We are proud to be featured in the April 2022 cover story by Mint Lounge, a popular publication throughout India. This in-depth article discusses the grassroots work being done to preserve endangered languages in India. Living Tongues linguist Dr. Bikram Jora shared many details about our team’s work documenting the Birhor language.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Linguist Bikram Jora sends screenshots of the trilingual dictionary containing 2,748 words in Birhor, classified as critically endangered. It starts with simple words like aba, or father, and moves on to phrases like aben bar hor k”atir (“for you both”). A project coordinator for the South Asia region for the US-based non-profit Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, Jora has been working on ‘Documenting the Fragile Knowledge Domains of the Birhor People’, an initiative funded by the Zegar Family Foundation, since 2018. Since he belongs to Jharkhand’s Munda tribe, he understands the complexities of indigenous language and identity within the state well.
His team and he have published Abun Ari-Re, the first children’s book in Birhor, to try and make words about regular activities part of local parlance, as well as a survey of the community’s ethnobotanical knowledge, and an online dictionary. Though the published material is free, the copyright rests with the Birhor community.
——
Many thanks to the Zegar Family Foundation for supporting our work with the Birhor community. We are glad that this latest article will help our research reach a wide audience in India.
You must be logged in to post a comment.