Preserving the Ecological Wisdom of Dying Languages 💚

How to Halt a Phonocide!

Protecting the Linguistic Jewels of the Western Ghats

#newspaperinlearning

I was thrilled to read a feature article in today’s The Times of India, titled, “How to Solve a Phonocide”.

The article features a noble initiative by my good friend, Dr. Armstrong, Head, Dept of English, University of Madras, and his vibrant team for having launched the Indigenous and Endangered Languages Laboratory (IELLAB). Their mission is to document the songs, stories, and daily speech of these communities before they vanish forever. Yes, my kindred spirit Dr. Ganesh also features in the news article. 😊

When a language dies, it doesn’t just take its words with it - it takes away generations of ecological wisdom, cultural memory, and unique ways of understanding the world. Linguists call this “phonocide.”

This quiet crisis is currently threatening the indigenous hill tribes of Tamil Nadu. As younger generations migrate for school and work, they are adopting dominant regional languages, leaving their ancestral tongues to fade with their elders.

The project focuses on a “microcontinent” of linguistic diversity within the Western Ghats and Nilgiris, taking up five of the following languages for preservation - 

Toda, known as the linguistic jewel of the Nilgiris, is a critically endangered language that has a complex sound system with rare vowels and trills. Its vocabulary is deeply tied to the community’s traditional buffalo and dairy culture.

Kota, spoken by traditional artisans and blacksmiths, contains highly specialized vocabulary for metallurgy, pottery, and music. Instead of being written, its knowledge has historically been passed down entirely through songs and community rituals.

Irula, spoken by expert honey collectors and herbalists, is a living encyclopedia of the forest. It holds thousands of precise terms for medicinal plants, animal behavior, and ecosystems that aren't even documented in modern science yet.

Soliga, spoken by one of India’s oldest forest-dwelling communities, actually encodes the physical landscape into its grammar. It uses special linguistic markers to describe location and distance relative to the mountain slopes.

Badaga, has the largest speaker base (around 130,000 people), but it is highly vulnerable to language shift. The Badaga language is also famous for its vast oral epic tradition, capturing centuries of social and agricultural history on the Nilgiri plateau through proverbs and ballads.

Preserving these languages is a very important academic exercise. Indigenous languages carry vital, sustainable living practices and environmental knowledge that cannot be fully translated into English or Tamil. When we lose a language, we lose a distinct way of naming and understanding the natural world.

In this regard, the feature article serves as a reminder of the noble roles and responsibilities of academics – especially in the domain of English literature – to prevent this phonocide.

Just to add to the article’s insights, I would like to suggest David Crystal’s lovely book titled, Language Death. I would also like to quote from our previous blogpost on 25th September 2017, on how a ‘Banished Manipuri script stages a comeback,’ which was by all means, a ray of hope to linguaphiles all over, that can act as an additional cue and clue to preserve these dying languages.

You may want to read that highly relevant article that complements this article to a tee, on our past blogpost HERE.

Meet the 'Famous Five' Fabulous Flycatchers from Our Recent Nature Walks 💚💚💚

Meet the Famous Five Flycatchers of the Wild!

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

Today let’s have a look at five lovely species of flycatchers that we’d spotted in the recent past during our bird-walks into the wild!

Firstly, the Asian Brown Flycatcher

It’s a cute little brown bird that sits pretty on my mobile phone’s screensaver for months now, for its cute little look that charms and captivates you beyond measure! 😊

This Asian Brownie is also called the “Sallying” Master - and for a reason at that!

The term “sallying” describes a specific, rapid hunting technique where birds launch from a stationary perch to catch flying insects in mid-air, then return to the same spot to consume their catch.

As such, this Asian Brownie is an expert aerial hunter, that darts out to catch an insect mid-air, and loops back to the exact same perch.

It has large, dark eyes ringed by a distinct, pale white eye-ring. Because its plumage is so plain, the crisp eye-ring is often the key to easy identification of this Asian Brownie!

It is a special winter visitor travelling vast distances from Japan, Siberia, and the Himalayas to winter in the southern peninsula.

