Making endangered languages more accessible

Karnataka’s tourism tagline is, ‘One state, many worlds’. But what attracts little discussion is the many languages within the many worlds of the State. The Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF), in its

Karnataka’s tourism tagline is, ‘One state, many worlds’. But what attracts little discussion is the many languages within the many worlds of the State.

The Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF), in its landmark tenth edition this year, opened here on Saturday with ‘Multilingualism and endangered languages’ as a dominating theme. The highlight of this year’s festival is a series of panel discussions around the theme, ‘The Many Language Worlds of Karnataka,’ with writers and those fluent in languages such as Tulu, Konkani, Kodava takk, Koraga, Dakhani Urdu, Byari, Navyati, Kundapra Kannada, Halakki Kannada, Sanketi and Havyaka.

In one such session on ‘Scripting a future for endangered languages,’ panellists highlighted the need for making scripts of endangered languages more accessible to speakers. Writer Kaveri Ponnappa, speaking about Kodava takk, said endangered languages need more speakers, and rather than a new script, you need a script that is more accessible to speakers. Advocating a script that reaches the maximum number of speakers and increasing its scope, she said Kodavas have a considerable task - not only for for those who live abroad, but also live in other parts of India who are no longer learning the Kannada script.