Living Tongues: Building translation communities to share culture with other parts of the world – Viki for linguistic diversity

Rose Eveleth, The Atlantic, Sep 23 2014 | To read the full article, click here >> An online-media company has teamed up with linguists to preserve endangered tongues.[…] Viki has teamed up with the the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages to encourage those who speak endangered languages to contribute their own translations of the shows. They’re currently adding projects … Read more

Tip | “Performing Identities: Celebrating Indigeneity in the Arts”: A book on local knowledge forms of indigenous communities across continents

Performing Identities brings together essays by scholars, artists and activists engaged in understanding and conserving rapidly disappearing local knowledge forms of indigenous communities across continents. It depicts the imaginative transactions evident in the interface of identity and cultural transformation, raising the issue of cultural rights of these otherwise marginalized communities. About the Authors G. N. Devy … Read more

The Adivasi way of life: Utopian or worth emulating by ‘mainstream’ society? – An ongoing debate

Anyone who has had some meaningful interaction with India’s indigenous or adivasi people, cannot fail to be touched by the encounter. There is a directness in them, an absence of artifice or guile, an almost childlike innocence, born of simplicity combined with a lack of greed and avarice. The more interior and untouched a village, … Read more

“Speech communities deserve dignity and respect”: Linguist Prof. Ganesh Devy on ways to avoid “global phonocide” – UNESCO lecture

Indigenous languages by GANESH N. DEVY | Full text | Backup (PDF, 100 KB)Excerpts from the modified version of the text of UNESCO lecture, October 2008 RECOGNIZED as ‘Aborigines’ in Australia, as ‘Mâori’ in New Zealand, as ‘First Nations’ in Canada, as ‘Indigenous’ in the United States, as ‘Janajatis’ in India, or as ‘tribes’ in … Read more

Tribal Knowledge Systems, Values and Traditions: Papers presented for “Tribes In Transition-II: Reaffirming Indigenous Identity Through Narrative” (National Conference)

Sandesha Rayapa-Garbiyal presented a paper titled “Runglwo: Undergoing a much-awaited Paradigmatic Shift.” Runglwo is one the most endangered languages in India. There are only 8000 people who speak this language in three valleys: Chaudas, Darma and Byans. People migrate according to seasonal changes. The language faces acute problems of survival due to the influence of Hindi … Read more