Language Variation in South Asia [Hardcover]

South Asia presents the linguist with a bewildering variety of regional dialects, social dialects, formal and informal registers, literary standards, languages, writing systems, and language families. Written over a period of more than twenty years, these essays by a leading authority on South Asian language cover a broad range of topics in South Asian linguistics. The essays address social dialect, structural borrowing, areal linguistics, the relation between literary and colloquial standards, and the role of written language in South Asian culture from the times of the ancient Indus Valley civilization. Offering a sociolinguistic approach, and encompassing both descriptive and historical studies, this collection of twelve of Bright's most important essays reflects his extensive research on the linguistics of South Asia.

Will be of interest not only to most scholars of South Asian language and linguistics for the specific information it contains, but also to sociolinguists and historical linguists in general because of the principles discussed and exemplified. --American Anthropologist

For beginners in South Asian linguistics and sociolinguistics, this collection has great historical value, since it contains the origins of ideas now considered standard and descriptions used as reference points in both of these fields. --Language

Will be of particular interest to Dravidianists, as well as to students of other South Asian language families whose research has an areal dimension or incorporates facets of socially conditioned variation. --Journal of the American Oriental Society