A Comparative Grammar of Tibeto-Himalayan Languages of –Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand

The volume is the first one on the grammatical studies of the languages of the Himalayan group. Moreover, it occupies a unique position in the history of Indian linguistics, because no scholar, Indian or foreigner, has undertaken, seriously, an exhaustive and comprehensive comparative study of all the phonological and morphological features of all the speeches belonging to Himalayan regions of India, Nepal and Bhutan. As such the present work containing a complete comparative analysis of 15 languages of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal may claim to be the pioneer attempt and fulfill the requirement of linguistics studies in this sub-continent and also to fill the vacuum of grammatical studies in the 4 major linguistic families. The author, after many years’ intensive and extensive exploration of the speeches from the inaccessible Himalayan regions, has, in a comprehensive manner brought to light all the converging and diverging features, not only of the languages belonging to Tibetan and Himalayan families, but also has taken into account many phonological and morphological features of Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic (Munda) and Dravidian families of these features of the Himalayan languages. Thus the present work, as that of Mr. Beam’s and of Rev. Caldwell’s has a Prominent place not only in the domain of comparative linguistics, but in the domain of historical and descriptive linguistics as well. As such it is surely to be cherished by all interested, not only in comparative, contrastive, descriptive and historical aspects of the Himalayan languages, but also of the languages spoken at the length and breadth of the Indian Sub-Continent.

Professor Dr. D.D. Sharma (b. 1928), a renowned scholar of Sanskrit and Linguistics, served Punjab University, Chandigarh for nearly 28 years. He obtained Ph.D. in Sanskrit from the Benaras Hindu University in 1958 and later on Ph.D. and D.Litt in Linguistics from the Panjab University, Chandigarh besides the highest Oriental title, viz. Sahityacharya (Varanasi) and Diploma in French, German and Persion. Professor Sharma is well acquainted with nearly two dozen Indian and foreign languages and has to his credit 20 research Volumes and scores of research papers on the subjects of language, culture and literature published in research journals of national and international repute. In Linguistics he has made substantial contribution in the fields of descriptive, historical, comparative, contrastive, linguistics, sociolinguistics and semantics. It was in recognition of his contribution to Linguistics that he was awarded the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1984-86) to undertake the linguistics survey of the Himalayan languages from Ladakhto Bhutan. In the field of Sanskrit language and literature too his contribution is equally substantial. His research work on Kallidasa bagged him an award from the Sanskrit Academi, Uttar Pradesh. On his retirement from the Punjab University in May 1989 he was awarded Emeritus Fellowship by the UGC for the completion of his 12 volumes have already appeared. Currently, he is actively engaged in the completion of the remaining volumes of the above mentioned project.