00:00Welcome to ETV Bharat. I'm Siddharth and today we're joined by Dr. Satupati Prasanna Sri, a leading linguist and a vice chancellor of Adhikavi Nannaya University.
00:11She is renowned for her work in tribal languages and preserving tribal languages apart from creating scripts for indigenous languages.
00:18Namaste ma'am.
00:19Namaste.
00:19You're Andhra's first tribal women vice chancellor. It's a groundbreaking achievement.
00:28What emotions or memories do you have that took your journey from Stuartpuram to being where you are right now?
00:36Most of the people, you know, they take it for granted that I am from Stuartpuram. In fact, I am not.
00:41My grandfather was a teacher and he was a principal, I mean, headmaster to a school.
00:47My father started his journey at, I think at the age of 14, he came to Andhra Medical College, Vishakapatnam, and thenceforth.
00:55He has been traveling to Calcutta professionally because he is from Railway Department.
01:01So he had to move towards the various places and that is how, of course, my parents, they don't belong to Stuartpuram, but his father and all, they belong to Stuartpuram right now.
01:13What was the initial journey like, as in what drew you towards languages or linguistics in the first place?
01:19Because we tend to see a unidirectional way of studying in our country. It's either engineers or doctors. What turned you towards this?
01:28It was not at all a planned journey. It's a journey that I was forced to take it for.
01:37Series of issues that harass you, they mar your internal spirit of peace and then they disturb you.
01:45The very emotional fabric of your mindset, when it distracts you, you are not recognized as a person, as a human being, by your fellow human being.
01:57Then it automatically, I think I started looking into this particular concept.
02:01Why am I not treated properly? Why? It's not that somebody, I am inferior and somebody is superior.
02:07Chalo, humbi ek hai. Even they are there.
02:11Then this kind of disparities, you know, this kind of emotional harassment in the social engineering fabric.
02:20When I have all the qualities, why am I disturbed and distracted? That was my point.
02:24So, I thought, it is not me alone, but thousands and thousands of people who had their, jo jindagi ko jia hai, pichli par mein, pichli years mein.
02:35All my ancestors have been harassed and they have been mistreated because their identity is, they belong to that place, Srotpuram.
02:45Of all the fundamental facts, whether they belong to Srotpuram or to Bangalore, it doesn't make any difference.
02:52The idea is, these are tribal groups and they don't have education.
02:57They have emotional, psychological education, you know, brain bo tachai.
03:01They can, but the thing is, they don't have an identity of their own.
03:05When they don't have an identity of them, of their own, in terms of identifying a scripted language, then people were, are making these people think that you are, your identity is not on par with us.
03:24Your identity is at our feet.
03:26You sit there.
03:27So, education makes lot of difference.
03:30Script makes lot of difference.
03:32When you are cultivating the harvest of academics, if you are not ahead in the race, automatically people, they put you down.
03:44And I don't want to be that.
03:47That's it.
03:48Languages as an identity and language as a way of, you know, treating somebody, how it changes.
03:54Is that what drew you towards these endangered languages and working on creating these scripts?
03:59When I initially wanted to do this, I was carrying myself into, without any destination, I was traveling like.
04:07But I, when I started taking control of the situation, I understood the enormity of problems, situations around.
04:15And then I thought, it's not me alone.
04:18There are so many people who have not seen this light in their life.
04:23Like, you know, their parents were not educated and they were not educated.
04:28Education, academics was not an, that was not a word.
04:31That was not a, their cup of tea.
04:33When I thought like this, 7% of India's population are tribals.
04:38This is the plight of all tribals.
04:40So, more importantly, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Yarkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.
04:48All these are the areas, you know, we have a lot of pocket for tribals.
04:53This is the story of almost all tribals whose languages are not known.
04:57Only they have a language that they can speak.
05:00That's called oral literature.
05:01Over a period of time, I also felt that if you are able to speak one language in a particular province, the language has life.
05:11But when state-dominant languages come in, or neighbour languages come in, your original format of language, the thither of it will lose its flavour.
05:22So, you have to have your identity, then you should have a language for yourself.
05:28You should have a script for your languages.
05:30You just said something very interesting.
05:32You said these are oral traditions, oral literature, rather, without a script.
05:38So, when you take a language with oral literature that has evolved and has been passed on by word of mouth through the generations,
05:47and then you decide to make a script for it, anybody who is doing the study,
05:51what is the process like?
05:53Because it is something that you have to start from scratch.
05:56Yes, you have to start from scratch, Mane.
06:00That's what I was trying to tell you, Siddhar.
06:02There were the days, you know, where tribals lived in a particular province.
06:06And their forefathers and forefathers, oral, see, through oral literature,
06:11there was some kind of literature that has been passing down as, what you call, as a family system.
