Assam: AASU, NTF digitize critically endangered languages

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The only surviving person—who can speak, write, read, and make others know the Khamyang language in Assam – octogenarian Bhogeswar Thomung said that he is desirous to transfer knowledge of his dying mother tongue people interested to learn the language.    

The endangerment status of the Khamyang language is so critical that in the absence of Bhogeswar Thomung, this language will be wiped out from this linguistic world.

The All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) completed its mission to digital archival of endangered language preservation programme for three critically endangered languages of Assam – Khamyang, Tai Phake, and Singpho.

There are 1,000-1,400 Khamyang people in Tinsukia, Sivasagar and Golaghat districts. While Tai Phake has around 2,000 people in Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts, Singpho has around 9,000 people predominantly in Tinsukia.

To translate its mission into reality, the students’ body signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF) to digitally archive rare literature from endangered languages in Assam under the ambitious digitizing Assam literature project. The digitizing Assam initiative is a collaborative effort between NTF and the Assam Jatiya Bidyalaya Educational and Socio-economic Trust that has already digitized over 2.9 million pages of rare Assamese literature and made their publicity accessible as open-source resources.

Briefing the media, AASU president Utpal Sarma said, “AASU and NTF signed the MoU to digitally preserve all existing books and literature, besides their cultures, community skills, etc. We’re committed to working on the digital preservation of books, languages, and literatures of endangered languages of Assam. In the past eight months, we’ve completed the digital archival of three critically endangered languages—Khamyang, Tai Phake, and Singpho. During the period, we digitized 262 manuscripts and 19,950 manuscript leaves, including key classical text preservation of the Mahabharat and the Ramayana in the Tai Phake language, besides the archival of 350 curated photographs and documenting traditions, rituals, and everyday life.”

He further said, “On the Khamyang language, we digitized 12 manuscripts, 650 manuscript leaves, and 250 curated photographs documenting cultural practice, lifestyle, and community memory.”
The AASU president said, “In the Singpho language, old books and printed literatures have been textually digitized, besides 450 curated protigraphs documenting traditions, rituals and social life.”
They also preserved audio documentation of the three languages.

AASU’s chief adviser, Samujjal Bhattacharjya, said, “We’ve completed the eight-month-long mission. This work will be handy for study and research works. We’ve taken a pledge to work in the same line for the preservation of each and every endangered language of Assam. This campaign is a movement for the preservation and protection of languages.”

On behalf of Nanda Talukdar Foundation, Mrinal Talukdar, and linguist Dr. Palash Kumar Nath, Assistant Professor of ABILAC, Guwahati led the mission.

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