What is language extinction?
When speakers of a language stop speaking it or shift to other languages due to socio-political reasons, this condition is known as language extinction. Along with a language, culture linked to it also gets extinct; therefore it is more like extinction of a whole different race.
How many languages are about to extinct?
The Census of India 2001 lists 122 major and 1599 other languages out of which only 22 scheduled languages get major coverage. Recent studies show speakers of other languages shifting to these languages at an alarming rate. If this continues, by 2025 only a handful of languages will be left. This means that every 69 languages out of 70 are on the verge of extinction.
How we are making a change?
We make people aware of the importance of their mother tongue, culture, and help develop resources, tools and technologies for their language so that world knowledge is available on their finger tips in their own language. Once this is done, there is no need to shift to other languages.
OUR APPROACH
Awareness programs
Awareness programs are our first contact with the speakers of a language. These help people understand the importance of their mother tongue, hence they work as the prime key for all other operations.
Resource creation
Creating resources is the prime thing to protect or rejuvenate a language. Until there are rich resources available in a language, no steps can be taken further for its upliftment. We develop machine readable written and speech corpus so that it can be utilized for various tasks.
Tool and Technology development
Information technology is advancing so far by leap and bounds and languages around the globe need to be prepared in various aspects in order to get the best out of it. We make sure that all languages are ready for it in every way, so that tools and technologies can be developed for upliftment of such languages and speakers related to them.