Secondly, the Brown-breasted flycatcher also known as Layard’s flycatcher - a migratory bird that breeds in northern India, China, and Southeast Asia, and winters in southern India and Sri Lanka.

Well, birders of all hues almost always have this confusion between these two birds – The Asian Brown flycatcher and the Brown-breasted flycatcher. Notoriously tricky at that! That’s because they almost look the same. However, there are slight variations that help in easy identification. Especially, it sports a conspicuous white eye-ring. Yet another diagnostic features is its pale, flesh-coloured legs and lower mandible.

from Richard Grimmett et al... Birds of the Indian Subcontinent

Thirdly, the Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher

This Tickell’s Bluey features a beautiful, blue upper body that sharply contrasts with a bright rufous-orange breast, which then fades into a crisp white belly. The female is similar but with a grayish-blue tone.

Unlike many other canopy-dwelling birds of its ilk, the Tickell’s Blue Flycatchers have a strong preference for shaded, lower-canopy environments, especially dry scrub and bamboo forests near streams.

Their vocalisations are so sweet to the ears! It’s a beautiful, high-pitched, tinkling song. This Tickell’s Bluey is known to hunt and feed on insects even after dusk.

Fourthly, let us discuss one of the most dramatic and highly sought-after birds for wildlife photographers, admired for its sheer elegance and charm – The Indian Paradise Flycatcher – a native bird to the Indian subcontinent.

As you can see here in this picture, the adult male of the Paradise flycatcher sports extraordinarily long, central tail feathers (streamers) that can trail up to 10–12 inches behind it.

Before we proceed, let us look at the Birdman of India - Salim Ali’s take on the Paradise flycatcher –

This delightful creature - variously known as Rocket Bird, Widow Bird or Ribbon Bird - is a frequenter of shady groves and gardens, often in the neighbourhood of human habitations, and of light deciduous jungle with bamboo-clad nullahs. Pairs are usually met with, either by themselves or in the mixed hunting parties of small birds in forest. The lithe, fairy-like movements of the male as, with streamers trailing behind, he makes short aerial sallies and contortions after winged insects or flits in graceful undulating flight from one tree to another, present a fascinating spectacle,

says Salim Ali.

Indeed, watching one flutter gracefully through the forest canopy looks like a ribbon dancing in the air.

These birds are known to undertake extensive migration journeys at night, and are guided by their innate ability to navigate through Earth’s magnetic fields. 

Female paradise flycatchers do not possess the long, bewitching tail of the males. They also lack the blue ring around the eyes.

Fifthly and finally, let’s discuss the cute Verditer Flycatcher – a bird that we in India are lucky to have a darshan of, since they aren’t endemic to India. Ornithologists observe that, they breed up in the Himalayas and parts of Southeast Asia, and then winter across Peninsular India - making them a delightful winter visitor to the forests around the Western Ghats and down here in the south.

Unlike the Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher - which has a blue back but an orange and white underside - the Verditer is almost entirely a brilliant copper-sulphate blue. In fact, its name “Verditer” refers specifically to a synthetic blue pigment. In this regard, Richard Grimmett in their book titled, Birds of the Indian Subcontinent, describe the bird as a “Pale blue flycatcher”.

Moreover, while many flycatchers prefer the shaded, lower canopy and dense undergrowth, the Verditer Flycatcher loves to do high-canopy sallying! It performs those sallying acrobatic loops by darting out to catch mid-air insects before returning to its perch.

Upside-Down and Charmingly Unique | Meet the Velvet-fronted Nuthatch 💚

The Headfirst Acrobat | Meet the Velvet-fronted Nuthatch

#intothewildwithrufus #birding

The Nuthatch is one bird that’s fascinated me skyhigh for long! 😊

Even a couple of months ago, while in Dandeli, I was awestruck observing the bird do its gravity-defying acrobatics!

In short, I’ve never seen them do things the way ‘normal’ birds do!

The very word “Nuthatch” derives from “nut-hacker,” as they use their strong bills to repeatedly bash nuts wedged into cracks in the bark to “hatch” or expose the soft kernel inside.

