A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language : An Ethnolinguistic Study

Anvita Abbi, Jawaharlal Nehru University Winner of the 2015 Kenneth L. Hale Award! A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language is the first-ever detailed and exhaustive account of Great Andamanese, a moribund language spoken on the Andamanese Islands belonging to India in the Bay of Bengal. This important documentation covers all major areas of the grammar of Great Andamanese and gives us a first detailed look at this unique language, which is on the verge of extinction. Of particular interest here is the discussion of the body division class markers which play an important role throughout much of the grammar and which are documented in this volume for the first time. The volume will be of interest for general linguists from the fields of linguistic typology and areal linguistics as well as those interested in South Asian languages in general. Biographical note Anvita Abbi, Ph.D. (1975), Cornell University, is Professor of Linguistics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She has researched first-hand on all the six language families of India and has published sixteen books including the Dictionary of the Great Andamanese Language (2012). Readership All interested in Endangered languages, Descriptive lingusitics, Language evolution, Ethnolinguistics, Grammars, Language documentation, and South Asian linguistics. Reviews "[T]his grammatical description of PGA is a heroic record of the language in its last hours and by far the most detailed description of a Great Andamanese language to date. It was well-worth publishing and will be of scientific value for all time to come." Harald Hammarström, Journal of South and Southwest Asian Languages & Linguistics, Vol. 1, no. 1 (2014). A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language is a pioneering piece of work by Anvita Abbi which introduces readers to a unique world of cognition of the people who are remnants of the first migration from Africa 70,000 years before present. By Anvita Abbi. Includes Bibliographical References (pages [291]-296) And Index.