Barely four people, the oldest among them a 70-year-old tribal, speak a language which is on the brink of extinction. Spoken in a tiny village in Tripura, ‘Saimar’ has been identified as a “severely” endangered language.
The old man, Sukurthang Saimar, who was the guest of honour at the 44th Foundation Day of the Central Institute of Indian Languages here, was overjoyed when he was honoured by eminent linguists on Tuesday.
Welcoming Mr. Saimar, CIIL Deputy Director, R. Subbukrishna, said: “This small group of Saimar-speaking people has sent Sukurthang to Mysore, as CIIL wanted to collect data from him [through a translator] on the language for its archive.”
According to CIIL, the four Saimar-speaking persons belong to an isolated tribe.
Nandakumar Deb Burman, president, Kokborok Sahitya Sabha, Tripura, who brought the septuagenarian, along with his grandson, to Mysore, said Mr. Saimar is one among the 18 groups of the Halam tribe.
Mr. Burman, who is involved in Bhasha Mandakini with CIIL, said he could understand the Saimar language, but couldn’t speak it. There is little dialectical difference in the languages spoken by the 18 Halam groups.
He said Saimar is spoken only at Gantachera village. The people speaking this language are agricultural labourers and farmers. “Saimar is hard to speak because some of the words are difficult to pronounce.”
In 2009, there were approximately 25 Saimar-speaking tribals, and today only four are remaining — Mr. Sukurthang Saimar, his wife, grandson and a senior lady.
Mr. Sukurthang Saimar became emotional when he was asked to address the gathering in his language. He came to the podium and spoke in a loud voice. Though he spoke a few words, the message (translated into English by Mr. Burman) was very strong.
“My language and community are in danger. I appeal to the people of this country to help protect and preserve my language,” he said.
Keywords: Saimar, endangered language, CIIL
To Manabendra,
I believe you are trying to say that rubber cultivation is changing Tripura climate. Thats absurd, rubbish and lack any scientific proof. Some Tripura Bongs have invented this rubbish theory that rubber cultivation changes the climate and hence trying to create some sort of confusion in the minds of Tripuri folks who would primarily benefit from rubber cultivation. To the issue of the development of tribals not being upto the mark, its mostly to do with their exploitation by the majority refugee population from nearby Bangladesh than anything to do with royal rule. Tripuris were way better off during the Manikya kings' rule and they enjoyed immense political power and economic prosperity then. Its only after refugee population overwhelmed the native Tripuri people that they are marginalized and a lot poor today.
I am indeed grateful to have learnt this sheer act of humanity. On the other hand I am also ashamed...of me.. being a Halam did not knew about this particualar community before.
Thanks to Mr. Nanadakumar, the CIIL's team and ofcourse the The Hindu for their humane contribution.
After reading Manabendra’s letter I feel how different is the requirement of every place in matter of development and how ill equipped is our administrative cadre and business who have been brainwashed on only one uniform view about it resulting in destroying the serenity of places and people
Every language has its own importance,history and culture.Today in
India many languages are becoming extinct as people started to prefer
languages which enable them to sustain in this world of
competition.One thing that we have to remember is what ever might be
the language it is just used to communicate,so there is no need to
abandon your mother tongue to make a better livelihood.There is
nothing wrong in speaking other languages but abandoning mother
language in which you would have first spoken to your mother,father
and your family seems to be not good.Its time to revive several
beautiful languages of India which are becoming extinct.''Abandoning
mother tongue is abandoning mother''.
Wow. This is surely an interesting news. Glad to hear that something
is being done to preserve the language.
Meanwhile, here is a sentence from the article - "There is little
dialectical difference in the languages spoken by the 18 Halam
groups." This means that there is no dialectical difference in the
language spoken by the 18 groups. Was this what the author wanted to
convey? Or did he/she mean "a little difference"? If he/she meant the
latter, I request you to correct it. Such grammatical errors are
sadly becoming more frequent in The Hindu. Let us not butcher the
existing languages as we try to revive the endangered ones!
Swamped by refugees during partition, the indigenous population in Tripura is a minority. The new settlers drove them away to the hills from the valleys. Abuses followed. Militancy (TNV and then ATTF) resulted. One day, even the Kokborok language might be in danger of becoming extinct.
I am a permanent resident of Tripura, one of the smallest state in the 7 sisters of the NE Region as well as in the country. A zero polution quiet peaceful having its capital Agartala, the population is more than 32 lakhs. I am proud of my state. It's so nice and peaceful with green forest.The hilly tribal people are very very much lovable though since the rule of Maharaja, economic upliftment particuarly in the remote tribal areas are not up to the mark, but it is also fact that due to the geographical discomfortness of hilly areas and due to scaterdly living of the tribal hilly people, it took time to reach development process at thd door steps. As per example water supply line in a hilly area is not possible, and bore well or otherwise is also not useful. More over, due to indiscriminate rubber cultivation, average rainfall has become downgraded thereby hot tempreture exists.Remote tribal people were mainly dependant on shifting i.e.JHUM cultivation now interested in rubber. Come
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