Government must provide funds to uplift Shina language: Ex Div Com
Farooq Shah
SRINAGAR: The State Council of Educational Research and Training
(SCERT), Kashmir Division, Tuesday invited many Shina language experts to
participate in a three-day workshop entitled "Shina Language Script
Learning" in Gurez—a valley located
in the north Kashmir's Bandipore district some 123 kilometres from here.
The 'Education in Languages' Wing of the SCERT had rushed in a team of academic officers to train some 35 participants in content development in Shina language—a provision enshrined in the newly introduced education policy aka NEP-2020.
Former Divisional Commissioner Kashmir and Director School Education
Kashmir, Masood Hassan Samoon, who is a native of Gurez and is well-versed with
Shina language, was the guest of honour at the event. Other language experts
included a former Zonal Education Officer, Niyaz Ahmad Mapnoo and a Pratham NGO
activist, Bilal Ahmad Sheikh besides academic officer, SCERT, Ashfaq Anjum.
The workshop, which is being conducted at Boys Higher Secondary School,
Dawar, was earlier inaugurated by Principal Secretary, School Education, B K
Singh via Zoom. Director SCERT, J&K, Professor Veena Pandita, also attended
the event from her Jammu office.
Highlighting the importance of mother tongue, B K Singh stressed upon
the participants to uplift Shina in a manner that it becomes a guiding force
for the entire Shina community.
“Mother tongue is provides a
definite shape to our emotions and thoughts,” Singh said. “Learning in your
mother tongue is crucial in building up of other skills namely critical
thinking, learning a second language etc.”
Prof Pandita said that mother tongue has a huge influence in defining
the personality of an individual. “It’s not a healthy sign to learn any
language on the expense of your mother tongue,” She said. “Knowing your mother
tongue is a matter of pride that helps you connect with your cultural identity
in a better manner.”
NEP 2020, Prof Pandita said, stresses on learning mother tongue along
with other languages. “Early schooling in a child's mother tongue can improve
learning, increase student participation and help reduce the number of dropouts,”
she said.
While underling the causes why it couldn’t develop into a full-fledged
language, Masood Samoon lamented the lack of a proper script of Shina language
for the documentation purpose.
“Largely, it remained confined
to some of the inaccessible pockets among many mountainous regions,” Samoon
said. “Moreover, it’s a pretty difficult language and all the previous attempts
to frame its script failed due to many reasons.”
A successful script, he said, is the one that has computer compatibility
and sadly Shina can’t be written on a computer.
“We need to introduce the
learning of Shina language via some android app which has a tri-lingual
facility to make the words, phrases and sentences understand easily with audio
and video help,” Samoon recommended. “I can work as a think-tank only but the major
component would be to finance such project.”
He said he has already worked on the grammar component of Shina
language and is currently dedicating his time on building its dictionary.
“I’ve already prepared the
textbooks for the grades 4, 5 and 6,” Samoon said. “Because the task ahead is
gigantic, it would invariably require a total commitment from all the
stakeholders in preparing the textbooks from grade 1 to 12.”
The workshop will go on for another two days wherein the participants
shall learn more on how the language would be taken on board to frame textbooks
for Shina speaking children.
Dr Shabnum from the SCERT, Kashmir Division, coordinated the workshop.
Shina is a language from the Dardic sub-group of the Indo-Aryan family spoken by the Shina people and there still is not a standard orthography associated with the language. A number of schemes have been proposed and there is no single writing system used by all of the speakers of the Shina language.
Media Links:
1. https://kashmirobserver.net/2021/09/21/scerts-workshop-on-shina-language-highlights-utility-of-mother-tongue/
2. SCERT's Workshop On Shina language Highlights Utility Of Mot... | MENAFN.COM
3. https://www.risingkashmir.com/-SCERT-organises-workshop-on-Shina-language-92305
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