Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages in India

The Government of India has initiated a Scheme known as “Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India’ (SPPEL), being implemented by Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore. This scheme aims at protection, preservation and documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India which are spoken by less than 10,000 people. Dialects being part of a language are covered under this programme. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has a Scheme for “Establishment of Centres for Endangered Languages” under which centres were approved in respect of nine Central Universities. Further the UGC has been implementing a scheme namely ‘Funding support to the State Universities for study and research in indigenous and endangered language in India’’ under which seven Universities were approved for grants. In addition, a collaborative project between Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda and BHASA, a Non Governmental Organisation working for Promotion and Preservation of Indigenous and Endangered languages was approved by UGC.

This information was given by the Minister of State (HRD), Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey today in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.