Over a dozen regional languages from around the country that are spoken by Delhiites would soon get dedicated academies to give them a boost, with the Delhi government initiating the project this week.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the Art, Culture and Languages department portfolio, on Thursday directed the Department to start work on a proposal to set up 12 different language academies.
These would be along the lines of existing academies for Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi and Maithili-Bhojpuri.
12 academies
The 12 academies would be for Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Odia, Assamese, languages spoken in Uttarakhand (Garhwali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari), Kashmiri and Marwari.
In his order, Mr. Sisodia said that being the Capital of the country, Delhi was home to people from all over, making it a diverse and cosmopolitan city.
Culture and tradition
“I have found that language academies... play an important role in promoting the languages of different parts of the county. Not only do they promote the language, but also the culture and tradition of different regions of the country,” Mr. Sisodia said.
In fact, he had already made the announcement for more language academies to be set up while presenting the Budget 2017-2018.
The Deputy Chief Minister, who took over the Department earlier this month, had announced earlier this week that the government would boost Sanskrit education by setting up 75 new learning centres under the Sanskrit Academy.