HRD ministry's initiative to protect languages

Times of India, May 27, 2010
NEW DELHI: The HRD ministry's roundtable on protection and preservation of indigenous traditional knowledge and endangered languages has identified three areas that need to be addressed immediately to save languages from getting extinct.


A five-member committee has been set up to suggest how to link languages with employment opportunities. The committee will also find out regions in the country where many languages have become extinct. It will also recommend how to make languages a part of school curriculum so that the young generation becomes interested in them and on setting up of regional centres.

At the meeting held on Wednesday, HRD minister Kapil Sibal expressed the need for setting up an inter-ministerial group with representatives of the ministries of tribal affairs and north-east so that a comprehensive view on fast-disappearing languages could be formed. Sibal also sought cooperation from states.

The meeting saw members expressing concern that languages were losing out to English. One reason they cited was the employment opportunities knowledge of English offered vis-a-vis other Indian languages. One member pointed out that regions with high literacy had more instances of local languages getting extinct.

Members also lamented the lack of infrastructure to promote and preserve Indian languages. For instance, 230 manuscripts have not been studied in the country. A member also pointed out how lack of knowledge of ancient manuscripts and languages resulted in a Spanish company coming up with a face-cream. It was found that its formulation was lifted from an ancient text. India could win the patent case only after a long battle.

Earlier, a preliminary meeting of a few members of the roundtable had decided that a holistic strategy needed to be put in place for the documentation and preservation of the endangered languages. It was first decided to take up languages which are spoken by less than 25,000 people. It was also felt that a comprehensive National Linguistic Survey of India should be carried out. Strangely, the proposal to have a linguistic survey, proposed during Arjun Singh's stint as HRD minister, was abandoned by the ministry later.