Morung Express News
Dimapur | December 1
During Financial Year 2020-21, the North East Council (NEC) had sanctioned 4 projects amounting to Rs. 3.49 crore to study to “document and preserve languages” of the North East Region including Ntyenyi from Nagaland, the Rajya Sabha was informed on December 1.
The Union Minister of State, for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai gave the information in a written reply to unstarred question in the Upper House of the Parliament on whether the Government has done any study regarding which languages are endangered, and steps taken to document and preserve all the local languages and dialects of North-Eastern States.
“Study of various languages/scripts of NE States and measures to revive the lost languages /scripts is one of the mandated areas as per North Eastern Council (NEC) General Guidelines 2020,” the MOS stated in the reply.
Apart for the Ntyenyi of the Rengma Nagas, other languages included in the project were Khongdei (Manipur); Zyphe (Mizoram); Nah, Brokpa, Ashing, Bogun and Bokangs (Arunachal Pradesh), Bantawa, Kulung and Limbu (Sikkim) and Atong, Fahirem/Sahirem, and Lyngngam (Meghalaya).
Incidentally, in the State-wise details of the number of regional languages NE provided in the reply, Hindi was designated as the “languages/dialects” only in the States of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland.
In addition, while most tribal languages were mentioned for other states, in the case of Nagaland, the details provided listed only English, Hindi, Nagamese and Other Tribal dialects.
