Kalasha affricates: An acoustic analysis of place contrasts

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei Kochetov ◽  
Paul Arsenault

AbstractKalasha (Northwestern Indo-Aryan, spoken in Pakistan) exhibits a complex set of ten affricate phonemes, which is exceedingly rare among the world’s languages and not representative of the broader South Asian context. This paper presents results of an acoustic analysis of place contrasts (dental, retroflex, and alveolopalatal) in affricates of four laryngeal specifications (voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated, non-breathy voiced, and breathy voiced). These consonants were produced by four male speakers of Kalasha in a variety of phonetic contexts, resulting in a sample of close to 700 affricate tokens. A series of acoustic analyses of the data revealed that place contrasts in Kalasha affricates are distinguished robustly by both burst/frication spectra and formant transitions, but not by duration, which correlates more with laryngeal features. Place distinctions are somewhat diminished for voiced affricates but are largely unaffected by aspiration and syllable position. Most of these results are consistent with what is known about comparable (yet laryngeally simpler) place contrasts in other languages outside of South Asia. However, some of them are unique and may reflect the typological uniqueness and complexity of Kalasha’s affricate system.

2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 136-139
Author(s):  
Nazeer Ahmed

Beyond Turk and Hindu grew out of a collection of papers presented at a conferenceon "Islam in South Asia," held at Duke University in April 1995. Ithas 3 sections, 13 chapters, 8 photographs, 3 maps, 2 tables, a glossary, andan index. The book deals with the broad subject of civilizational interfaces inthe South Asian context. It belongs to the category of interfaith relations andis addressed to a general audience interested in the Hindu-Muslim dialectic.The authors do not accept the premise that interreligious differences inSouth Asia are set and irreconcilable. To quote the editor: "We vigorouslycontend that there is a larger point to make, namely, that the constant interplayand overlap between Islamic and Indic worldviews may be at least aspervasive as the Muslim-Hindu conflict ... " This position is a challenge tothose scholars who view India and Pakistan as embodiments of two separatereligious identities.Section One contains three essays on textual analysis to assess the samenessand otherness of identity formation. The authors do not avoid the controversiesthat are bound to emerge from the sometimes disparaging tennsused by Hindus and Muslims to refer to each other, or the animosities thathave emerged from the desecration of mosques and temples:Arabic and Persian use of the term Hindu had a range of meanings thatchanged over time, sometimes denoting an ethnic or geographic referentwithout religious content. Similarly, Indic texts referring to the invadersfrom the northwest used a variety of terms in different contexts, includingyavanas, m/ecchas,farangis, musafmans, and Turks. These terms sometimescarried a strong negative connotation, but they rarely denoted a distinctreligious community conceived in opposition to Hindus. In and ofthemselves, however, such terms tell us little. To understand the usage ofthese terms, one must move beyond the terminology itself- beyond Turkand Hindu - to analyze the framing categories and generic contexts withinwhich these terms are used.The authors illustrate the power of bidirectional cultural forces by offeringthe example of the Punjab's Bulle Shah and Bengal's mystical Satya Pir.Bulle Shah, a contemporary of Shah Waliullah of Delhi, lived in the late ...


2021 ◽  

Abstract This book focuses on tourism impacts, development, planning and policy making in South Asia. It contains eight case studies of the following countries: India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Maldives. The cases demonstrate successful and unsuccessful stories in the South Asian context, along with the issues and challenges tourism planners and developers are facing. Policy implications are also presented for each of these eight country case studies.


2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Lau

This article will discuss the complexity of positionality and the implications of writing in the English language in a South Asian context. Given the postcolonial heritage of South Asia, contemporary authors producing literature in English find themselves confronted with both tremendous opportunity as well as tremendous controversy. Literature has become a product in the circuit of culture, and the concluding sections will therefore discuss and explore how writers, and particularly diasporic writers, using English (as opposed to the other languages in India) are able to seize a disproportionate amount of world attention and consequently, through their choice of language, gain the power to make their presentations and representations dominant and prevalent in terms of distribution and influence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-206
Author(s):  
Reshman Tabassum

