

on how to sound more natural, use better vocabulary or improve your grammar and

colloquial language.

2. Flip Your Social Media Languages

Keeping the theme of translating things that have personal relevance, your

social media posts offer a quick, fun, relevant language exercise that’ll give you

strong vocabulary and a relaxed tone of speech.

You’ve probably noticed that language textbooks and courses tend to take a

formal, somewhat academic tone. As your language develops, however, it’s very

advantageous to develop a personal tone like native speakers use in their daily

lives, both online and offline. This allows you to connect on a more personal level

with natives.

Translating your social media posts allows you to gain this relaxed tone

while learning new words, structures and even some internet slang.

The great thing is that many social media sites have translation options built

in, so you can easily check your work. The best way to do this is to put your

Facebook in your target language, by going to Settings, Languages and then

choosing your language from the top dropdown menu. Next, remove English from

the “What languages do you understand?” field and input your target language.

Now, you can scroll back through your timeline and try translating your old

posts (which will still appear in English). When you’re done, click the automatic

translation option under the post, and Facebook will provide you with a translation

into your target language that you can check against.

The added bonus of this method is that you’ll now be reading in your target

language every time you log in to Facebook! Of course, if it gets too confusing,

you can always navigate back to the languages tab and put things as they were until

you’re ready for another translation exercise.

3. Translate Subtitles from Your Favorite YouTubers

YouTube is a language learner’s paradise and valuable source of varied

types of vocabulary, tone and sentence structure.

Translating your personal favorite YouTubers increases your knowledge in

the areas that are important to you and allows you to grow a lexicon that’ll help

you in the future when you’re talking about things that you enjoy in the target

language.

Translating things that are distant from you is a highly valuable and

academic exercise, but translating things like subtitles from your favorite

YouTubers gives you the skills that you can use every single day—not just in an

academic setting.

Plus, it’s a lot of fun, so why not?

This is another exercise where you can check your work against Google

Translate. However, if you’re watching very popular videos, there’s a chance that

YouTube already provides captions in your target language that you can check

against. Just click the gear icon to access the caption settings and choose your

target language, if it’s available.

You can always choose videos that already have professional translations

added, try translating a few minutes of speech on your own and then check your

work against the translated subtitles. Just choose your target language from the

drop-down menu on this page and you’ll get English-language talks with translated

subtitles available.

TRANSLATION PRACTICE

Sentences using am , are , is , were , was

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Were you happy yesterday? दददददद दद ददददददददद

ददददददददद?

Am I a fool? दददद दददद दददददददद?

Are you happy? दद दददददददद ददददददददददद?

Is your name Ram? दददददददद ददददद दददद?

Was he singing? दददद दददद दददददददददददददद?

Is it hot today? ददददद ददददद दददददद?

Are you Ravi? ददददददद ददददद?

Was the coffee very hot? दददद ददददददद ददददद

दददददददद?

Did , do , does

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Does he like it ? दददददददद ददददददददददददददददद ?

Did you go there? दद ददददद दददददददद ?

Did she bathe? दददद दददददददददद ?

Do you smoke? दद दददददददददददददददद ?

Do you speak Hindi? दद दददददद दददददददद?

Does it rain there? ददददद ददद दददददददद?

Did you call me? दद ददददद ददददददददद?

Did you ring the bell? दद ददद ददददददददद ?

Have , had , has

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Have you found your pen ? दद दददददददद दददददद

ददददददददददददददद

दददददददद?

Have you completed your work? दद दददददददद दददददद

दददददददद दददददददद?

Has Anu missed the bus? ददद दददददददद ददद

दददददददद?

Has he completed writing the story? दददद ददददद ददददद

दददददददददद?

Had your lunch? दद दददददद दददद दददददददददद ?

Have you ever gone to Delhi? दद दददददददददददद

दददददददददद

दददददददददददददददद ?

Have you spent the money? दद दददददददद दददददद

दददददददददद दददददददद ?

Would , should , will , shall

EXAMPLES ;

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Will you give me that book ? दद दददददद दददद दददददददद

ददददददद?

Should I come to the temple ? दददद दददददददददद दद

दददददददद?

Should I not disturb you? दददद ददददद दददददददद ददददददद

दददददद?

Will they go for the wedding? ददददददद

दददददददददददददददद ददददददददददद?

Shall we go to school? दददद दददददददददददददददददद

दददददददद?

Would he give me some chocolates ? दददद दददददद

ददददददददददद ददददददद?

Shall we play? दददद दददददददददददद?

Would you tell me the answer even if it is wrong ? ददददद ददददद

ददददददददददद दद दददददद ददद

दददददददद?

Could , can , may

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Can you tell me the answer? दद दददददद ददददद ददददद

दददददददद?

May I come in? दददद ददददद दददददद?

Could he come to office? दददद दददददददददददददद दद

दददददददद?

Can I play with you? दददद ददद ददद ददददददददददद?

May I have your bangles ?दददददद ददददददददददददददददद

दद दददददददद?

Can you drop me in temple? ददददद दददददददद दददददद ददद

दददददददद?

Could we do this together ? दददद ददद दददददददद

दददददददद?

May I have your attention? दददद ददददददददद ददददददद

ददददददद?

What , where , why , when

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

What is the time? ददददददददद ददद दददद?

What is your age ? दददददददद दददद दददद?

When will you come? दद ददददददददद ददददददद?

When is your birthday? दददददददद दददददद दददद

ददददददददद?

Where is your house? दददददददद दददद ददददद?

Where is your watch? दददददददद दददददददददद ददददद?

Why did she cry? दददद दददददद ददददददद?

Why are you happy? दद दददददद ददददददददद

ददददददददददद?

Whose , Who , Whom

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Who danced yesterday? दददददद दददद दददददददददद?

Who is standing there? ददददद दददद ददददददददद?

Whose book Is that? दददद दददददददद ददददददददद

Whose house is there? ददददददद दददद ददद?

Whom do you meet? दददद दददद दददददददद दददददददद?

Whom had you promised? ददददददद दददददददद दददददद

ददददददददददददद?

Who is that? दददद दददद दददद?

Who sang this song? दददद ददददद दददद दददददददद?

How many , How much , How long , How

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

How are you? ददददददद दददददद दददददददददददददद?

How old are you? दददददद दददद दददद?

How long have you been in Delhi? दददददददददद दददददद

दददददद दददददददददददददद?

How many of you are here? ददददद दददददद दददद

ददददददद?

How long I should wait ? दददद दददददद ददददद

ददददददददददद दददददददद?

How many students are in the class? दददददददददददद दददददद

ददददददददद ददददददद?

How much money should I pay? दददद ददददददद दददद

ददददददद दददददददद?

How do you manage? ददददददद दददददद

दददददददददददददददद?

Which

EXAMPLES:

ENGLISH SENTENCE TAMIL SENTENCE

Which is your book? ददददददददद दददददददद ददद?

Which is your favourite colour? दददददददददद ददददददद

दददददद ददद?

Which is your pen? ददददददददद दददद ददद?

Which is your house? ददददददददद दददद ददद?