Linguistic and Textual Aspects of Multilingualism in South India and Sri Lanka

This volume brings together a broad range of scholarship on various aspects of multilingualism in South India and Sri Lanka, particularly with respect to written sources from the pre-modern world. Although the rich linguistic diversity of both regions has long been acknowledged, the consequences of this variety on linguistic and literary developments have rarely been explored, and never with the breadth that is offered here. Our contributions examine the nature and discursive functions of multilingualism, largely from the perspective of philology, in a diverse array of literary, linguistic, and cultural contexts. Some of the contributors bring their particular expertise to bear on the mutual influence of the Sanskrit and Tamil worlds, while others examine the complex linguistic, religious, and cultural negotiations evident in the literary products of authors writing in Arabic, Pali, Sinhala, Telugu, and Malayalam. Many of them also cite and translate paradigmatic examples. This volume is an important compendium of current research on multilingualism in South India and Sri Lanka and offers avenues for understanding the materials and the communities discussed herein in the context of larger conversations about multilingualism in the pre-modern world.