The Munda Languages

Curzon Language Family Series

by Gregory D.S. Anderson (Editor)

The Munda group of languages of the Austroasiatic family are spoken within central and eastern India by almost ten million people. To date, they are the least well-known and least documented languages of the Indian subcontinent. This unprecedented and original work draws together a distinguished group of international experts in the field of Munda language research and presents current assessments of a wide range of typological and comparative-historical issues, providing agendas for future research. Representing the current state of Munda Linguistics, this volume provides detailed descriptions of almost all of the languages in the family, in addition to a brief chapter discussing the enigmatic Nihali language.

808 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Routledge’s Language Family Surveys volumes contain brief overviews of the phonology, morphology, syntax, etc. of the various languages in a particular family. While there is some variability between the volumes in the series, they generally let a linguist trained in one or several particular families quickly get up to speed with another family… except for this volume on the Munda languages, which is a bit of a mess.

The problems start with the very first chapter, editor Gregory D.S. Anderson’s “Introduction to the Munda Languages”. Where one would expect a somewhat clear friendly overview of the family for outsiders, Anderson writes a meagre introduction that spends its paltry page count on debates about subclassification that assume prior knowledge of the field. Furthermore, even though the Munda languages are known as a branch of a larger Austroasiatic family, there is zero discussion here or elsewhere of the book about how Munda relates to that larger family: no lists of example cognates, no attempt to present some Proto-Munda reconstructions.

The actual survey of the languages is usually decent in that they tick all the boxes, though they are often badly organized compared to other volumes in this Routledge series. Arun Ghosh’s chapter on Santali boasts some oddly florid and archaic prose by the standards of international academia, though perhaps this is seen by Indians as conventional Indian English:

The Santals are the most numerous among the tribes who speak Munda. In the western fringe of West Bengal, north Orissa and Jharkhand, normally, they muster very strong. This helps them maintain group solidarity and preserve their language and culture much better than elsewhere. The Santals now remaining in other places are nothing but scattered masses floating here and there, and in the process they are all but melted with other dominant cultures in the region. The greater part of their substance has already commingled in the fluid around them, the remainder is saturated with it, and it is only in the very kernel and inner centre of the largest lumps that something like the pure original substance is to be sought.

One of the most mysterious languages of India is Nihali, which may be Munda, an isolate, or actually a secretive argot and not a language at all. For its coverage of Nihali, this volume simply represents an article that Norman H. Zide published in Mother Tongue in 1998. If some of the contributions to this volume seem to assume that one is already deeply familiar with Munda, this rambling chapter turns that up to eleven.

[Flash Sheridan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on just the free sample of this book, there was something deeply wrong with the process of creating this book. I was reading it as a layman intrigued by the language family after listening to a course of lectures on the history of India, so I’m not qualified to settle the issue, but it is apparent even to the beginner. The editor says in his introduction that “these issues were literally driving me insane.” Any editorial process that lets the word “literally” slip through is suspect, even if Professor Anderson didn’t actually mean what he said. Other parts of the book were never reviewed by a competent English speaker, e.g. “The language is also sometimes returned under the name mãjhi bhasa…” There are other troubling hints in technical matters I don’t know enough to evaluate. The Routledge Language Family Series is usually admirable, so I hope these issues can be settled in a later edition.