Foreword The linguistic division of Anthropological Survey of India usually undertakes projects on different linguistic groups of India, belonging to four language families, such as the Dravidian, the Austro-Asiatic, the Tibeto-Burman and the Indo Aryan. Accordingly, attempts have been made by the Survey from time to time to study the lingustic dimensions of the Ollari, Nicobarese, Chenchu, Juang, Kharia, Lodha, Malpaharia, Thadou, Onge, Andamanese, etc.
Preface The present volume is the outcome of my continued attachment with Santali language since the granting of U. G. C. fellowship in 1982. Ultimately this thesis appeared in the present form under the supervision and guidance of Late Prof. Subhadra Kumar Sen. In the past it has been found that the erudite people, especially the missionaries who had come to India as Christian preach- ers, were interested in the language and culture of the tribes-viz, Santal, Munda, Ho, Oraon, Bhumij etc. Learning these languages was very essential to them for religious preaching. They had first tried to publish the tribal languages (grammar for the non tribal), cultures and customs in the form of books. They analyzed the language data through a method which is very similar to the discovery procedure of Taxonomic Linguistics. Their phonetic observations were elaborate and detailed, but they failed to distinguish between an allophone and a phoneme since the phonemic theory had not been established in those days. However, only Sebeok had preliminarily introduced the phonemic analy- sis. The present study envisages the typically linguistic treatment of Santali language, establishing the grammatical features applying the modern linguistic technique.
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