ROURKELA: It is no secret that use of Odia and Hindi has been impacting the mother tongue learning of tribal children in Sundargarh. A Rourkela-based academician Seemita Mohanty has been trying to undo this damage.
Seemita, an English professor in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at NIT-Rourkela, with the help of research scholar of the institute K Viswanath has conceptualised and prepared a multilingual picture word book in six tribal languages for first generation tribal learners in Rourkela.
The languages are Sadri, Ho, Santali, Munda, Khadia and Oraon alongside Odia, Hindi and English. The book ‘Asapadhiba Ama Bhasa’ contains 376 commonly used words with the same meaning in the six tribal languages. The idea, she says, is to equip the first-generation tribal learners with words from the tribal context along with their meaning in Odia, Hindi and English.
“Multilingual education is a pedagogical approach that fosters understanding and appreciation of other cultures and languages. The picture word book enables the tribal children to learn the same word in nine languages in an entertaining way for sustainable multilingualism,” said the academician who was the coordinator of the Centre of Excellence for Tribal Studies at NIT-Rourkela between 2017 and 2022.
She feels intergenerational transmission of languages among tribals is rapidly declining.
Tribal children prefer using dominant languages like Odia and Hindi while conversing at home or school. This is also why many of the tribal languages have become extinct; some others are on the verge of becoming extinct while some are endangered.
While the book was originally intended for first-generation tribal learners, it also helps their teachers in learning meaning of the words in tribal languages, hitherto unknown to them. The book can also be used as a ready reference for professionals working in remote tribal pockets to connect with locals.
Sundargarh is a scheduled district which shares a deep cultural, social and language link with adjacent tribal-dominated states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The six tribal languages are majorly spoken in the three states.
Seemita, who has been an academician for 27 years, had also been working in the field of tribal languages, tradition, culture, heritage and social practices. “Sadri is the tribal lingua franca widely used among the different tribes. We have included words from the tribal context to provide a sense of rootedness and validity to the indigenous practices and heritage. Odia script has been used to write the words of tribal language as the local government school students are more familiar with it. Most of the tribal languages do not have a script of their own and those having their own scripts are not familiar to the general readers,” she said.
The word book is a result of three years of research, which was sponsored by Rourkela Steel Plant. The research project concluded in March this year. More than 3,000 tribal students from Class VI to VIII in schools under the impact areas of RSP have been provided the word books.
A recipient of the prestigious Homi Bhabha Fellowship from the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council, Mumbai, she had also acted as principal investigator to multiple research projects of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Indian Council of Social Science Research and British Council.
