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Linguistic Survey of India
 
 
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The Linguistic Survey of India, often referred to as the LSI, is a comprehensive survey of the language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s of British India, describing 364 languages and dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s. It was a project of the British Raj
British Raj

British Raj primarily refers to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; it can also refer to the period of dominion, and even the region under the rule....
 conducted between 1894 and 1928, under the direction of George A. Grierson
George Abraham Grierson

George Abraham Grierson was born to a prominent Dublin family in 1851. His father and grandfather, both also named George Grierson, were well-known printers and publishers....
, an official of the Indian Civil Service.

An on-line is available, providing an excerpt for each word as it appeared in Grierson's original publication, in .pdf format.






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The Linguistic Survey of India, often referred to as the LSI, is a comprehensive survey of the language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s of British India, describing 364 languages and dialect
Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
s. It was a project of the British Raj
British Raj

British Raj primarily refers to the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; it can also refer to the period of dominion, and even the region under the rule....
 conducted between 1894 and 1928, under the direction of George A. Grierson
George Abraham Grierson

George Abraham Grierson was born to a prominent Dublin family in 1851. His father and grandfather, both also named George Grierson, were well-known printers and publishers....
, an official of the Indian Civil Service.

An on-line is available, providing an excerpt for each word as it appeared in Grierson's original publication, in .pdf format. In addition, the British Library
British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is one of the world's largest List of Research libraries, holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats; books, journals, newspapers, magazines, Sound recording, patents, databases, maps, stamps, Printmaking, drawings and much mor...
 has gramophone
Gramophone

Gramophone might refer to:* The British English term for U.S. English "phonograph", the first device for recording and replaying sound. The two names were originally those used by rival manufacturers...
 recordings in its which document the phonology
Phonology

Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use. Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has a phonology in the sense of a sound system....
.

New Survey


The 1991 census of India found 1,576 "mother tongues" with separate grammatical structures and 1,796 languages classified as "other mother tongues". Calls for a more complete and exact Linguistic Survey of India soon followed. It was noted that Grierson's works had relied on untrained field workers and neglected the former province of Burma, Madras and the then princely State
Princely state

For other uses, see Principality, Princely state#Other princely statesA Princely State was a nominally sovereign entity of British rule in India that was not directly administered by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy....
s of Hyderabad
Hyderabad State

Hyderabad state was the largest princely state in the erstwhile British Indian Empire. It was located in the south-central region of the Indian subcontinent, and was ruled, from 1724 until 1948, by a hereditary Nizam....
 and Mysore
Mysore

Mysore ; renamed to Mysuru|??????) is the second largest city in the state of Karnataka, India. It is the headquarters of the Mysore district and the Mysore division and lies about southwest of Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka....
. The result was that South India was under-represented in the LSI.

The Government of India has announced an ambitious project to expand and revise the Linguistic Survey of India. In the 11th five-year plan (2007-12)
Five-Year Plans of India

The economy of India is based in part on Planned economy through its five-year plans, developed, executed and monitored by the Planning Commission ....
 Rs. 2.8 billion was sanctioned for the project. It has been classified into two sections: a New Linguistic Survey of India and a Survey of Minor and Endangered Languages. Under the auspices of the in Mysore, and under the direction of Udaya Narayana Singh, the project is expected to involve over 54 universities, 2,000 investigators and 10,000 linguists and language specialists working over a period of ten years..

Resources




  • George Abraham Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, 11 Vols. in 19 Parts. Delhi, Low Price Publ. (2005) ISBN 8175363614