Endangered Languages Week 2011 - Book Launch

'Birds of the Great Andamanese'
by Satish Pande and Anvita Abbi
Thursday 12 May 2011, 5pm, Brunei Suite

School of Oriental and African Studies
Russell Square, London

Birds of the Great Andamanese is a unique book combining Ethno-linguistic and ornithology by the name Ethno Ornithology Birds of the Great Andamanese: Names, Classification and Culture written by Satish Pande & Anvita Abbi is going to be released on 12th May 2011.

The current study is an outcome of the first ever interdisciplinary research in Linguistics and Ornithology. The authors present all the avian Families, Genera and Species recognized by the Great Andamanese people and the current conservation status, threats and distribution of avian species, endemic to the region. Local names of a variety of birds in the Great Andamanese language have been mapped with the scientific names for the first time in the ethno-biological history. The authors provide insightful discussion on the linguistic, morphological, behavioural, and ecological principles as well as the cognitive processes that underlie bird names. The book brings back a highly rich but forgotten culture through the analysis of the Great Andamanese, a moribund language on the verge of extinction. Numerous colour photographs and drawings make the book a fine Field guide.

To celebrate the launch of this book, there will be a reception in the Brunei Suite on Thursday 12 May, 5pm.

About the Authors:
Dr. Satish Pande
Associate Professor Radiology and Imaging, University of Pune
Ornithologist, author, conservationist, and Interventional Radiologist

Prof. Anvita Abbi
Professor of Linguistics, Jawaharlal University, New Delhi, India
Currently, Leverhulme Professor, SOAS, University of London, UK

"An invaluable monograph of great significance...Will be a lasting contribution to ethnobiology ..a model for future investigations on other rapidly vanishing languages in the world."
Prof. Brent Berlin

"The authors deserve high praise for this seamless blending of scientific rigor and humanistic sensitivity. Aware that time is ticking, Pande and Abbi have engaged in an 11th-hour rescue effort, to record on paper as much as they could about one aspect of a vast repository of knowledge, beliefs, and practices: the world of birds"
Dr. Luisa Maffi, director Terralingua.

The book is an outcome of the project Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese. It was funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Language Project, SOAS, University of London, UK.

More information
http://swb.co.in/store/book/birds-great-andamanese
http://www.terralingua.org/bcdconservation/?p=125
www.andamanese.net

Archive deposits
http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/abbi2007voga
http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/abbi2008voga

Bird photos taken by Niranjan Sant
Photo bottom left: Oriental Honey Buzzard
Photo middle: Taitpheno
Photo bottom right: Barn Swallow