The early history of Central Asia is largely obscure and only faint glimpses of its cultural patterns prior to Alexander the Great's conquests in the 4th century B.C. can be had through ritual songs and legends of the nomadic tribes. The ancient Greeks and later, the Arabs were familiar with the area and its inhabitants. The territory between the Amu [...]
In reviewing the language types of South Asia one is at once struck by the diversity and complexity of the pattern. In 1927 The Linguistic Survey of India, listed 179 languages and 544 dialects that are spoken within the subcontinent. It excluded Sri Lanka, where linguistic pluralism is also the rule. Of the six-language families identified on the map for [...]
Before we attempt to understand the patterns of urbanization in Asia, it will be useful to make a distinction between "urbanization" and "urban growth," the terms that we commonly use. The former refers to the rise in proportion (i.e., percentage share) of the total population living in urban places within the countries; it connotes the changing balance between rural and [...]