'Seminar on Dialectology papers and discussions' was an outcome of the seminar on Dialectology organized by the Department of Linguistics. University of Kerala in 1973. Dravidian Linguistic Association of India published the papers of this seminar in 1973 itself. Demands for copies of this book from different corners of the academic circles compel the Council of Directors of International School of Dravidian Linguistics to reprint it.
The observations and suggestions noted in this book are relevant even today. It is interesting to note that a couple of scholars who attended the seminar are very much active in the furtherance of Dialectological studies either as researchers or as free-lance investigators. Every language, if it is spoken in a vast area certainly will have several dialects. They can be classified and studied in several levels such as regional, caste related or professional. Dialectology though an advanced discipline in Linguistics, in India the dialect studies does not seem to have made commendable progress except a few surveys and studies conducted by the Linguistic Departments such as that of the University of Kerala. Due to globalization and advancement in intercommunication facilities regional and caste dialects are gradually fading out. So every effort should be taken to preserve dialectical variations of languages for the use of coming generations.
Hope this book will help to achieve that goal.
India has an enviable wealth of many languages - 1016 classified and 514 unclassified languages, according to the 1961 census. A language is a cultural institution, preserved and protected even by the most savage among the Tribes. A complete and definitive survey of the languages in India is still wanting. What little we know is from the Linguistic survey of India by Grierson (1890) and the Census of 1961 in which the name of the mother tongue of the population was also recorded. Grierson's survey did not cover the Southern States due to administrative difficulties. The number and names of the Dravidian Languages still remain uncertain. Apart from the twenty one languages recorded in the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, Dhangar spoken in Nepal has now come to light, along with the existence of Brahui speakers in Afghanistan, Iran and the southern borders of U. S. S. R. The hills of Kerala, Tamil Nad and Mysore remain uncombed for new languages. The Pre-history of Dravidian and certain features of the history of individual languages can be stated only when we have information from all available languages. There are two approaches to history (1) from the past to the present and (2) from the present to the past. When documents are available for the various stages one can trace the history from the past to the present, Where there is the dearth of authentic records only, the present has to be projected to infer the past.
Pre-history of a language family is the projection of the present to the past. The success of this approach depends on the abundance of the language material and the rigorous methods of inference. So every language matters for the dependability of the inference.
Any language, if spoken in a wider area dialects. They will be regiorial, or will have several confined to certain groups of people or to professions. Just as individual languages are important to infer the prehistory of a family, dialects of all types are important for inferring the history of the individual languages. If written available it can supplement the information from dialects. literature is But dialects are the main source and hence indispensable for the history of a language.
Once it was thought that only literature will preserve more details about the history of a language. For Dravidian this has been ably disputed by Edwin Tutle Bloch. Even tribal languages which have no alphabet, and Jules have preserved the ancient features of Dravidian. As a result, it is now acknowledged that every important for the history of a family and every dialect is language is important for the history of a language. In the third decade of this century, L. Bloomfield made a brilliant guess regarding a possible cluster of CK for Proto-Algonquian which found confirmation in a neglected dialect called Swampy-Cree spoken by U. S. A. This has reinforced the stand that all dialects are of people in equal in importance for the history. a few hundreds
The language of literature is artificial. The functional language, natural and pristine is ornate and therefore the dialects which is used consisting of millions of people. Individual idiosyncrasies and guarded by the society can enter in literature: But not in dialects in which they will be weeded out by the society. Thus conservative and comparatively unchanged forms are more likely to continue in dialects than in literature.
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