Bhubaneswar: The once widespread local language KUVI in states like Odisha and Andhra Pradesh has been listed by UNESCO as an endangered language. To give fresh vibrancy to the language and increase its everyday use, the Deemed-to-be-University Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) organized a workshop here by inviting linguistic experts from the state and outside.
In his welcome address at the workshop titled ‘KUVI Character Set’, KISS Vice-Chancellor Prof Deepak Kumar Behera said that the workshop will try to develop a character set for the KUVI language and introduce commonalities between countries where the language is spoken. He said that the founder of KISS built this wonderful institute to provide free education to all the tribal students.
KISS Secretary Dr. Prashantha Kumar Routray gave his closing remarks at the workshop organized in collaboration with Lenovo Foundation and Motorola. This year, KISS-DU took the KUVI language as its central focus.
UNESCO regularly publishes a list of endangered languages based on a classification system of 5 scales such as: vulnerable, definitely endangered, highly endangered, critically endangered and extinct.
Keeping this in mind, KISS is trying to create an interface where the youth and younger or future generations can get involved and increase the use of their home/mother tongue so that the endangerment of languages can be reversed.