NAMSAI, 26 Aug: Arunachal University of Studies (AUS) vice chancellor Prof B Mohan Kumar on Thursday announced the establishment of Dr SM Goel linguistic chair at the AUS here “for the creation and preservation of tribal language scripts and culture with an annual sponsorship of Rs 10 lakhs by the World Education Mission (WEM).”
In his address, Dr Kumar said, “Language is not only a medium of communication among the people but also it is the carrier of knowledge, culture and tradition of any society. Arunachal Pradesh, with its 26 tribes and more than 100 sub-tribes, has very diversified knowledge and culture. It is a matter of concern that majority of the tribes do not have their own scripts for writing. Alternative scripts like Roman, Devanagri and Assamese are inadequate to cater to the needs of the tribal languages.”
In view of this, Bangwang Losu has created the script for the Wangcho language.
He said: “The AUS is planning to utilize the endowment by the WEM for doing research on creating scripts of the Nocte and Tangsa languages initially, and also preserving the literature available in Tai Khamti language (Lik Tai).”
He thanked WEM president Dr Ashwani Lochan for creating the endowment, which he said would benefit the researchers in this field.
