Contents: Introduction. 1. Classification of sounds. 2. Transmission of vocabulary of sounds. 3. Material sounds. 4. Animal and bird sounds. 5. Human sounds. 6. Summary of findings. Bibliography. Appendix. 

The present work is an anthropological study of sound based on an empirical study among the Santal, a tribe of Proto-Australoid origin of Eastern India also settled in majority in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India. This work is the first of its kind in the field of social-cultural anthropology and is based on the idea that  apart from understanding social reality using observation-based  established anthropological approaches there can be hearing-based approach to understand human reality.

Sound is an extremely important part of human life. It is not possible for a man to communicate without it. Not only that, sound brings awareness and helps in organizing human life. In fact, the vital functions of life-experiencing and life-expressing are grounded in it. Therefore, its study in social-cultural context of a society as an alternative paradigm is meaningful.