There is a trend of ignoring the various mother languages just by terming them a dialect", said Professor Sandhya Singh, Head of Department of Education in languages at National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). As she emphasised upon the importance of giving due recognition to various mother languages in order to save them from extinction, on the occasion of "International Mother language Day" celebrated each year on February 21.
This day is observed every year as a mark of recognition of right of every linguistic community to use their mother tongue for their schooling and other functions in the society to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. UNESCO, which is celebrating International Mother language Day for nearly 20 years, aims at preserving it and promoting mother tongue-based multilingual education.
She told that if the 'apathy' against the local languages in India continues it will lead to extinction of nearly 400 languages in the next 50 years. She said that NCERT is making all out effort in conserving the mother languages and it is also reflected in National Curriculum Framework (NCF-2005).
She said that the mother languages can be saved from extinction by making documentaries and films in local mother languages, by documentation , by including them in course curriculum upto certain extent and by doing research on these languages. "Especially the tribal languages can be saved from being extinct by documentation. A lot of work is still need to be done regarding this," said Professor Sandhya.
Present on the occasion were Director NCERT Professor Hrushikesh Senapaty, Padma Shri awarded poet and author of Dogri language Padma Sachdev, Poet and author Dr. Anamika, Dean Academic NCERT Saroj Yadav, Dr. Neelkanth and Junior Project Fellows Shikha, Rabya and Kavya among others.