06:17But over a period of time, you know, these days, we have the pressure of other languages also on our identity, of tribal languages.
06:25Then what happens is, these are the days where people are not able to identify themselves as tribes.
06:33Because once my identity is revealed to the world that I am a tribe, everybody starts looking down upon me.
06:40They say, because they know their mindsets are so dominated by the fact that they don't look at me as an educated tribe.
06:49They only look at me as a tribe who used to stay in those jungles, you know, with all the traditional system like that.
06:57They only look at me like that.
06:58But I say, even those people were more intelligent and more grasping towards, they had a special power to attract the language of the universe.
07:10They were able to transform this to their generations after generations.
07:15But these days, today what happened, what you ate, you don't remember tomorrow.
07:19So, we are more and more dominated by different kinds of influences.
07:24Under the shade of too many influences on our mind and our lifestyle, I thought that we need to have identity that gives you a peculiar feel that you belong to this particular clan.
07:39You belong to this kind of tribe.
07:41This is your culture and this is your identity.
07:44Each one of us have to have our own identities in terms of our culture, retention of our culture because India is a secular state.
07:54And why do Americans and why do all Western society, they look at us because we are more and more identified by our cultural identity is more important than whether you are a Malayali or a Tamilian or something else.
08:08Whenever you go there, they don't ask me whether you are a tribe or a Hindu or a Brahmin.
08:11They only look at me and say, you are from India.
08:14That's it.
08:15So, I want that identity.
08:17But here, when it comes, your identity is your unique force.
08:20You have to have your identity and your identity is represented by your language, your way of assimilating the culture that has been given to you by forefathers.
08:30You said a very powerful thing, your identity, about how language is an identity and it really is true because language is a bigger identifying factor and a bigger sense of belongingness factor than religion or race or any of those.
08:44It's language ties you because that's what connects you.
08:46And having worked on the endangered languages and then tribal languages where speakers of those languages or members of those communities continue to face discrimination in many different ways.
09:01And your work sort of, can it be looked at as an attempt to restore the pride in one's language and culture, especially in these communities and languages?
09:11Yes.
09:11What are your thoughts on it?
09:12Yes, yes, very much.
09:14When, these are the days where, you know, people are more and more attracted towards the language English, which is not our own.
09:21But yet we speak English.
09:23We think in English.
09:25But our native feel is in our native language.
09:28We translate our emotions into a language that is more suitable for everybody to listen.
09:34So, do you think your language restores your own pride?
09:41Yes.
09:41You as an individual who's from certain communities.
09:45Having worked on so many languages, you speak 22 languages.
09:48Which one was the hardest for you to learn and why was it?
09:52Because South Indian language, there's a question word start with A sound.
09:55In North Indian, it's with K sound.
09:57So, there are elements like this.
10:00So, what did you find fascinating and what did you find the hardest?
10:03Bengali was very far, very hard for me to understand.
10:07Why?
10:08I went into schooling in Bengal, Eden Garden, Calcutta.
10:15Then, you know, those were the days I used to speak Telugu English, Hindi somewhere else.
10:20When I went into this language, I was not able to understand between the shh sound, the consonants and vowels and all sort of things, you know.
10:28There were lots of variables in the thither that I could speak up.
10:33So, Bengali was a little difficult.
10:36At the same time, Tamil was also difficult.
10:40And when I come to tribal languages, Gond was very difficult for me to understand.
10:45The frequency of sound was so different.
10:47And it took me many months to understand the basics of Gond language.
10:53How has your personal identity coming from a tribal background and as a woman from a tribal background helped shape your journey?
11:00Apart from that, you've won many awards including the Nari Puraskar Award and now the Ramoji Excellence Award.
11:07How does this all tie up for you?
11:11My forefathers, they were all very conservative people.
11:15But my father was very liberal, you know.
11:18Academic girls should be educated.
11:20That was his idea.
11:21A woman venturing to tribal areas, looking in quest of her own roots and then trying to assimilate a concept that is very new to her.
11:32And then a woman venturing into a concept like this, where it was not accepted by the men, patriarchy, was always.
11:40And they used to see this phenomena as a taboo.
11:44Socially, there were so many people who have ostracized me and my identity.
11:48But I never bothered about all that.
11:50Whatever I want to do it, I did it.
11:54And again I tell you, when I did it, Mane, I think Cosmos wanted me to do it.
12:01God in Heavens wanted me to do it and I did it.
12:03That's it.
12:03I am only a catalyst.
12:05So that was Professor Sathwati Prasanna Sri on her journey, on her research in languages and on language as an identity.
12:14This is Siddharth signing off for ETV Bharat.
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