News & Events – Page 9 – Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI)

Project oriented to partner organizations

Khowar

We have started meeting with partners in the region and at the third stop of this series we sat with MIER in Chitral. MIER has embarked on a mission, mostly to strengthen the Khowar writing system and our friends in this organization are doing great job. In the meeting, we discussed many things relating to language work. Next sitting will take place in Swat or Gilgit and our friends in our partner organizations in these regions must be looking forward to meeting us. We are lucky to have good and able people in our circle who help us contribute to serving our indigenous languages by supporting our initiatives and sharing their issues with us. We hope that together we will preserve and promote our languages.

Yidgha

FLI team held a meeting with Yidgha language community members in Lotkuh valley of Chitral last week. FLI team assured the participants of the meeting of possible support in further documentation of their language in response to their demand for capacity building in various fields of language work.

Yidgha, one of the highly endangered languages of the area was taken up by FLI some years back and initial literature were produced in the language. Much more needed for the language and that’s the reason FLI visited the area and met with the activists, poets, singers, school teachers, young and senior people from the community to find out ways of cooperation with them. These people, now are aware of the importance of using of their heritage language and it’s hoped that they will work to preserve and promote it. FLI will continue extending to them its technical support.

Gawri and Torwali

In a series of meeting with partners in north Pakistan, FLI held meetings in Swat with the activists and researchers of Gawri and Torwali language communities. The objective of these meetings is to refresh our commitment for our languages and discover new ways for collective measures we will take in future. The Covid-19 situation undoubtedly impacted our plans but we believe that together with our partners we can catch up. #GCDP and #IBT are dynamic arms of FLI whose support has allowed this organization to deliver in the region with ease

Meeting in GB

FLI, together with its partners and other stakeholders has made great progress in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province where five local languages are being taught at primary level as subjects. We are striving for inclusion of more languages in the province and are hopeful that we will eventually achieve the goal of an exclusive educational system in the province. We desire the same process be initiated in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), therefore, we have plans to work in GB and with GB govt.

For the purpose we have started meeting with stakeholders from the region. We, together with our friends in GB are hopeful to succeed.

Gojri

The Gojri Language & Culture Society (GLCS), one of FLI’s partner CBOs in Pakistan has an innovative project of mobile schools. We held a meeting with people of this CBO last week in Abbotabad and discussed ways of cooperation in future. They are doing wonderful job to educate the community children on one side and promote their culture on the other.

December 17, 2020/0 Comments/by ejaz@fli-online.org

Covid-19 explained in Burushaski language

How to stay safe, and protect our dear ones from the Pandemic Covid-19 is explained in the Burushaski Language. Burushaski, an isolate by virtue of language classification is spoken in the Gilgit-Baltistan. FLI has developed this message in 15 indigenous languages of the area to create awareness in the communities regarding the disease. Please share our 3rd of the series.

Watch video message on Facebook

December 17, 2020/0 Comments/by ejaz@fli-online.org

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Covid-19 Awareness Message in Kalasha

How to stay safe, and protect our dear ones from the Pandemic Covid-19 is explained in the Kalasha Language. Spoken in the Kalash valley of Chitral-KP, Kalasha is one of the indigenous languages of the region. FLI has developed this message in 15 languages of the area including Kalasha to create awareness in the communities regarding the disease. Please share our first of the series.

Watch video on Facebook

December 17, 2020/0 Comments/by ejaz@fli-online.org

News & Events

GB Education Minister hails FLI’s language dev services

Mr. Sanai pledges to support FLI’s endeavors for preservation of the languages spoken in the Gilgit-Baltistan.

“Preservation and promotion of indigenous languages are great services as our languages are inevitable components of our cultural and linguistic diversity”, this was stated by the Minister for Education of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) who visited FLI’s office Islamabad today (Jan 30, 2020), and added that the appreciable services of FLI will serve the unique cultures of northern Pakistan long into the future. Mr. Sanai met with FLI team members and appreciated the organization’s effort. Earlier he was introduced to the FLI team members and briefed about the future programs. Mr. Sanai resolved to extend his support to the language development works in GB and pledged to play his positive role in enhancing the initiatives of GB government for languages. The honorable minister also applauded the publication work of FLI and expressed his happiness while observing books FLI has published in various indigenous languages of north Pakistan. Mr. Sanai hails from FLI’s target region, and speaks Balti language. Balti is classified among Tibeto-Burman group of languages, spoken in Baltistan region of GB and FLI has had many interventions for development of this language in the past. FLI has also prepared many programs for strengthening this language in the near future and it hopes to enjoy the good support of GB leadership during implementation process of its programs.

January 30, 2020/0 Comments/by Administrator

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Shekhani language; the 20th language FLI takes up

FLI reaches another milestone by taking up the Kataviri language, the 20^th language the organization has targeted to preserve and promote. FLI conducted a survey during the second week of October in Shekhandeh, Bamburet- Chitral to find out what was the exact status of orality, identity and literacy of the language among the community by using of its famous tools, the Sustainable Use Model (SUM). Six to eight people including young, aged and learned people from the Kati community attended the sessions throughout the six days. The Kataviri language was found vigorous in orality with strong position on identity scale but lagging behind in literacy. Currently, the language lacks a writing system.

The Kataviri language is spoken in hilly peripheries of Chitral valley, sharing the borders with Afghanistan from where the speakers immigrated to the area some 130 years back. The areas the language is spoken include Shekhandeh, Gobor, Langorbat, Badugal, Urtsun etc. in Chitral. The language is called Shekhani by locals which is a group name of Nooristani languages spoken in Chitral; Kataviri and Kamviri, however the native speakers like to be identified as Kati speakers.

