Noted theoretical linguist and recipient of the Infosys Prize in the Humanities, Prof Ayesha Kidwai today said that India is one of last seven surviving zones of linguistic diversity.

Prof Kidwai was delivering the prestigious Panjab University (PU) Colloquium on the topic of “What we don’t know that we know when we laugh at a Joke: Human knowledge of linguistics”. The Colloquium was organized at the SS Bhatnagar University Institute of Chemical Engineering and Technology (UICET) Auditorium, PU. PU Dean University Instructions, Prof AK Bhandari presided over the public lecture.

Professor of Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU),
New Delhi, Prof Kidwai said that there are atleast four language families in the country. The Tibeto-Burman Language Family being the smallest in terms of population less than 1 percent but the most diverse with 226 mother tongues.

Referring to the UNESCO findings, Prof Kidwai said that over 190 Indian languages are vulnerable. “All these languages are spoken by the poor, the dispossessed the marginal, who have somehow survived to this day on lands that have now been found to mineral rich and coveted by global capital”, she added.

Raising an important point, Prof Kidwai said that the mere documentation of vulnerable Indian languages should not be the goal but the survival of languages in their multilingual ecology should be ensured.

DUI Prof Bhandari appreciated the Colloquia series and welcomed the colloquia speaker at the campus.