[Wikimediaindia-l] Times of India: 310 Indian languages face extinction

[Anirudh Bhati]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/all-that-matters/310-INDIAN-LANGUAGES-ARE-NEAR-EXTINCTION/articleshow/11494576.cms

More than 80 years after the first Linguistic Survey of India was
conducted by British officer George Grierson, six volumes of the
People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) were released at the Bhasha
Vasudha global languages conference in Vadodara on January 7. Ganesh
Devy, who chaired PLSI, tells Robin David that about 20% of Indian
languages are now missing

How many languages has India lost so far? Have we gained any in the
last few years?

The 1961 Census had listed 1,652 'mother tongues'. The 1971 Census
listed only 109 'mother tongues'. It is important to note that every
mother tongue claimed by a person reporting it may not be what
linguists consider a 'language'. In 1971, the linguistic data offered
in the Census was distributed in two categories - the
officially-listed languages of the eighth Schedule of the
Constitution, and the other languages with a minimum of 10,000
speakers each. All other languages spoken by less than 10,000 speakers
were lumped together in a single entry 'Others'. That practice
continued in subsequent enumerations. Considering how complicated
census operations are in countries with large migratory populations,
and particularly how much the accuracy in census operations is
dependent on literacy levels, it is not surprising that the data
collected remains insufficiently definitive. What is surprising,
however, is that as many as 310 languages, including all those 263
claimed by less than 5 speakers, and 47 claimed by less than a 1,000
speakers, are nearing extinction. These 310 'endangered' languages
were included in the 1,652 mother tongues of 1961. Only ten of these
appear to be around at present. In other words, a fifth part of
India's linguistic heritage has reached the stage of extinction over
the last half-century.

What is the rate at which we are losing languages?

There is no scientific measure to decide the rate of language loss.
But in recent years, the 'language gap' between the older generation
(60 to 80 years) and the younger generation (10 to 30 years) has
increased as never before. Today's 20-year-olds can't string together
a single sentence in the same language. They will mix Gujarati with
English, Marathi with Hindi and so on. This is alarming.

What are the main findings of PLSI?

The PLSI is not fully complete. We have so far completed the work in
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Jammu &
Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Jharkhand,
Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. However,the trend we have
noticed in the states where the first LSI was carried out indicates
that about 20% of the languages assumed to be around are missing. One
aim of the PLSI is to examine the sociological composition of
multilingual spaces. From that perspective, large cities in the
country no longer match the character of the linguistic states. Thus
Maharashtra is Marathi-speaking, but Bombay needs to be seen as a
multi-lingual city, and therefore linguistically a 'national city'
rather than a state capital.

Have the languages that we have lost totally disappeared or do traces remain?

Often, when gaining livelihood becomes impossible within a given
language, large-scale 'language migrations' happen and whole
communities take to speaking some other language. These communities
carry traces from their earlier language to the new language zone. For
instance, Indian migrants to English have brought to it 'ki' and 'hai
na' (example: "I told her ki I am glad"; "This is not correct, hai
na?"). Words from ancient times and languages that are no longer in
use keep circulating in new languages.

Which state has the maximum languages?

The northern and the eastern states in India have generally greater
language diversity. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are perhaps the
states that come at the tail end of the language diversity graph.

Can you briefly explain the methodology?

This is a survey of languages by persons belonging to the language
community. We have used a 'minimum format' for the non-scheduled
languages. It includes features like name, location and local history
of the languages; some samples of songs and stories, kinship terms and
nominal grammar. For the scheduled languages the entries are very
elaborate - almost a book length for every language. The 12 volumes
that are ready run into about 6,000 pages. The completed work in 42
volumes will have about 20,000 printed pages. The work is done with
the help of a large team of nearly 1,800 persons and a large
multi-disciplinary National Editorial Collective of scholars.

You have planned a global survey of languages too. How many countries
will be covered?

All countries eventually, but to begin with Papua New Guinea,
Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Congo and Australia -- the
countries with the largest number of languages. Scholars, cultural
activists an

[Wikimediaindia-l] Offtopic GLAM related : Anil Dharker on Museums, TOI

[Ashwin Baindur]

Comments, anyone?

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/dharkersdilemma/entry/dust-and-babudom-have-mummified-our-museums


Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur
--
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Minutes of Wikipedia Mumbai Meetup 14

[wheredevelsdare]

Minutes of Wikipedia Mumbai Meetup 14:

Coincidentally, 14 people attended the 14th Mumbai Meetup held at Coffee Bean 
and Tea Leaf, Bandra earlier today :)

Wikipedia Takes Mumbai 2

Nikita and Karthik mentioned that they have been in touch with some 
professional photographers who sounded interested in joining in, tentatively on 
21 January 2012. Netra said that HT are planning a photowalk on 28 January 2012 
as part of their "No TV Day" campaign in association with a local photographer 
group (whom Mehul had suggested we involve and Nikita has been in touch with). 
Netra suggested it may be a good idea to try and tie-up with HT - we will be 
contacting them to see if we can work something out. 

Vishal mentioned that Saturday would be a working day for him and he would not 
be able to make it. Vickram mentioned that any day some people would have a 
problem with, we cannot keep everyone happy.

Wikimania 2013

Ansuman, Nikita, Karthik and Krutika were strongly in favour of making a bid 
for Wikimania 2013, Mumbai. Mehul said he would be able to help out with the 
internet but not much more. Pradeep, Vickram and myself were not so sure. After 
the WCI experience we felt that a lot more commitment and focus was required 
from the community since bidding for Wikimania is like bidding for the 
Olympics, if we botch up, we put the country to shame. Rohini pointed out that 
another city like (Delhi) or Bangalore could bid. I mentioned that I had 
brought the topic up with community members across the country and there was 
consensus that no city is ready to take on something the scale of a Wikimedia 
as we currently stand.