And like the Malabar Giant Squirrels, the way the nuthatches climb trees is quite funny to watch. They move with such elegance and ease upwards, downwards, sideways and upside-down over trunks or branches – a rare marvel in the bird kingdom!

They’re called the Velvet-fronted Nuthatches as they sport a distinct, dense black patch of feathers in the area between the eyes and the bill that look remarkably like dark velvet.

So what makes this bird strikingly unique?

Well, unlike many other birds that rely heavily on their tails, the Velvet-fronted Nuthatch relies entirely on its powerfully strong feet, long toes, and curved claws, allowing it to easily climb straight down tree trunks headfirst – and it frequently hangs completely upside down on the undersides of horizontal branches to glean insects and spiders from crevices that other climbing birds miss!

Richard Grimmett et al, observe that the Velvet-fronted Nuthatch is found in the Himalayas, Indian hills, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

[Richard Grimmett et al... Birds of the Indian Subcontinent]

Salim Ali’s huge anthology however, doesn’t give a dash for the hyphen! 😊

[Salim Ali & Ripley, Volume 9, Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan]

Salim Ali cites this bird as the Velvetfronted Nuthatch (without the hyphen), mentioning it as a resident bird, widely distributed in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lankan Hills.

Skills Over Degree! Importance of Building a Portfolio! ❤️

Skills Over Degree!

Importance of Building a Portfolio!

#newspaperinlearning

Felt so happy to read this insightful feature article in today’s The Times of India, by our Principal & Secretary (Madras Christian College, Chennai) Dr. Paul Wilson.

Giving out statistics to back his views, Dr. Wilson points out that, the higher education sector has shrunk by 2%, and data from the National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES) shows that nearly 100 institutions closed between 2022-23 and 2023-24 in the USA.

He follows it up by asking two pertinent questions –

Will other degree programmes, which apparently do not appeal to the job market or employability, cease to exist soon?

Do these programmes not have scope for employability in the present dispensation?

Dr. Wilson then highlights the reasons for the decline in enrolment in traditional arts and science colleges & universities. He attributes this decline to the fact that, students and employers increasingly prioritise practical skills, professional degrees, and tech certifications over conventional academic programmes, driven by several key factors as follows -

Firstly, driven by the need for immediate employability, parents and students are defaulting to professional courses like AI, Data Science, BCA, and BCom rather than traditional arts and sciences.

Secondly, declining birth rates globally have shrunk the student pool. And hence, in order to survive, Western universities are aggressively recruiting Indian students. Simultaneously, policies like India’s NEP 2020 allow foreign universities to open local campuses, creating intense competition for domestic institutions.

Thirdly, Gen Z and Millennials are heavily focused on practical skill development and career growth. High costs are leading many to skip traditional higher education altogether in favour of direct workforce entry, on-the-job training, or tech certifications.

Fourthly, the corporate world is shifting its hiring focus from holding a degree to actually possessing relevant skills, thus preferring skills over degree!

In this context, even while higher education is undergoing a massive shift, Dr. Wilson ends the article on a reassuring note for the students. Since employers are increasingly hunting for skills rather than specific degrees, students who miss out on their preferred university programmes can still succeed by strategically building a strong portfolio of skills alongside whatever degree they pursue.

And that has the ability to make the difference!

At one of the world’s eight “hottest hotspots” of biological diversity 💚💚💚

 #intothewildwithrufus #birding

Grey Junglefowl (Male)

Orange Minivet (Male and Female)

Orange Minivet (Male and Female)

Gaur or Indian Bison

Gaur or Indian Bison

Grey Junglefowl 

Grey Junglefowl

White-throated Kingfisher

White-throated Kingfisher

White-bellied Treepie

Black-throated Munia

Black-throated Munia

Common Iora (Male)

Common Iora (Male)

Common Iora (Female)

Common Iora (Female)

Black-rumped flameback, also known as the lesser golden-backed woodpecker or lesser goldenback

Malabar Woodshrike

Malabar Woodshrike

Bonnet Macaques

Grey Junglefowl (Female)