With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

India's aborigines study, rather than shed, their culture

In a library deep in the western Indian countryside, in an academy surrounded by farms on all sides, five students are writing briskly in their ruled notebooks.

They are in their early 20s and newly enrolled, pimples dotting their faces and polish peeling from their nails.

But there is no discounting the gravity of their assignment: When they complete it, the world will have five more documented languages at its disposal.

One word at a time, they are making dictionaries of languages that they grew up with but that to the outside world scarcely exist. They are oral languages, whose sounds have perhaps never before appeared in ink.
Read entire article at International Herald Tribune