How a unique Tamil dialect survived among a fishing community in Sri Lanka

Negombo Fishermen’s Tamil, which is spoken by around 50,000 people, has been influenced by Sinhala and sounds different from other dialects in the country.

Ajay Kamalakaran

· Mar 23, 2022 · 11:30 am

Meet the young Indians who are bringing an Adivasi language into the digital age

Ho was languishing on the sidelines of the internet – until a few youngsters took it upon themselves to tear down the digital divide.

Karishma Mehrotra

· Feb 15, 2022 · 01:30 pm

From love songs to kurta ads, Urdu is popular with Indians. Why do Hindutva backers hate it so much?

How long will the nineteenth-century politics of Hindi versus Urdu continue?

Shoaib Daniyal

· Oct 24, 2021 · 09:00 am

How the Mesopotamian word for ‘elephant’ indicates Dravidian language existed in Indus Civilisation

A new research paper shows that it was migration that took the Dravidian languages from the Indus basin to their modern location in South India.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Aug 12, 2021 · 09:00 am

Hindi might not be the national language – but it is growing rapidly across India

This would explain the recent anxieties around Hindi imposition.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Sep 19, 2020 · 09:00 am

An American teacher’s online Malayalam lessons have won her a following even in Kerala

EliKutty, or Eliza Keyton, has brought a fun perspective to learning a language.

Vandana Menon

· Sep 16, 2020 · 06:30 pm

Why is India obsessed with English-medium education – when it goes against scientific consensus?

Several empirical studies support what the New Education Policy is proposing about education in the mother tongue early on, adding English later.

Shoaib Daniyal

· Aug 06, 2020 · 09:00 am

How a Bihari lost her mother tongue to Hindi – but is now trying to get it back

I tried to expel Angika from my life. But it, thankfully, wouldn’t leave me.

Archana Singh

· Jun 30, 2020 · 07:30 am

We’re on ‘coronacation’ while we wait for ‘lexit’: How coronavirus is changing our language

A ‘covidiot’ is someone who ignores public health advice. ‘Zoombombing’ is intrusion into a video call.

Kate Burridge and Howard Manns, The Conversation

· May 12, 2020 · 06:30 pm

A limited vocabulary hinders your ability to express emotions – and to understand them

Sometimes, it’s even used as a tool for social control.

Kaidi Wu, Aeon

· Mar 24, 2020 · 11:30 pm

Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’: How to decode the story’s linguistic secrets

Pullman achieves an eerie blend of familiarity and strangeness through his use of language.

Simon Horobin, The Conversation

· Nov 26, 2019 · 05:30 pm

Want to build a language from scratch? Start with the question who will speak it, and why

It’s impossible to invent a perfect language. But Klingon from ‘Star Trek’ and Na’vi from ‘Avatar’ have shown how context makes all the difference.

Bettina Beinhoff, The Conversation

· Sep 13, 2019 · 05:30 pm