Pradeep suggested that we should work at the grassroot levels instead, aiming 
at holding regular events locally for the next year, think of 2014 
realistically and involving more people - starting with the photowalk. Everyone 
agreed to this.

GLAM Initiative

The meeting was given an update of the work done locally with GLAM and that the 
Department of Archives had been approached and a formal proposal needed to be 
presented. It was resolved to work on such a proposal and if needed hold a 
dedicated meetup for the same.

Celebration and Acknowledgement

We celebrated Wikipedia turns 11 with refreshments and cake. The refreshments 
were sponsored by Mumbai Community member Kundan Amitabh and the cake was 
sponsored by another Mumbai Community member, Pradeep Mohandas. The community 
thanks both Kundan and Pradeep for their large hearted gesture.

Revival of Kashmiri Wikipedia

Ansuman mentioned that he is interested in reviving the Kashmiri incubator and 
has spoken to a few friends who are interested as well. He spoke of how the 
entire community including himself had to leave their homeland overnight 2 
decades ago and are now in danger of loosing their unique cultural identity, 
being far away from their homeland and Kashmiri Wikipedia could be a way of 
rejuvenating that identity and keeping it alive.



The meeting was filled with enthusiastic discussions and lasted 3 and a half 
hours, wrapping up at 6.30pm. It was good to see people who had not been part 
of the community until WCI 2011 like Ansuman, Nikita, Karthik and Krutika come 
and attend the meetup and bring a breath of fresh air.

Kind Regards,





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[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Delhi meetup-5

[Noopur]

Dear all,

Let me give you a brief update on things we did in Delhi to celebrate
Wikipedia's 11th birthday :)

To start with in the morning, Nitika had connected us with a photography
group called Tassavurati run by Kapil Syal. Shiju, Subha and I went to meet
them (12 of them) and made a small presentation on Commons. They were all
very enthusiastic and wanted to share their images for free and thought
this was a great platform for them. They plan for specific trips like
covering Surajkund mela and marathons etc and could be useful. Some of them
have already made an account and started tinkering around :) (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baul#Present_status)

Back in the office, we had 12 people again! Since most of them were new or
people with basic knowledge, Hisham was updating them on the variety of new
programs that Wikimedia is doing in India. There was a student from IIT and
another from Jamia. Both have expressed interest in organizing meetups,
editathons and maybe a hackathon for their college LUGs. We hope to hear
from them by next week and do something concrete before this month ends.
There were also people from advanced research organizations and such. They
have expressed interest in helping expand and network to build a strong
community in Delhi. Mitra (User: MittyKomon) is a new editor who expressed
interest in going to Jaipur literary festival and perhaps doing some
outreach or at least getting photographs of all the celebrated literary
figures coming there.

We cut the super cool Wiki cake :P and took pictures. I loved the Google
hangout bit, we should all do it more often (it's better than IRC logs :P)

As Delhi SIG  chair, it was heartening to see genuine interest and we hope
to maintain this level of communication.
The photos have been uploaded to Category:Wikipedia_11_in_India.
Thank you,
Warmly

-- 
Noopur Raval
Student
Arts and Aesthetics
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Ph: 9650567690
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Minutes of Wikipedia Mumbai Meetup 14

[Vickram Crishna]

Hi Pranav


On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 10:21 PM,  wrote:

>  Minutes of Wikipedia Mumbai Meetup 14:
>
> Coincidentally, 14 people attended the 14th Mumbai Meetup held at Coffee
> Bean and Tea Leaf, Bandra earlier today :)
>
> *Wikipedia Takes Mumbai 2*
>
> *...
> Wikimania 2013
>
> *Ansuman, Nikita, Karthik and Krutika were strongly in favour of making a
> bid for Wikimania 2013, Mumbai. Mehul said he would be able to help out
> with the internet but not much more. Pradeep, Vickram and myself were not
> so sure. After the WCI experience we felt that a lot more commitment and
> focus was required from the community since bidding for Wikimania is like
> bidding for the Olympics, if we botch up, we put the country to shame.
> Rohini pointed out that another city like (Delhi) or Bangalore could bid. I
> mentioned that I had brought the topic up with community members across the
> country and there was consensus that no city is ready to take on something
> the scale of a Wikimedia as we currently stand.
>
> Pradeep suggested that we should work at the grassroot levels instead,
> aiming at holding regular events locally for the next year, think of 2014
> realistically and involving more people - starting with the photowalk.
> Everyone agreed to this.
> *
> *
>

wrt the W2013 concept, unfortunately due to the higher ambient sound I
don't think everything discussed was captured. What I had said about it was
that it would be a good idea to put in a bid, having learned from you how
the bid for WCI was stewarded.

However, as a major constraint is the lack of committed volunteers with the
freedom to be able to adjust their time to do whatever was necessary, and
that this scenario has been witnessed in most places, it is important to
put in a bid, and then publish a calendar of physical events (such as the
first point, WTM 2). The action of these physical events will help ensure
that sufficient fellowship is created to generate the kind of volunteering
activity needed to make a bid like this meaningful. Of course the point you
have documented, that such things should be done in any case, is also a key
to building a more coherent and practical community.


> *
> *
>

-- 
Vickram
Fool On The Hill 
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