It was only when the national award winning movie ‘Byari’ turned the talk of the town that ‘Byari’, a language confined to only a corner of South India, gained attention in the mainstream. Exploring the need to preserve languages, the Speech Science Research Forum of the Department of Linguistics of Kerala University, has archived 25 languages including ‘Byari’ in audio and video formats, comprising endangered languages. A team of four is behind accomplishing the venture started six months ago, which is set to be released as a CD-ROM in multi-lingual form soon.
“Documentation of a language is necessary for its existence and this archive can be used to study all aspects related to language. As recording has been done in the digital format, it can be accessed any time,” said S A Shanavas, head of the Department of Linguistics.
“The work has been done as an activity of phonetics laboratory of the department. Of the 25 languages, 15 were studio-recorded in Thiruvananthapuram,” said Shijith S, technical officer of the Department of Linguistics, who led the project. The team has prepared a list of 60 questions, based on which they interviewed the native speakers of the language mostly in English and recorded the version they gave in response. “The questionnaire was prepared based on matters that come up for general communication. As the voice of native speakers themselves were recorded, their typical accent could be preserved,” said Vishnudas L, who is part of the research team.
One ‘Byari’ speaker from Coimbatore was identified and recorded the language in both audio and video formats. In search of the language ‘Mygurudu’, the team travelled to Malappuram, where they could pick three old-age people, the native speakers. It is said to have gained popularity during the time of Moplah riots. From Kannur, they got the speakers of ‘Maljalashaba’, said to be a code-language used among wrestlers once. ‘Kumra Bhasha’ was used within the community of potters.
They travelled across India, recorded Himachal Pradesh’s ‘Mantalia’ and ‘Pahari’, Jharkhand’s ‘Kurumali’ and Ladakh’s ‘Pali’ to name a few. Two foreign languages were also archived; the Semitic language of Ethiopia ‘Amharic’ and Greek. These were recorded from two native speakers in New Delhi, who came here as part of their research work.