UKHRUL: In a progressive collaboration between the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) and Nanda Talukdar Foundation, preservation of three nearly extinct indigenous languages—Khamyang, Singpho and Tai Phake has been completed under the Digitsing Assam initiative.
The project which spanned across eight-months, officially known as Endangered Language Porgramme (ELP)-documented and digitised rare manuscripts, photographs, oral traditions, rituals and everyday languages used within the three communities. The documentation followed endangered-language preservation standards, including guidelines prescribed UNESCO.
The digitised archive formally opened for public access at a press conference addressed by AASU Adviser, Dr Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharyya and AASU President, Utpal Sharma.
Of the three, Khamyang is documented to be critically endangered with only one person, Bhogeswar Thomung a resident of Assam’s Tinsukia district able to fully proficient in the language- speak, read, write and comprehend in its entirety.
The team recognising the urgency carried out intensive textual, visual and audio documentation. 12 Khamyang manuscripts comprising 650 pages were digitised, 540 commonly used phrases were recorded and 250 curated photographs capturing cultural practices and lifestyle were also added.
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For Singpho, despite original manuscripts no longer being available, 450 photographs and 350 recorded speech units were documented.
The Tai Phake language of the three was most extensively documented, digitisation of 19,950 manuscript pages, including classical texts such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, 350 photographs along with 675 core vocabulary units were recorded.
The Khamyang population is estimated at 1,000-4,000, Singpho round 9,000 predominantly in Tinsukia district and Tai Phake at around 2,000, despite so, the functional use of these languages are sharply declining especially amongst the younger generation.
The ELP working towards Digitising Assam has digitised over 2.9 million pages of rare Assamese literary, historical and knowledge resources. The initiative was led by author-journalist Mrinal Talukdar with linguistic guidance from Dr Palash Kumar Nath, Assistant Professor at the Anundoram Borooah Institude of Language, Art & Culture (ABILAC).The programme is also completely sponsored by AASU.