Doing it the ‘write’ way
and • Ranchi, Jharkhand

15. Doing it the ‘write’ way

Jharkhand's Parahiya, Mal Paharia and Sabar Adivasi communities are drawing on their oral traditions to create grammar books and primers to preserve their endangered mother tongues. A story from PARI's Endangered Languages Project on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

August 9, 2024 | Devesh

The Kolami-speakers of Yavatmal
, and • Yavatmal, Maharashtra

14. The Kolami-speakers of Yavatmal

A community of Kolam Adivasi cotton farmers in this district of Maharashtra speak Kolami, a language that is at risk of dying out. PARI’s Endangered Languages Project (ELP) takes a close look at the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), their livelihood and the challenges to their language

June 14, 2024 | Ritu Sharma

‘My tarpa is my deity’
, and • Palghar, Maharashtra

13. ‘My tarpa is my deity’

Bhiklya Ladkya Dhinda is a Warli Adivasi. The 89-year-old musician lives in Walwande and plays the tarpa, a traditional wind instrument made from bamboo and dried bottle gourd. Listen to the story of his music and faith, as told by him

February 22, 2024 | Bhiklya Ladkya Dhinda

Laad haiko
and • West Singhbhum, Jharkhand

12. Laad haiko

Ho farmer Birsa Hembrom shows us how to make a monsoon fish dish

February 15, 2024 | Rahul Kumar

11. Words: worlds in a grain of sand

On International Mother Language Day, Indian language editors of PARIBhasha bring together a single story of loss and memory told in 14 different voices, each from a different locale

February 21, 2024 | PARIBhasha Team

10. In the beginning was the word: a story in translation

Every story published on PARI sees a reincarnation in 14 Indian languages. The pleasures and pains involved in the process often remain unarticulated. On International Translation Day celebrated on September 30, our Indian language editors engage in a conversation about their experiences

September 30, 2023 | PARIBhasha Team

9. Border crossing: one language, two scripts

Using computer coding that transliterates between two Punjabi scripts, a 90-year-old former BSF commandant reintroduces Gurmukhi to Pakistani Punjab, Shahmukhi to Indian Punjab

July 5, 2023 | Amir Malik

8. Migrant labourers: speaking in borrowed tongues

On February 21, International Mother Language Day, PARI reaches out to migrant workers across India to understand the interplay between land, language and livelihoods in their lives

February 21, 2023 | PARIBhasha Team

Lives and languages hanging by a thread
, and • Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

7. Lives and languages hanging by a thread

In times of divisiveness and hatred, a poet goes looking for the languages of love and liberty. And where else does she end up but in a gossamer of mother tongues rising from silenced histories

February 20, 2023 | Sabika Abbas

Of cursed tongues and towers
, and • Bangalore, Karnataka

6. Of cursed tongues and towers

A passionate debate sparked off by a minister’s earnest appeal for a common national language takes a poet back to the Tower of Babel

November 23, 2022 | Gokul G. K.

5. Unity in heterogeneity, delight in diversity

A team of PARI translators celebrates International Translation Day by diving into the diverse world that we inhabit through and beyond our languages

September 30, 2022 | P. Sainath

4. Every Indian language is your language

Today, September 30, is International Translation Day. The People’s Archive of Rural India publishes in 13 languages – that is, in more than any other journalism website

September 30, 2021 | P. Sainath

3. Learning – lost in translation and migration

From Bhojpuri to Tamil to Marathi – many children like Satyam Nisad, Raghu Pal and Khushi Rahidas struggle to learn a new language and stay on in school every time their parents migrate in search of wage labour

March 6, 2020 | Jyoti Shinoli

‘Think and go slowly. You will get gold’
and • The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

2. ‘Think and go slowly. You will get gold’

Ravi Viswanathan, the son of daily wage labourers in the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu, will soon be the first Alu Kurumba to earn a PhD degree with a thesis that documents his Adivasi community's endangered language

February 18, 2018 | Priti David

Songs of the Sundarbans
and • South 24 Paraganas, West Bengal

1. Songs of the Sundarbans

The songs and dance by the Santal, Munda, Oraon and Ho preserve their languages and bring in an income

December 16, 2016 | Urvashi Sarkar