Languages of Asia Part 2 South Asia ASIAN

Languages of Asia Part 2: South Asia ASIAN 401 Spring 2009

Review Name the six language families of North/East/Southeast Asia Name four countries in peninsular Southeast Asia Name two language isolates Name three Austronesian lgs. Name a Sino-Tibetan language 2

SOUTH ASIA 3

SOUTH ASIA China Tibet Pakistan Urdu: Indo-Aryan family Nepal NE India Sino-Tibetan Languages India Bangladesh Hindi: Indo-Aryan family Munda lgs: Austroasiatic family Bengali: Indo. Aryan family Sri Lanka Tamil: Dravidian family 4

Languages Families Indo-Aryan: Pakistan, India Dravidian: S India, Sri Lanka Sino-Tibetan: NE India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet Austroasiatic: E India 5

Sample Languages Indo-Aryan: Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi Dravidian: Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu Sino-Tibetan: Bodo, Garo, Naga Austroasiatic: Santali 6

Indo-Aryan Branch of larger Indo-European family; >600 million speakers Most of the major languages of India and Pakistan, as well as Nepali Four distinct consonants p, ph, b, bh 7

Dravidian Major languages of S India and Sri Lanka (not found elsewhere) ~200 million speakers Probably were spoken in all of India before the Indo-Aryan speakers arrived 8

Sino-Tibetan Numerous small “hill tribe” languages in NE India; number of speakers small (~ 4 mil. ), but number of lgs very large (>100? ) Also languages spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet Very complex verb forms 9

Austroasiatic The Munda languages are spoken in scattered areas of E India Related distantly to the Austroasiatic languages of peninsular SE Asia Only about 10 lgs, < 8 million speakers. Santali has the most speakers. 10

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