1. WATCH | How Karnataka’s Soliga community is protecting its language from erasure
In India, one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, around 197 languages are now endangered while over 200 languages have gone extinct in the last 50 years. If not actively preserved, the Soliga language could be in danger of extinction too, believe the community’s elders. The Soliga, also spelt Solega, are a group of indigenous, forest-dwelling people with around 40,000 of them living in Karnataka, mostly in and around B.R. Hills in Chamarajanagar district.
Like many indigenous people around the world, the Soligas’ unique traditions and culture, including language, are fast-eroding, due to changing lifestyles, exposure to the outside world, limited access to forests and their products, social hegemonies, ecosystem degradation and cultural alienation among the youth. ‘Soliga Sounds’, an alphabet chart developed by the youth of this community, could serve as the first step towards “documentation to revive” the community’s language and knowledge systems.
