A seminar on “Documentation of Zanskari Language and Revitalization” was organised by Government Model Degree College (GMDC) Zanskar on August 6.

The seminar aimed to raise awareness within the Zanskari community, specifically targeting college undergraduate students, regarding their language.

In continuation of the project, Maaz Ahmad Shaikh, a Linguistics Research Scholar, University of Alberta, Canada, presented a detailed presentation on the topic.

He explained various scientific methods to record audio and video and emphasized that language is an identity of a society and through a particular language, various useful information including, history, traditions, customs and traditional knowledge of that area could be gained and shall add in the pool of knowledge. Shaikh said every language has its structure, grammar, value and ethics.

He explained the importance of documentation of language by quoting an example of a tribe in North Africa, where a 75-year-old man who speaks a particular language was left alone and the language exists with the man.

He further added that Zanskari language is listed as endangered by some authors and researchers. Around 10,000- 13,000 people speak Zanskari language and the migration of peoples for education, business etc. towards Leh, Kargil, Manali and other parts of India are bringing an appreciable shift in the language.

The speaker said shifting and mixing in a dialect is inevitable but at the same time preservation and revitalization of a vernacular language is very important.

The speaker emphasized that the whole documentation and revitalization of Zangskari language is impossible without community involvement and enumerated the students to contribute to documenting the Zanskari language.

He apprised the audience of how the documented materials will be archived at the Computational Resources of South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive of the University of North Texas. It is a digital archive for source audio, video, and text on the minority languages of South Asia.

Dr Jamphel Sheyan, Assistant Professor introduced the speaker and conducted the program proceedings.