CIIL to document 500 endangered languages
- CIIL (Central Institute of Indian Languages) has announced to document around 500 endangered and rare languages of the country, mostly the languages spoken by nearly 10,000 people or less.
- Several dictionaries and documents will be created. Preservation of cultural knowledge and folklore of such languages will be preserved. The project also aims to outline the grammar rules of specific languages.
- At initial phase, a study of around 70 languages spoken in different parts of the country will be done, and 500 other languages will be studied within the next 10 years.
- Earlier, there was no clear-cut consensus about the status of these rare languages. According to Census of India 2001, there were 122 endangered languages. On the other hand, the Anthropological Survey of India said it is about 323, and the UNESCO reported about 196 endangered languages.
- Endangerment of language is a lot more serious issue than culture, because if the language is exterminated, the whole encyclopedia of knowledge preserved in that language will be lost forever.
Exams Perspective:
- Endangered languages
- Anthropological Survey of India
- Census of India
- UNESCO