A selection of conversations, lectures, and philosophical and biographical essays that look at the significance of the polyphony of human voices that are fast vanishing with the advance of civilisation, the place of silence in the making of meaning, and of language itself in the future of knowledge, The Question of Silence is an insightful and thought-provoking meditation on the many silences confronting us in today's world.The most widely perceived aspect of silence is that which is force...

The first volume of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India brings to the reader the journey undertaken in 2010, by a group of visionaries led by G. N. Devy to document the languages of India as they existed then. The aim of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India was to document these languages, spoken in India’s remotest corners. India’s towns and cities too have found a voice in this survey. What this journey did was to bring a groundswell of support from people from all walks of life, lea...

Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation is a collection of essays by various scholars; the book traces out the Indian tradition of literary criticism. Students of Indian literature need to have access to India's critical tradition. This volume provides teachers, students, and scholars-in-the-making access to some of the key concepts and ideas in the Indian tradition of literary theory. It contains essays from Abhinavagupta, Dandin, Kuntaka, Jnanesvara, Khusrau, Ghalib, Tagore,...

The People’s Linguistics Survey of India tries to give an idea of the extant and dying languages of India. It is the outcome of a nationwide survey of languages that has been documented by linguists, writers, social activists, and members of different speech communities.This volume attempts to bring to the reader the wealth of languages of Nagaland and contextualise them within contemporary linguistics. The languages surveyed have been divided into two parts—(a) Tenyidie Group and (b) Othe...

This thirty-eighth volume of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India is devoted to the Indian Sign Language (ISL), the language of the Deaf in India. The articles in the volume are divided into four parts. The first discusses both its formal linguistic and ‘orthographic’ features; the second presents the sociolinguistic themes of the ISL such as bilingualism and language variety as well as language planning and policy issues. Part three presents various synchronic aspects of the ISL. The f...

The People’s Linguistics Survey of India tries to give an idea of the extant and dying languages of India. It is the outcome of a nationwide survey of languages that has been documented by linguists, writers, social activists, and members of different speech communities.This volume tries to acquaint the reader with the languages spoken in this north-eastern state of India. There are nineteen Scheduled Tribe communities in Tripura and Kokborok is spoken by a majority of these tribes. The li...

Narrating Nomadism provides an unflinching account of ethnic groups and nomadic communities across the world that were branded as ‘criminal’ during colonial times. It explores the tragic effect of the new identity imposed on them, the traumatic survival of these communities and cultures, and the creative expression of this experience in their arts and literature in the form of resistance.Presenting specific contexts and locations of cultural devastation in history, the vol...

This book offers a bold and illuminating account of the worldviews nurtured and sustained by indigenous communities from across continents, through their distinctive understanding of concepts such as space, time, joy, pain, life, and death. It demonstrates how this different mode of ‘knowing’ has brought the indigenous into a cultural conflict with communities that claim to be modern and scientific. Bringing together scholars, artists and activists engaged in understanding and conserving l...

Part of the series Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies, this book focuses on the concepts that recur in any discussion of nature, culture and society among the indigenous.The book, the first in a five-volume series, deals with the two crucial concepts of environment and belief systems of indigenous peoples from all the continents of the world. With contributions from renowned scholars, activists and experts from around the globe, it presents a salient picture of the environments of ...

This volume traces the theme of the loss of language and culture in numerous post-colonial contexts. It establishes that the aphasia imposed on the indigenous is but a visible symptom of a deeper malaise — the mismatch between the symbiotic relation nurtured by the indigenous with their environment and the idea of development put before them as their future. The essays here show how the cultures and the imaginative expressions of indigenous communities all over the world are undergoing a p...

Part of the series Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies, this book focuses on the concepts that recur in any discussion of the society, culture and literature among indigenous peoples.This book, the fourth in a five-volume series, deals with the two key concepts of language and orality of indigenous peoples from Asia, Australia, North America and South America. With contributions from renowned scholars, activists and experts from across the globe, it looks at the intricacies of oral ...

The People’s Linguistic Survey of India provides an overview of the extant and dying languages of India, as perceived by their speakers. It is the culmination of a nation-wide survey of languages, documented by linguists, writers, social activists and, most importantly, members of different speech communities. The work chronicles the evolution of these languages until 2011, and incorporates their socio-political and cultural dimensions. Critically, it encapsulates the world view of the spe...