Three day Kumaoni language conference starts from Nov 4 at Pithoragarh

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Three day Kumaoni language conference starts from Nov 4 at Pithoragarh

B.D.Kasniyal

Pithoragarh, Nov 3 A three days conference to promote, Kumaoni dialects and language, is beginning in Pithoragarh town from November 4. The conference has been named as, “Rashtriya Kumaoni Bhasha Sammelan”, as the Kumaoni language lovers are participating in it from across the country.
“We are organising the conference for the first time in Sor valley and aiming to strengthen the Kumaoni language up to the level to get it listed in the eighth schedule of the Constitution,” said Dr Ashok Pant, organiser of conference in Pithoragarh.

According to the organisers, all the efforts are being made to make the conference a success from the points of view of advancement of Kumaoni language.” We have invited scores of linguists, folk culture writers, local literatures and Kumaoni poets, writers, folk singers as well as school students to make the message of conference go wide spread, ” said Dr Pant.

“We have completed all preparations, over 150 Kumaoni language lovers are taking part from all over India. More than 20 guests have already while more are expected to arrive to participate in the conference in the coming two days. We want to take the language to next the generations, for they could be proud of being Kumaoni,” said Dr Pant.

‘Kumaoni Bhasha Sahitya aum Sanskriti Prasar Samiti’ at Kasar Devi, Almora, the organising committee of the conference, said that it aims at coordination between different dialects of Kumaon and to discuss what to be written to make it a constitutional language.” After we started the move to invite the language lovers, we have seen craze amongst the locals and non resident Kumaonis to speak own mother language and now even the writers of Kumaoni origin have now started writing in all forms of literature,” said Hayat Singh Rawat, secretary of Samiti.

According to Rawat, he had started a move to promote the Kumaoni language from the year 2005 and started organising Kumaoni conferences from 2009, after starting a local dialect magazine, “Paharu”.” Till date we have organised 14 language conferences and this is 15th such language conference. We have organised the conferences at Delhi, Faridabad, and Dehradun and plan to hold these in other metro cities in future,” said Hayat Singh Rawat.

Pitambar Awasthi, a Kumaoni language writer who has written a ‘Khand Kavya’ and three other books,’ Parchai’, ‘Bodh Katha’ and ‘Rognasi Jari Butiya’, in Soriyalu dialect, says that Soriyali dialect be taken as a standard language to be incorporated into 8th schedule of constitution .”This dialect of Kumaoni is more akin to Hindi than other dialects of the region,” claimed Awasthi.

Saraswati Kohli, a Kumaoni language editor, who is publishing Kumaoni language magazine, ‘Aadali Kushli’, from last 7 years is hopeful of the outcome of the conference to promote all dialects of Kumaoni language equally. “The people who are silently working towards promotion of Kumaoni dialects be given representation in such conferences ,” said Saraswati.