Recently saw the news that Kutchi language is all set to get a new script of it's own! Till date, Kutchi has been a language without any script, so this was some news to me. The topic for discussion is what is being tried to be achieved by creating a script for Kutchi? Is this going to be detrimental to Kutchi language instead of increasing it's use?
Dr. Rajul Shah took the onus of creating the script for Kutchi after much research - the script seems to be quite symbolic in the current form.
For Kutchis, all current education is imparted mostly in English or at the least in Gujarati / Hindi. All the Kutchi literature has traditionally been written in Gujarati too. Since ages, Kutchi has been a language passed down orally.
In the light of above, has a study been done to ascertain whether we even require the script? Who is going to adopt this new script and how? Is there a plan in place for it's adoption and propogation?
Kutchis are multi-lingual already, having to learn, English, Hindi, Gujarati and few more languages depending on which region they live / work in. Introducing one more alphabet to learn and use would increase the burden on the people. The new generation is on the verge of moving away from the language as they already have at least 4 languages to handle. Adding more burden could be detrimental to the popularity of the language and could drive people away from it instead of making it more popular.
Read the full article here.
2 comments:
This is very good Kutchi gets a script. But we had the Khojki script before for our language, so shouldn’t we revive it instead?
Also, we know Gujarati script but learning a new script takes a long time. That will unfortunately be the problem. Best of luck though.
Very true - adding more languages will complicate things even more as Kutchi people are mostly tri-lingual already. Adding one more language will create more difficulties.
I was not aware of the Khojki script - thanks for pointing it out. However, I see that it was predominantly used to record Ismaili literature.
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