Dispur sitting over HRD letter for 10 years?

‘Dispur, as often as not, speaks of equal development of all and sundry in the State. However, what has made it sit over the letter sent by the HRD for the implementation, sanction and approval of MAN (Tai language) teachers in Karbi Anglong? Had the Centre’s directive been implemented soon after receiving the HRD letter, the speakers of the language would have been benefited. Dispur should have a clear-cut policy to revitalize the endangered languages that are moribund. We want Dispur to honour the letter sent to it by the HRD and implement the MAN (Tai language) in Karbi Anglong in the State.’ —Tai-Speaking Sahitya Sabha

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 26: Assam and other States in the Northeast are States where numerous languages die their untural deaths. Language cannibalism has been ravening in the Northeast. The language policies of the respective States in the region are also responsible, to a large extent, for the extinction of a large number of languages. Dispur is under cloud for, according to allegations, sending endangered languages in the State towards a moribund course.

The Tai-Speaking Sahitya Sabha (TSSS), Balipara has come with an evidence that the speakers of the MAN (Tai language) have been slowly but surely forgetting their mother tongue due to the callus attitude of Dispur. For reasons best known to it only, Dispur, according to the TSSS, has been sitting over a letter sent to it by the Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) for the sanction and approval of MAN (Tai Language) teachers in the Sixth Scheduled areas in Karbi Anglong for the past ten years, since 2006.

MAN (Tai language) is a developed language. It is recognized as a language in Aruchal Pradesh in India, Myanmar, Laos, Vietm, Thailand, Cambodia, Un and Taiwan. “Why the speakers of such a developed language are deprived if reading and learning their mother tongue?” the Sahitya Sabha questioned, and added: “Due to negligence on the part of Dispur, the speakers of MAN (Tai language) have been forgetting their own language.”

The Sahtya Sabha further said: “Dispur, as often as not, speaks of equal development of all and sundry in the State. However, what has made Dispur to sit over the letter sent by the HRD for the implementation, sanction and approval of MAN (Tai language) teachers in Karbi Anglong? Had the Centre’s directive been implemented soon after receiving the HRD letter, the speakers of the language would have been benefited. Dispur should have a clear-cut policy to revitalize the endangered languages that are moribund. We want Dispur to honour the letter sent to it by the HRD and implement the MAN(Tai language) in Karbi Anglong in the State.”

According to a UNESCO report, one language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon their tive tongues in favour of the cannibal languages.