Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, August 21 2010:
The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) is working on a white paper about the endangered languages spoken in Manipur, said Head of the Centre for Tribal and Endangered Languages Prof G Devi Shastry.
The Centre is being run under the Mysore based CIIL.
Prof G Devi arrived at Chandel yesterday.
Addressing a public gathering at Aimol Khullen yesterday, G Devi observed that out of 196 languages listed by the UNESCO in its latest report as endangered languages 102 are spoken in the North East region.
However, the words 'endangered' or 'extinct' is not mentioned in any policy of the Government of India with respect to any language.
Even as the UN body's report said that many languages like the Aimol, Tarao and Monshang have become extinct, meaning that there are speakers of these languages.
"But here, people speak these languages", he noted.
"The CIIL team is here to do a project on the endangered languages of Manipur in order to produce a white paper", the Professor said.
Not only the endangered languages, those people speaking these languages would be profiled in the project work, he said.
This may take as much time as required.
He informed that the first resource person of the project is Dr Th Chandramani.
Dr Chandramani and his technical staff FM Basha have been putting up at Chandel since the first week of August.