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Language families of South Asia

Indosphere (also known as the South Asia linguistic area, South Asian linguistic area, or the South Asian sprachbund) is a term used to describe the South Asian sprachbund which encompasses the native languages of the Indian subcontinent, including languages from the Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, and three language isolates Burushaski, Nihali, and Kusunda.[1][2]

Although these language families are unrelated, areal convergences due to long-term intense contact have led to the rise of several typological features commonly shared across the region. These features are: left-branching (morpho)syntax; finiteness asymmetries in predicate; phonological distinctions between dental vs. retroflex consonants, aspirated vs. non-aspirated consonants, and nasalized vs. non-nasalized vowels; simple onsets; the uses of dative experiencer subjects and explicator verbs (v2).[1]

It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with the languages of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, also known as the Sinosphere.

Influence

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The Tibeto-Burman family of languages, which extends over a huge geographic range, is characterized by great typological diversity, comprising languages that range from the highly tonal, monosyllabic, analytic type with practically no affixational morphology, like the Loloish languages, to marginally tonal or atonal languages with complex systems of verbal agreement morphology, like the Kiranti group of Nepal. This diversity is partly to be explained in terms of areal influences from Chinese on the one hand and Indo-Aryan languages on the other.[3] Matisoff proposed two large and overlapping areas combining cultural and linguistic features – the "Sinosphere" and the "Indosphere", influenced by China and India respectively.[4][5][6][7] A buffer zone between them as a third group was proposed by Kristine A. Hildebrandt, followed by B. Bickel and J. Nichols.[8] The Indosphere is dominated by Indic languages.[9]

Some languages firmly belong to one or the other. For example, the Munda and Khasi branches of Austroasiatic languages, the Tibeto-Burman languages of Eastern Nepal, and much of the "Kamarupan" group of Tibeto-Burman, which most notably includes the Meitei (Manipuri), are Indospheric; while the Hmong–Mien family, the Kam–Sui branch of Kadai, the Loloish branch of Tibeto-Burman, and Vietnamese (Viet–Muong) are Sinospheric. Some other languages, like Thai and Tibetan, have been influenced by both Chinese and Indian languages at different historical periods. Still, other linguistic communities are so remote geographically that they have escaped significant influence from either. For example, the Aslian branch of Mon–Khmer in Malaya, or the Nicobarese branch of Mon–Khmer in the Nicobar Islands of the Indian Ocean shows little influence by Sinosphere or Indosphere.[3] The Bodish languages and Kham languages are characterized by hybrid prosodic properties akin to related Indospheric languages towards the west and also Sinospheric languages towards the east.[10] Some languages of the Kiranti group in the Indosphere rank among the morphologically most complex languages of Asia.[11]

Structure

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Languages in the "Sinosphere" (East Asia and Vietnam) tend to be analytic, with little morphology, monosyllabic or sesquisyllabic lexical structures, extensive compounding, complex tonal systems, and serial verb constructions. Languages in the "Indosphere" (South Asia and Southeast Asia) tend to be more agglutinative, with polysyllabic structures, extensive case and verb morphology, and detailed markings of interpropositional relationships.[4][5] Manange (like other Tamangic languages) is an interesting case to examine in this regard, as geographically it fits squarely in the "Indospheric" Himalayas, but typologically it shares more features with the "Sinospheric" languages.[4] Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in the Sinosphere tend to be more isolating, while those spoken in the Indosphere tend to be more morphologically complex.[12]

Many languages in the western side of the Sino-Tibetan family, which includes the Tibeto-Burman languages, show significant typological resemblances with other languages of South Asia, which puts them in the group of Indosphere. They often have heavier syllables than found in the east, while tone systems, though attested, are not as frequent.[13] Indospheric languages are often toneless and/or highly suffixal.[14] Often there is considerable inflectional morphology, from fully developed case marking systems to extensive pronominal morphology found on the verb. These languages generally mark a number of types of inter-clausal relationships and have distinct construction involving verbal auxiliaries.[13] Languages of the Indosphere typically display retroflex stop consonants, postsentential relative clauses and the extended grammaticalization of the verb say.[9] In Indospheric languages, such as the Tibeto-Burman languages of Northeast India and Nepal, for example, the development of relative pronouns and correlative structures as well as of retroflex initial consonants is often found.[7]

In the state of Jharkhand as well as neighboring states of Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, and Bangladesh, regional areal convergences take shape between Indo-Aryan, Munda, and North Dravidian languages under subcontinental linguistic convergences due to intense language contact. These languages in this region share many similar features such as lack of gender word classes, absence of ergativity, and the use of numeral classifiers.[15][16]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 Masica, Colin (2016). "Overall South Asia". In Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide. Volume 7 of The World of Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 244–250. doi:10.1515/9783110423303-004. ISBN 978-3-11-042330-3.
  2. ↑ Blevins, Juliette (2017). "Areal Sound Patterns: From Perceptual Magnets to Stone Soup". In Hickey, Raymond (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 88–121. doi:10.1017/9781107279872.006.
  3. 1 2 Matisoff, James Alan (2003), Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction, University of California Press, pp. 6–7, ISBN 0-520-09843-9
  4. 1 2 3 Robert M. W. Dixon, Y. Alexandra, Adjective Classes: A Cross-linguistic Typology , page 74, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-920346-6
  5. 1 2 Matisoff, James (1990), "On Megalocomparison", Language, 66 (1): 106–120, doi:10.2307/415281, JSTOR 415281
  6. ↑ Enfield, N. J. (2005), "Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia", Annual Review of Anthropology, 34: 181–206, doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.34.081804.120406, hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-167B-C
  7. 1 2 RJ LaPolla, The Sino-Tibetan Languages, La Trobe University
  8. ↑ Miestamo, Matti; Wälchli, Bernhard (2007), New challenges in typology, Walter de Gruyter, p. 85, ISBN 978-3-11-019592-7
  9. 1 2 Saxena, Anju (2004). "Linguistic synchrony and diachrony on the roof of the world – the study of Himalayan languages" (PDF). In Saxena, Anju (ed.). Himalayan Languages: Past and Present. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 3–29. ISBN 978-3-11-017841-8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-05-17. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
  10. ↑ Matti Miestamo & Bernhard Wälchli, New Challenges in Typology, page 90, Walter de Gruyter, 2007, ISBN 3-11-019592-5
  11. ↑ David Levinson & Karen Christensen, Encyclopedia of Modern Asia: a berkshire reference work, page 494, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002, ISBN 0-684-80617-7
  12. ↑ Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon, Grammars in Contact, page 4, Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-920783-6
  13. 1 2 Carol Genetti, A Grammar of Dolakha Newar, page 3, Walter de Gruyter, 2007, ISBN 3-11-019303-5
  14. ↑ Colin Renfrew, April M. S. McMahon & Robert Lawrence Trask, Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, page 334, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 2000, ISBN 1-902937-06-6
  15. ↑ Peterson, John M. (2010). "Language contact in Jharkhand: Linguistic convergence between Munda and Indo-Aryan in eastern-central India". Himalayan Linguistics. 9 (2): 56–86. doi:10.5070/H99223479.
  16. ↑ Peterson, John M. (2017). "Jharkhand as a 'Linguistic Area': Language Contact Between Indo-Aryan and Munda in Eastern-Central South Asia". In Hickey, Raymond (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Areal Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. pp. 551–574. doi:10.1017/9781107279872.021.

Further reading

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