ISI research team collects words for e-dictionary of Kheria Sabar language - Times of India - Dictionary

KOLKATA: For the first time, a digital dictionary is being developed for the aboriginal Kheria Sabar speech community, one of the most endangered and indigenous tribal communities of Bengal, by the Linguistic Research Unit (LRU) of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.
The research team is conducting linguistic field surveys in Purulia to collect words and sentences from the community members for giving examples in the dictionary.
Around 12,000 Kheria Sabars live in Bengal and of them, more than 5,000 live in the three districts of Jangal Mahal (Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore). The British Law had declared the Sabars a “criminal tribe” in 1872. In 1952, they were delisted or denotified. But still, they face the stigma and are one of the poorest tribal communities in the state.
Niladri Sekhar Dash, head of the LRU, said the dictionary will be the first organised lexical resource for the Kheria Sabar speech community. “The Kheria Sabar children have no scope of using their language for studies in school. They are primarily taught through Bengali. It is necessary that these learners know their mother tongue along with Bengali and English,” said Dash, the principal investigator of the project. He added that Kheria Sabar language is one of the most endangered languages in the country.
According to him, the team has already collected 5,000 words and they will be using the Unicode compatible modern Bengali script and language technology to compile the dictionary as this script is taught to the Kheria Sabar learners in schools.
Prasanta Rakshit, president, Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samity, said, “As the community is slowly forgetting their own language, its words and folk tales, this dictionary will help in creating awareness among the Kheria Sabar community about the value of their mother tongue.”

Adblock test (Why?)