Move To Preserve 264 Endangered Languages

New Delhi, Dec 4 (UNI) As many as 264 Indian languages threatened with extinction are sought to be preserved, Parliament was told today.

The Human Resource Development Ministry is putting together a scheme to preserve languages which have ''limited'' numbers of users, Minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

She said the HRD Ministry has initiated steps to formulate a scheme-- Bharat Bhasha Vikas Yojana-- for Preservation and Development of Languages not covered by the VIII Schedule.

The scheme is based on the recommendations of a Working Group on Languages and Book Promotion set up by the Planning Commission under the XIth Plan, she said.

Each of these 264 languages has less than 10,000 speakers, according to data from 2001 Census supplied by the Registrar General of India in the Home Affairs Ministry.

The VIII schedule lists 22 languages: Asomiya, Bangla, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

UNI