Gender equity refers to the fairness and justice in the allocation of benefits and responsibilities between women and men, while gender-based inequity may emanate from a psychosocial, epidemiological; or perhaps a global perspective. The concepts of gender equity are merely elusive; nevertheless, increasingly have been used inappropriately. Gender inequities in mental health, pervasive in South Asian societies, indicates biases in power, resources, entitlements, and the way organizations are arranged and programs are designed to adversely affect the lives of millions of women. Four major areas highlighted in this study are: Prevalence of gender inequality in mental health; role of gender in South Asia; unraveling gender and mental health paradox in South Asia; and effective strategies to minimize gender inequality. Eliminating gender inequalities requires not only acknowledging the necessity of basic medical services to women, but scrutinizing mental health through a gender lens and taking measures for expanding women’s accessibility, affordability and suitability to mental health facilities in South Asian countries.Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.16(2) 2017 p.203-206


2021 ◽  
pp. 174276652110425
Author(s):  
Preeti Raghunath

The 1920s emerged as a landmark decade in the world history of radio, more particularly in South Asia. About a century later, this paper seeks to stitch together a critical historiography of radio governance in colonial South Asia. In doing so, the paper seeks to unravel colonial constructions, norms and rationalities associated with the modern medium of radio in the South Asian context. This paper draws on the works of Pinkerton, Zivin, Brayne, Potter and gleanings in their work of the autobiographical writings of Fielden and Reith, the first broadcasting controller of All India Radio and the general manager of the British Broadcasting Corporation, respectively, besides some official documents cited in these works pertaining to the goings-on in British South Asia and its broadcasting. Ultimately, this paper seeks to not only historicize the eventual decolonization and democratization that occurred, but also sets the stage to locate, understand and move towards sustainable media governance in a post-2015 world.


2006 ◽  

This collection of essays is meant to explore the various forms that the theme and the notion of "tradition2 took within the South Asian context, during ancient and pre-colonial periods. Designed by the editor to cover a significant selection of the specialized fields of knowledge that shaped classical South Asian intellectual history, the aim of this volume is to offer a stimulating anthology of papers on the different and complex processes employed during the "invention", construction, preservation and renewal of a given tradition.In this regard, the contributors have expertly analysed a large variety of aspects, namely the transmission of traditional canons "both textual and practical", the dynamisms and the strategies chosen for the renewal of a tradition, its internal and external dialectics, the procedures of its legitimation, the theoretical and pragmatic mechanisms of its survival, the tensions and the criticisms of traditional knowledge systems, etc. Attention has also been paid to problems related to the primacy exercised by highly specialized traditional experts, to monopolies in the transmission of knowledge, to its means of cultural and political justification, and to the connections between a specific traditional field of knowledge and the surrounding social arena.


Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-546
Author(s):  
ABHISHEK CHOUDHARY

The paper analyses the concerns arising from a moral perspective in the context of a renewed arms race in South Asia. It challenges the idea that possession of nuclear power could in any way contribute to any sort of balance. The emulation of so-called great powers and expecting that balance would arrive as it did in the case of the US and the erstwhile-USSR during cold war is detrimental to the temporal and spatial uniqueness of South Asia. Deterrence, based on rational choice theory, does not apply to the South Asian context due to ambiguity owing to mutual mistrust especially in the case of India and Pakistan. Also, it no longer only sates that are sole actors in the international arena. One cannot expect the non-state actors to behave in a rational manner. Furthermore, the idea of ‘credible minimum deterrence’ itself is questionable as it is a flexible posture adjusted to relative prowess and ambiguity in policy further aggravates the situation. The paper argues from a consequentialist notion of ethics and argues that the principles of harm and equity ought be part of nuclear decision-making. Another aspect that the paper uncovers relates to the ‘reification’ of nuclear power. Using a neo-Marxist framework and concept of Lukács, the paper argues that it is no longer the state as a repository of power that decides the trajectory of nuclear development. Rather the nuclear technology has started to dictate the way states are looking at regional and international relations. This inverted relationship has been created due to neglect of any ethical toolkit. The paper thus proposes an ethical toolkit that focuses on the negative duties of not to harm and also the positive duties to create conditions that would avoid harm being done to people.


