Introduction

Abstract

By ‘South Asia’ we understand the geographical area bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the west, north and east by the high mountain ranges which separate it from the Asian continent. Six states lie in this territory, which is also known as the Indian sub-continent: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. It is 4 million square kilometres in area, and its population, which in 1971 was more than 700 million, speaks many languages and dialects belonging to several linguistic families. According to the figures given in the ‘Linguistic Survey of India’ (LSI), 179 languages and 544 dialects can be distinguished in the territory with which we are concerned (excluding Nepal and Sri Lanka). Closer examination, however, shows that this linguistic diversity is not as significant as it seems at first sight. The fact is that almost two-thirds of the languages listed in LSI – 113 – belong to the Tibeto-Burman sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan family; they are located in remote mountainous regions of the extreme east and north, and are spoken by only about 1 per cent of the total population. In comparison with Europe, whose population is only slightly less, South Asia has actually rather fewer basic languages.