NCERT, CIIL Mysore will launch all 121 Indian language primers by July

NEW DELHI: The primers of 54 languages recently released by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will soon have accompanying audio material for students to learn the right pronunciations and rhythms. The institutions are hoping to release the primers for a total of 121 languages – 22 scheduled and 99 non-scheduled – by July.

On March 9, the union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan released the primers saying they will be crucial for promoting learning in Indian languages, realising the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and holistically transforming school education. Two primers – in Kuwi and Desia, both spoken in Odisha – were released in August, 2023; another 52 were released on March 9.

The latest ones released are primarily for languages from 17 states and include several tribal languages spoken by people of the northeast, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and others. Languages with more than 10,000 speakers are listed as non-scheduled languages.

CIIL, NCERT language primers

The non-scheduled languages for which there are primers, and the states in which the languages are spoken, are listed below.

Language primers and states

NCERT website

The primers which have been uploaded on the NCERT website and, at present, are in the form of a PDF document. According to the officials there will also be flipbooks for them.

The CIIL, which prepared them, said they had the help of teachers, the community members and native speakers in preparing them. Each of the regional language centres of CIIL was given the responsibility of preparing primers.

“Teachers, native language speakers were involved in the preparation of the primers. In some cases the language may be taught in some states and they may have developed teaching learning materials for it. But being prepared at the national level is in consonance with the NEP 2020, which stresses on multilingual education,” Shailendra Mohan, director, CIIL Mysore, told Careers360.

The primers are in bilingual format. For some, the other language is the state language; in others, it is either Hindi or English. The primers have letters, words and also images for children to understand it better.

“If we take a language called Tulu, it is a non-scheduled language spoken in Karnataka. In the primer, Tulu will be written in the Kannada script. We are not saying Tulu is only spoken in Karnataka, but the highest level of population may be in Karnataka,” said Mohan.

But for Angami, spoken by an ethnic group in Nagaland, the other language used is English, considering they follow the Roman script.

Mohan also added that by July, they will be able to complete the primers for all 121 languages.

“In it, we are also preparing primers for each of the states, if the language is spoken in more than one state. For instance, Bhili is spoken in four states. We will be preparing primers of Bhili for Rajasthan, Gujarart, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Children should not feel that it is spoken in just one state,” added Mohan.

Similarly for Santhali, the primers have been prepared for Santhali Odia and Santali Bengali.

There were challenges along the way. “Finding resources was a challenge especially among certain languages. This was the main and the rest were mostly the logistics problems,” said Mohan.

Also read NCERT developing courses for parents, teachers to learn 22 Indian languages

Indian languages and schools

Ramanujam Meghanathan, professor of English in the department of education in languages, NCERT, narrated how the project started.

“The education minister had visited a school in Odisha. When he communicated with the students they could not understand Odia as their mother tongue was different. Hence it was thought that this project should be taken up,” he said. “Linguistically, it is important to document the languages in order to protect them from endangerment. Just because the language does not have a script of its own, as language is primarily spoken, it shouldn’t be taken as a demerit.”

Amarendra P Behera, joint director, Central Institute of Education and Training (CIET), NCERT, told Careers360, “We are sending push messages to all users about such primers being launched. It is also uploaded on the Diksha portal, which already has about 3,50,000 resources in 38 languages. At the end of the month we also conduct a review meeting about DIKSHA implementation and we will be able to get an idea on how many users have read and downloaded them.”

Behera added that they have also written to education secretaries, SCERT and school bodies of the 36 states and union territories asking them to use the resources.

“It is crucial for people to learn them. There is already QR code embedded in the primers already. We also have plans to develop an audio system for it so that the student and teacher can hear and learn. In times to come we will also integrate Artificial Intelligence so that one can easily translate from one language to the other,” added Behera.