Seven languages spoken in higher hills of Himachal Pradesh are on the verge of extinction. These languages are Baghati, Handuri, Kului, Kinnauri, Pangvalli, Sirmauri and Spiti spoken mainly in Sirmour, Solan, Chamba and Kullu districts and tribal higher hills and tribal snow bound areas of Pangi, Spiti and Kinnaur areas of Himachal Pradesh. At least 197 languages have been classified as critically endangered by the Centre. 

This has been revealed by Union Minister of State for Human Resources Develop-

ment Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey in the lok Sabha.  Pandey further revealed that The Government of India has initiated a Scheme known as ‘Protection and Preservation of Endangered languages of India’ (SPPEl).

Under this scheme, the Central Institute of Indian languages (CIIl), Mysore works on protection, preservation and documentation of all the mother tongues/languages of India spoken by less than 10,000 people.

As of now, CIIl has identified 520 languages in 2014, over 20 universities in seven zones of the country will study around 70 languages. The remaining languages will be researched and documented over a decade, as per

the Scheme.

The Government has also initiated a project known as ‘Bharatavani’ implemented by the CIIl for all languages, especially the languages spoken by more than ten thousand people, in the cyberspace. This project aims to build a searchable knowledge repository in and about all the languages in Indiain multimedia (text, audio, video, images) formats through an online portal.

Census of India surveys found close to 1,600 languages in use in 1961, 108 in 1971 and 122 in 2011. Those spoken by less than 10,000 people were excluded after 1961. Nearly 300 languages have gone extinct in the country since the time of independence.A UNESCO report reveals that while 81 languages are vulnerable and 63 are endangered. According to Indian linguistics, of 380 languages spoken in India and 96 per cent are endangered. In fact, in India only 4 per cent people speak 96 per cent of these endangered languages, while 96 per cent natives speak 4 per cent of the major languages.

Officials say that some critically endangered languages are: Aimol, spoken in Manipur, Bagahti spoken in Himachal Pradesh, Nihali spoken in Maharashtra, Toto in West Bengal and Todo in Tamil Nadu, among others. According to another reports, six tribal languages are severally  endangered that include Majhi in Sikkim; Mahali in Eastern India; Koro in Arunachal Pradesh; Sidi in Gujarat,  42 are critically endangered and five have already been extinct. 

The UGC has launched a scheme ‘Study and Research in Indigenous and Endangered language in India’ and approved grants to the nine Central Universities and six State Universities for Establish-

ment of Centres for Endange-

red language in these Univer-

sities during 12th Plan.