Anvita Abbi (private)
An eminent linguist and social scientist Anvita Abbi has been visiting professor in Universities across Europe, Australia, and the Americas and has taught Linguistics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India for 38 years. She identified the sixth language family of India which was corroborated by the geneticists. One of the rare linguists, she has carried out first-hand field research on all the six language families of India, extending from the Himalayas to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
An editor and author of 24 books, her work on tribal and other minority languages of South Asia has been exemplary and has bagged several national and international awards including the Bhasha Samman in 2003, Leverhulme Professorship at the University of London in 2011, Padma Shri in 2013 and the Kenneth Hale Award in 2015 by the Linguistic Society of America for “outstanding lifetime contributions to the documentation and description of languages of India”. She was the founder Director of the Centre for Oral and Tribal Literature at Sahitya Akademi New Delhi. An advisor to several national and international institutes including the UNESCO on language issues, she has contributed to the awareness of linguistic diversity of South Asia. Among the latest publications include Voices from the Lost Horizon. Stories and Songs of the Great Andamanese. 2021. Niyogi Books. New Delhi.