HYDERABAD: A former Osmania University linguistics department professor has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent a tribal language from becoming extinct. Remosam is an endangered language spoken by a small group of 10,000 members of a Primitive Tribal Group in Odisha, named Remo.
The project to save Remosam from extinction has been granted financial support by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) and is headed by Professor K Ramesh Kumar from OU.
Low literacy rate
The main motive behind developing script for Remosam is that most of its speakers live in the backward district of Malkangiri in Odisha. There have been efforts to boost the literacy rate among the Remo which is just 28.4 percent.
Professor K Ramesh Kumar, who is now retired from OU, said, “As Oriya is the medium of education in government schools, it becomes very difficult for Remo children to come out of isolation and grapple an alien language.
However, documenting Remosam and giving it the Oriya script makes it possible to publish textbooks from which Remo kids can study in primary school. They will learn Oriya along with it gradually.”
Prof develops Remosam dictionary
Kumar has developed a 2,000 word Remosam - Oriya - English - Hindi dictionary and also a 500 word picture dictionary for Remo.
There are plans to launch the dictionary as part of the Osmania University Centenary Celebrations this month.