New Delhi, Aug 12: As many as 117 endangered languages/mother tongues, spoken by less than 10,000 people, have been chosen from all over India for study and documentation under a Central government scheme, the Rajya Sabha was informed.
Minister of Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju, in a written reply, said that Bharatavani, a digital knowledge platform dedicated to Indian languages, has represented 77 tribal languages, offering resources across language learning, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and glossaries.
Rijiju said that the Central government is promoting Sanskrit through three Central Universities, which are provided funds as per the requirement and utilisation. The Central government has initiated a scheme known as “Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India (SPPEL) for the preservation of languages, he said.
Under this Scheme, the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, works on protection, preservation and documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India spoken by less than 10,000 people, which are called endangered languages.
The minister said that the policy of the Government is to promote all Indian languages, including classical languages. He said the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) works for the promotion of all Indian languages, including four classical languages like Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia.
IANS