South Asian Languages and Civilizations
For decades, scholars at the University of Chicago have sought to preserve and share the languages of South Asia and the Middle East—from Assamese to Torwali, Khowar to Pashto.
In this work, the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia are invaluable: In addition to definitions and pronunciations, users can learn about the original source of words in languages spoken by nearly a quarter of the world’s population.
Prof. Gary A. Tubb and James Nye, a former UChicago Library bibliographer, are now spearheading a major expansion of these digital dictionaries—a three-year project that will help scholars, diplomats, journalists, businesspeople and countless others.
Sir Christopher Bayly of Cambridge University and David Shulman of Hebrew University have been appointed as the first recipients of the Indian Ministry of Culture Vivekananda Visiting Professorship.
The Walls of Delhi, written by Uday Prakash and translated by Jason Grunebaum, Senior Lecturer in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, has been shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. For prize consideration, as the site explains, authors could belong to this region through birth or be of any ethnicity but the writing should pertain to the South Asian region in terms of content and theme. The prize brings South Asian writing to a new global audience through a celebration of the achievements of South Asian writers, and aims to raise awareness of South Asian culture around the world. The winner will be announced in January 2013 during the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in India, which Grunebaum and Prakash will attend.
To view the 2012 longlist and learn more about the 2012 prizewinner, click here.
The University of Chicago recently received a £52,247 grant from the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme to preserve sixty rare and endangered Urdu periodicals through digitization. The digital images will be produced at the Mushfiq Khwaja Library and Research Centre in Karachi, Pakistan, and will be available through the University of Chicago Library as well as the British Library. C.M. Naim, Professor Emeritus in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, will participate in the panel of Urdu scholars responsible for selecting the magazines and journals to be archived. “Thanks to the easy technology and low cost of litho printing, the only accepted form for Urdu script texts across South Asia, Urdu weeklies and monthlies began to appear in the 1870s,” Naim explains. “It was in the periodicals that all major modern writers and political and social figures made their debuts and gained popularity. And it is only in the periodicals that we can discover the full extent of many literary and political controversies that are only now beginning to gain the attention of scholars.” To read the full article, click here.
