Indosphere

Common card · No. 290221

Indosphere (also known as the South Asia linguistic area, South Asian linguistic area, or the South Asian sprachbund) is a term used to describe the South Asian sprachbund which encompasses the native languages of the Indian subcontinent, including languages from the Indo-European, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman language families, and three language isolates Burushaski, Nihali, and Kusunda. Although these language families are unrelated, areal convergences due to long-term intense contact have led to the rise of several typological features commonly shared across the region. These features are: left-branching (morpho)syntax; finiteness asymmetries in predicate; phonological distinctions between dental vs. retroflex consonants, aspirated vs. non-aspirated consonants, and nasalized vs. non-nasalized vowels; simple onsets; echo word formation; the uses of dative experiencer subjects and explicator verbs (v2). It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with the languages...

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