Linguistic Survey of India – West Bengal (Part I)

The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is an ongoing project of the Government of India that aims to document and study how languages have changed in the country over the years. It considers shifts in society, administrative regions and the reorganisation of states based on linguistic identity. This project has been undertaken by the Language Division, Office of the Registrar General, Government of India.Part of this project is the Linguistic Survey of India – West Bengal (Part I) which studies 13 languages spoken in West Bengal. The survey was carried out between 1994 and 2003.The survey works on the census framework according to which ‘language’ and ‘mother tongue’ are ‘co-terminus’ or mean the same. The volume presents sketches of 13 languages: Bengali, Radhi (Burdwan, Nadia, 24 Parganas), Radhi (Howrah, Hooghly), Barendri, Jharkhandi, Rajbangsi and Nepali (Indo-Aryan family); Mundari, Koda/Kora and Lodha (Austro-Asiatic family); and Bodo, Bhotia and Toto (Tibeto-Burman family). This selection of the languages is based on regional importance, the number of speakers, and the locations where the survey was conducted.The present-day LSI is an extension of the survey first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, an Irish linguist who documented Indian languages during the pre-Independence era and a few years of the early 20th century. This survey “complements and supplements” Grierson’s survey conducted when the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and present-day Bangladesh were part of the same province called the Bengal Presidency.The document is divided into 15 main chapters. The first chapter introduces the history, geography, demography and administrative divisions of the state...