Author(s):  
S.A. Kirillina ◽  
A.L. Safronova ◽  
V.V. Orlov

Аннотация В статье изучены общие и специфические черты идейных воззрений, пропагандистской риторики и политических действий представителей халифатистского движения на Ближнем Востоке и в Южной Азии. В ретроспективном ключе прослеживается эволюция представлений о сущности и необходимости возрождения института халифата в трудах исламских идеологов, реформаторов и политиков Джамал ад-Дина ал-Афгани, Абд ар-Рахмана ал-Кавакиби, Мухаммада Рашида Риды, Абул Калама Азада. Внимание авторов сосредоточено на общественно-политических дискуссиях 2030-х годов XX столетия, а также на повестке дня халифатистских конгрессов и конференций этого периода. На них вырабатывались первые представления современников о пост-османском формате мусульманского единства и идейно-политической роли будущего халифата. Авторы демонстрируют различие между моделями реакции мусульман Ближнего Востока и Южной Азии на упразднение османского халифата республиканским руководством Турции. Установлена многоаспектная взаимосвязь между халифатистскими ценностями, проосманскими настроениями и формами самоотождествления, которые сложились в арабских и южноазиатских обществах. Отдельно намечено соотношение между подъемом халифатистских настроений и радикализацией антиколониальных действий мусульман Индостана.Abstract The article deals with analysis of common and specific features of ideas, propaganda, rhetoric and political actions taken by representatives of the movement for defense of the Caliphate in the Middle East and South Asia. The retrospection showing the transformation of conception of the Caliphate and the necessity of its revival in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad, is also given in the article. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s 1930s, as well as on the agenda of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of this period. They helped to elaborate the early representations of post-Ottoman pattern of the Muslim unity and the ideological and political role of the future Caliphate. The authors demonstrate the difference between the forms of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican leaders of Turkey. The article establishes a multi-aspect interaction between the Caliphatist values and forms of self-identification, emerged in Arab and South Asian societies. The correlation between the rise of Caliphatist attitudes and radicalization of anti-colonial actions of South Asian Muslims is also outlined.


Author(s):  
Shaza Arif

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a breakthrough technology which is astonishingly impressive. Major world powers are rapidly integrating AI in their military doctrines. This trend of militarization of AI can be seen in the South Asian region as well. Following the theoretical approach of offensive realism, China and India are in full swing to revolutionize their militaries with this emerging trend in order to accumulate maximum power and to satisfy their various interests. Consequently, Indian military modernization has the potential to provoke Pakistan to take counter measures. Pakistan is already encountering a number of challenges in economic sector and will face the strenuous task of accommodating a handsome financial share for the development of its AI capabilities. South Asia is a very turbulent region characterized by arch rivals who are also nuclear powers and have repeatedly indulged in various crises over the years. Introduction of AI in South Asia will have significant repercussions as it will trigger an arms race and at the same time disturb the strategic balance in the region.


Author(s):  
Stéphane A. Dudoignon

Since 2002, Sunni jihadi groups have been active in Iranian Baluchistan without managing to plunge the region into chaos. This book suggests that a reason for this, besides Tehran’s military responses, has been the quality of Khomeini and Khamenei’s relationship with a network of South-Asia-educated Sunni ulama (mawlawis) originating from the Sarbaz oasis area, in the south of Baluchistan. Educated in the religiously reformist, socially conservative South Asian Deoband School, which puts the madrasa at the centre of social life, the Sarbazi ulama had taken advantage, in Iranian territory, of the eclipse of Baluch tribal might under the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-79). They emerged then as a bulwark against Soviet influence and progressive ideologies, before rallying to Khomeini in 1979. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, they have been playing the role of a rampart against Salafi propaganda and Saudi intrigues. The book shows that, through their alliance with an Iranian Kurdish-born Muslim-Brother movement and through the promotion of a distinct ‘Sunni vote’, they have since the early 2000s contributed towards – and benefitted from – the defence by the Reformist presidents Khatami (1997-2005) and Ruhani (since 2013) of local democracy and of the minorities’ rights. They endeavoured to help, at the same time, preventing the propagation of jihadism and Sunni radicalisation to Iran – at least until the ISIS/Daesh-claimed attacks of June 2017, in Tehran, shed light on the limits of the Islamic Republic’s strategy of reliance on Deobandi ulama and Muslim-Brother preachers in the country’s Sunni-peopled peripheries.


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