Customer Reviews

Atlas of the Languages and Ethnic Communities of South Asia

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In "Atlas of the Languages and Ethnic Communities of South Asia," Roland J.L. Breton has created an unusual, very helpful reference source. By "South Asia," the author (and, evidently, scholarly consensus) refers to the region including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepan, Bhutan, and the borders of Tibet and Nepal. (Considering that it is the autumn of 2001, I am probably not remiss in pointing out that chapter 6 includes some useful material on the region's hotspots, and "hot" languages and ethnicities, including the Pushtun, Kashmiri, and Urdu-speaking peoples.)

The Atlas is divided into two main sections, followed by a series of tables, charts, and bibliographies. The first section is a generalized presentation of the languages and ethnic communities of south Asia. This section has no maps or tables, but seeks to prepare the reader for what follows with a series of essays. The essays concern, for example, the subcontinent's linguistic potpourri as being a fascinating sociological laboratory for viewing the collision, and collusion, of a multiplicity of tongues and folkways. Other essays include a survey of the historical and pre-historical background behind this hodgepodge of tongues, and a series of linked essays connecting language to race, tribe, caste, and religion.

The second section includes the actual maps, which are not in color. There are sixty of them. This section opens with two brief chapters of further introoductory material, and then the maps begin with chapter 6. From chapter 6 through chapter 10, the region is divided into 5 geographical sub-regions, each of which is tackled in turn with a combination of maps and explicatory essays. To take chapter 6 as a representative example -- this chapter opens with a map dealing with a region we are only too familiar with today, the Pakistani-Afghan border. The accompanying texxt to this map helps us to understand the local tongues as being either Indo-European, in the case of Baluchi and Pushto (AKA Pashto, or Pushtun), or as being the more ancient, indigenous Dravidian tongue Brahui. Brahui, in an interesting sidenote, is mentioned as one of the stronger candidates for being the descendant language of the language spoken by the Indus Valley civilization, of pre-historic times. The speakers are discussed in terms of their ethnic, religious, and geographic background... Next, also in chapter 6, there are 3 more maps of regions in and around Pakistan and Kashmir, with accompanying text that performs a similar function to the text with the first map.

After the various regions of the subcontinent have been gone into in great detail, we are presented with 4 more chapters which deal with, respectively, non-regional languages such as English or other lingua franca; the impact of the media and of modern cities; ethno-linguistic political issues germane to the subcontinent; and finally a chapter drawing upon a 1990s census to make sense of much of the data presented. The book closes with a selection of helpful tables and charts, and an outstanding bibliography.

This atlas is an unusual idea, and it is executed in a comprehensive way. Linguistic terminology, in general, is kept to a minimum. Chances are, if you can operate a computer ably enough to get to this review, you could take away something of value from "Atlas of the Languages and Ethnic Communities of South Asia." Two thumbs up.