Languages & linguistic heritage

“Nations don’t make us human – languages make us human [and] behave like civilised beings.” – Ganesh [G.N.] Devy (co-founder, People’s Linguistic Survey of India) in a video interview (Scroll.in, 25 November 2017)
https://www.facebook.com/scroll.in/videos/1600744976675043/
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=24320

Did the Indus Valley Civilisation script remain “elusive because no one has attempted to study the script using Gondi symbols and language”? – Karnataka

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New findings raise an old question: Do South Indians belong to the Indus Valley Civilisation? Around two kilometres away from the famous Vittala Temple in Hampi, Karnataka, [a]round 10 years ago, KM Metry, a Kannada University professor of Tribal Studies who was researching instances of human-bear conflict in the area and visiting sites in search … Read more

Evidence suggesting a Gondi-Harappan link (Indus Valley civilisation, 2500 B.C.–1750 BC): Pictographs deciphered with the help of a proto Dravidian tribal language – Karnataka

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The sentence emerged after a set of 19 pictographs from a cave in Hampi were deciphered using root morphemes of Gondi language, considered by many eminent linguists as a proto Dravidian language. Eleven of the Hampi pictographs resemble those of the civilisation, according to Dr. K.M. Metry, Head and Dean, Social Sciences, Kannada University, Hampi; … Read more

Keyboards and messaging applications for the Gunjala Gondi script, “the most written official languages of India if Gondwana existed in one piece”

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Swathi Vadlamudi, The Hindu, Hyderabad | Read the full story here >> Gunjala Gondi script, which could have easily been among the most written official languages of India if Gondwana existed in one piece, now has a calendar in its repertoire. This is another step towards popularisation of the relatively obscure Gondi alphabet, after its … Read more

Vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region: Overcoming marginalisation of culture and literature

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The poets from the north-eastern region have to meet the double challenge of truth and liberty, of identity and unity, of cultural loss and recovery, of ethnic specificity and aesthetic universality. ONLY in the last one decade or so has the vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region written in many languages, including English—Assamese perhaps … Read more

Tip | Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia

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This encyclopedia addresses the religions of a category of South Asians known as tribals, Ādivāsīs (“First Inhabitants”; or Janajātis, lit. “Class of People”; see also below), and, more recently, indigenous peoples. The three terms, “tribal,” “Ādivāsī,” and “indigenous peoples” are related, but have their own trajectories; they have come into use at different times and … Read more