Punjab to conduct survey of six different mother tongues

Chandigarh, October 12, 2012:Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India has embarked upon a plan scheme “Mother Tongue Survey of India’ under 12th Five Year Plan.  Under this Scheme, the mother tongues which were unclassified in 2001 Census are being taken up for survey. A total of 600 Mother Tongues have been earmarked for survey , including 6 from Punjab.

Elaborating the Mother Tongue Survey, Mrs Seema Jain, Director Census, Punjab said that 6 languages have been selected for survey in Punjab for the current year namely Ramdasi, Bhagalpuri, Bhaguri, Bhawalpuri, Peshawari and Bhagri. She said that Field data collection would be conducted by the non-linguists i.e. statistical officials of the Census Directorate by using audio-visual equipments where the entire data elicitation from the actual informant/speaker of the selected mother tongue will be captured using videography. For this purpose, a training has been imparted to the officials where they have been equipped with the necessary skills and orientation to take up the task. The field data collected is being videographed for analysis and archival purpose.

The statistical personnel for the field survey will be accompanied by local guide cum interpreter and videographer. For each Mother Tongue, the data will be collected from a maximum of 8 different informants and the interview of each informant would take about 10 days of time. The questionnaire includes 1562 Wordlist, 543 Sentence list and a Story.  A total of 8 samples will be covered under each Mother Tongue