Srinagar- A two International Conference on ‘India as a Linguistic Area with Special Reference to the Non-scheduled Languages’ commenced in the Department of Linguistics, University of Kashmir on Wednesday.
The conference is being organized in collaboration with the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru and Society for Endangered and Lesser Known Languages, Lucknow.
The inaugural session, held at Gandhi Bhawan, University of Kashmir, was presided over by the Controller of Examinations, Dr. Majid Zaman who appreciated the department for undertaking such academic endeavors which are relevant with regard to the teaching and learning of languages. Dr. Zaman highlighted the role of linguistics in technology, especially machine translation.
Head, Department of Linguistics Prof. Aejaz Mohammed Sheikh talked about the theme of the conference. He informed the audience that the call for papers for the conference got a huge response from across the country and the department had to limit the acceptance to only 37.
The keynote address was delivered by Prof. Pradeep Kumar Das, Chairman, Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, who shared valuable insights on the significance of revitalization of non-schedule languages. He talked about different strategies that are relevant for documenting the lesser known languages.
Prof. Das also deliberated upon the steps that are needed for standardizing these languages in order to implement NEP which lays emphasis on the utilization of local languages/ mother tongues as media of instruction at the school level.
Prof. Kavita Rastogi, Director Society for Endangered Languages talked about various activities undertaken by the society. She thanked the department of Linguistics for hosting the conference. Prof. Muhammad Jehangeer Warsi, Chairman, Department of Linguistics, AMU, Aligarh and President, Linguistic Society of India talked about the significance of lesser known languages in that they are treasure houses of indigenous knowledge and with loss of a language, the treasure gets lost.
He also talked about the steps the Linguistic Society of India, the prestigious association established in 1928, is taking in this regard.
The conference is being attended by more than 40 delegates from different parts of the country including AMU, Aligarh, JNU, BHU, Nagaland University, University of Gujarat, Mumbai University, etc.
Besides three plenary lectures, scheduled to be delivered by Prof. Kavita Rastogi and Prof. Kakali Mukherjee and an online lecture by Prof. Shobanna Chelliah from Indian University, USA is part of the schedule of the conference.
Dr. Sheeba Hassan, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics conducted the proceedings and Dr. Saima Jan, Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, presented vote of thanks.
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