Based on the survey outcomes, FLI is planning to strengthen the language in literacy area by helping the community in placing a writing system for their language. For the purpose the basic orthography and writers’ workshop for the community people will be held who will be turning their purely oral language into a written one. FLI has so far enabled hundreds of people from 19 language communities in northern Pakistan to document and develop their native languages and Shekhani is the 20^th language FLI has started to develop by enabling its speakers in language documentation.

October 24, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator

News & Events

Shekhani language; the 20th language FLI takes up FLI reaches another

FLI reaches another milestone by taking up the Kataviri language, the 20^th language the organization has targeted to preserve and promote. FLI conducted a survey during the second week of October in Shekhandeh, Bamburet- Chitral to find out what was the exact status of orality, identity and literacy of the language among the community by using of its famous tools, the Sustainable Use Model (SUM). Six to eight people including young, aged and learned people from the Kati community attended the sessions throughout the six days. The Kataviri language was found vigorous in orality with strong position on identity scale but lagging behind in literacy. Currently, the language lacks a writing system.

The Kataviri language is spoken in hilly peripheries of Chitral valley, sharing the borders with Afghanistan from where the speakers immigrated to the area some 130 years back. The areas the language is spoken include Shekhandeh, Gobor, Langorbat, Badugal, Urtsun etc. in Chitral. The language is called Shekhani by locals which is a group name of Nooristani languages spoken in Chitral; Kataviri and Kamviri, however the native speakers like to be identified as Kati speakers.

Based on the survey outcomes, FLI is planning to strengthen the language in literacy area by helping the community in placing a writing system for their language. For the purpose the basic orthography and writers’ workshop for the community people will be held who will be turning their purely oral language into a written one. FLI has so far enabled hundreds of people from 19 language communities in northern Pakistan to document and develop their native languages and Shekhani is the 20^th language FLI has started to develop by enabling its speakers in language documentation.

October 24, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator

News & Events

Literacy Day Observed in N.Pakistan

UNESCO has been celebrating September 8 every year as International Literacy Day to draw the world’s attention towards eradication of illiteracy from the world. FLI has been observing this day together with its partner organizations in their respective areas. This year the event was sponsored by FLI in three language communities of northern Pakistan; Palula in Chitral, and Gawri and Torwali in Swat. The respective community organizations invited community elders, opinion makers, influencers, prayer leaders, students and parents to the event and used the opportunity for awareness raising. Speakers shed light on the importance of literacy, especially among women focusing on literacy in the mother tongue. The community elders were also provided chance to speak on the occasion who pledged to support FLI’s and its partner organizations’ vision to empower our communities by equipping them with education. This event has become a regular part of our literacy ventures in our target area which provides our partners the opportunity to meet maximum community people and cement their relationship with them.

September 19, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator

News & Events

Language Documentation Workshop in Chitral

Mother Tongue Initiative for Education and Research (MIER), a local language development organization in Chitral held a Language Documentation workshop in collaboration with FLI in Chitral yesterday. The chairperson of linguistic department of the University of North Texas, Ms Sadaf Munshi facilitated the training. More that twenty participants who represented seven languages, spoken in Chitral benefited from the event.

The detailed news, published in a local online newspaper can be read by CLICKING HERE

July 8, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator

News & Events

FLI builds the capacity of Textbook developers/ reviewers

Four languages of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province are being covered this year under the capacity building training by FLI. These languages have been taken up by the KP Govt to include in govt school curriculum. First training took place in Chitral in the last week of June 2019, for Khowar speaking government school teachers. Next training will be for Hindko, then for Pashto and lastly for Seraiki language will be held in their respective areas. The participants will be reviewing the textbooks to be developed in their languages.

For detailed news, published in a local online newspaper CLICK here

July 4, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator

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Language Vitality Survey for Burushaski language concludes

A language vitality survey for Burushaki speech community of Taus, Yasin valley in Ghizer district of Gilgit Baltistan was conducted from June 12 to 17, 2019 under Sustainable Use Model (SUM) workshops. The aim was to see how much the language was sustainable in areas of Orality, Identity and Literature in the above said speech community. The Burushaski, considered as an i[i]solate language by the linguists, spoken by more than [ii]70,000 people in the Hunza and Ghizer areas of GB is one of the literary languages of this country as good amount of religious literature for Ismaili sect of Islam has been developed by some local preachers. According to www.ethnolongue.com the total speakers of this language are estimated to be more than 110,000 people. However, the language faces some issues regarding the standardization of orthography in GB. Different groups use different writing systems to document their heritage language which hinders the promotional work within the community. In addition, the Burushaski language has been surrounded by the Khowar language and Burushaski speaking children are found to be simultaneous [iii]bilingual which pose great threat of language shift.

The workshop was attended by five participants who later on conducted the survey in the community. This was first ever intervention of FLI for Burushaski language. The GB government has started initiatives to make the local languages including Burushaski as part of the primary school curriculum and FLI is optimistic to support this initiative. The need of holding a Writers’ Workshop was felt during the workshop which was also demanded by the participants. FLI will proceed with this demand once the GB government resolves the issues relating to this language’s writing system.

[i] www.ethnolongue.com

[ii] Participants of the workshop

[iii] Participants’ community survey

June 25, 2019/0 Comments/by Administrator