Linguistic survey of India to begin from August 15

The Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) will be embarking upon an ambitious Linguistic Survey of India from August 15 this year to map the languages and dialects spoken by Indians in various parts of the country.

Announcing at a press conference in Mysore near here, CIIL Director Udaya Narayan Singh said the comprehensive survey would begin from the mountainous terrains of North east India, where languages and dialects were on the brink of obscurity.

Later, the teams will move to South and other parts of India. Close to 12,000 personnel will be involved in the gigantic exercise that is expected to stretch to over ten years and cost the country about Rs 5.88 billion.

The comprehensive linguistic survey of India is being carried out nearly 80 years after the first such survey was carried out in the country by Irish philologist Sir George Abraham Grierson in pre-independent India.

Describing Grierson’s survey as a “baseline” study, Singh said many languages spoken in North east India and southern parts of India like the erstwhile Madras Presidency, Hyderabad and princely state of Mysore had not been included in the survey. “We will try to fill up the gap and correct the truncated linguistic picture given by Grierson” he added.

The objective of the comprehensive linguistic survey is to ascertain the total number of Indian languages not represented appropriately in previous surveys. Though the survey will last for ten years, interim reports will start flowing in from the second year, thanks to the advantage of Information Technology, which allows survey and documentation at the same time, he said.