October 12, 2024
October 12, 2024
Staff REPORTER
ITANAGAR, Mar 09: The UNESCO in its recent survey has enlisted 33 languages of Arunachal Pradesh as endangered out of which four are critically endangered and in the verge of extinction, state Art & Culture Minister Dr Mohesh Chai informed the assembly on Thursday.
Responding to a question raised by BJP MLA Gabriel D Wangsu during question hour, Dr Chai informed that according to the survey, 17 languages come under definitely endangered and 12 under vulnerable.
He said the department had so far documented 42 languages covering most of the major and minor tribes of the state.
“The research department has initiated a project ‘Linguistic survey of Arunachal Pradesh’ in the year 2015 and 2016 which is included in the state annual development agenda (SADA) 2016-17,” he said.
Replying to a supplementary from Wangsu, the minister informed that the state government is contemplating to use local language as third language in all schools.
A few languages like Galo, Adi and Bhoti have already been introduced as third language to help their preservation; he said and added that the linguistic survey would help in preservation of languages in the state.
Speaker T Norbu Thongdok informed that during his tenure as minister of the department he had directed the director to prepare dictionaries of each tribe of the state.
Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein who, also holds the finance portfolio while taking part in the debate informed that the government had allocated an amount of five crore to the department for the purpose and strategies would be formulated after thorough discussion and would invite national and internal experts on the subject for suggestions.
