Venkaiah calls for innovative & collaborative efforts to rejuvenate Indian Languages
Hyderabad : Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday called for innovative and collaborative efforts to protect and rejuvenate Indian languages.
Addressing a conference virtually, organised by ‘Telugu Kootami’ on the protection of mother tongues, Mr Naidu stressed that preserving languages and ensuring their continuity is possible only through a people’s movement and said that people must come together in one voice and pool in efforts to pass on our heritage of language to our future generations.
Touching upon various people-driven initiatives needed to preserve Indian languages, the Vice President highlighted the important role translation plays in enriching a language.
He called for increased efforts in improving the quality and quantity of translations in Indian languages.
Mr Venkiah also advised making ancient literature more accessible and relatable to the youth in plain- spoken languages and called for compiling endangered and archaic words in a language from rural areas and various dialects in order to preserve them for posterity.
The Vice President cautioned that if one’s mother tongue is lost, one’s self-identity and self-esteem will eventually be lost. It would be possible to preserve various aspects of our heritage – music, dance, drama, customs, festivals, traditional knowledge – only by preserving our mother tongue, he said.
On this occasion, Mr Naidu lauded the recent initiative of Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, who resolved a 21-year-old marital dispute in an amicable way, by allowing the woman to voice her concerns in her mother tongue, Telugu, when she expressed her difficulty to fluently speak in English.
He said that the case underlines the need for the judicial system to allow people to voice their problems in their native languages in courts and also deliver judgments in the regional languages.
The Vice President also reiterated the importance of imparting education in mother tongue up to primary school level and according priority to it in the administration.
