Language and Culture

Northeast India is home to over 200 distinct languages and cultures. Unfortunately, most of these are threatened and face an uncertain future.

Indigenous people's languages and worldviews are fast disappearing. These are encoded in their languages, mythologies, oral histories, and rituals. Along with this, many are also losing their relationship to the environment. Several indigenous communities in the region have lost their languages and traditional knowledge systems. The elders are fast passing away - their last link to their past. There is an urgency to preserve the local indigenous languages and cultures.

NEILAC, the North East Institute for Language and Culture is a Kohima Jesuit initiative to protect, preserve and promote local indigenous languages and cultures.

The focus areas of NEILAC include:

1. Language Revitalization: Documentation and Promotion

2. Mother tongue Education

3. Bilingual Education

4. Language Documentation

5. Ecological themes in Mythological Narratives

6. Phonology

7. Systematization of Scripts

8. Indigenous approaches to Nature, and

9. Developing Culturally Relevant art in Linguistic work

Institutional Engagements

Background

For more information on NEILAC :

www.neilac.org.in