When languages are silenced, a process called phonocide, the passing down of knowledge is broken, and much oral wisdom is lost forever, says K Ganesh, former head of the department of English at Madras Christian College. “This leads to cultural loss and makes communities more vulnerable.”That threat now hangs over several indigenous languages spoken across Tamil Nadu’s hills and forests. Some, such as Toda and Kota, are classified as critically endangered because they have only a few elderly speakers and no written script. Younger generations, meanwhile, are migrating for education and work, adopting other languages in the process.University of Madras has launched an Indigenous and Endangered Languages Laboratory (IELLAB) to document, preserve and study these languages before they disappear. “When a language is lost, a collective erasure of memory occurs,” says S Armstrong, professor in the Department of English, who launched the lab inspired by noted linguist G N Devy. So far, five languages have been identified for preservation: Toda, Kota, Soliga, Badaga and Irula. “Together, these languages form a dense cluster of linguistic diversity, a microcontinent within the Western Ghats. It allows us to reconstruct ancient cultural exchanges,” he says. “A few speakers from each language will be identified and brought to the lab. We will record their stories, songs and speeches to study the phonology and morphology of these languages.” PhD scholars are also being sent into the field to research the languages and understand their nuances. “There are differences, for example, in the way men and women speak. There are also variations in elders’ speech within a community,” says Armstrong.“When a language disappears, we also lose its ways of naming the world, its stories, values and knowledge about nature. Much of this cannot be fully translated into dominant languages. This is especially serious in biodiversity-rich countries such as Brazil and India, where indigenous languages carry generations of environmental knowledge and sustainable living practices,” says Ganesh. Here are some of the languages being preserved at IELLAB.Toda: Hills and trills “Described as the linguistic jewel of the Nilgiris, Toda possesses one of the most complex phonological systems in the world, with an extraordinary range of trills and fricative sounds that are difficult for non-native speakers to reproduce,” says Armstrong. Owing to centuries of relative isolation, Toda has preserved ancient Dravidian grammatical features that have disappeared from most other South Indian languages. “It also has a complex sound system with many rare vowels, and difficult consonant combinations. It also uses special retroflex sounds, which are a key feature of Dravidian languages but are more developed here,” says Ganesh.The vocabulary reflects the Toda way of life, especially their deep connection to buffalo and dairy culture.Kota: Music speaksKota is a critically endangered language spoken by the traditional artisan and blacksmith community of the Nilgiris, with the number of fluent speakers declining rapidly. “Spoken by hereditary musicians, metalworkers, and craftsmen for neighbouring Nilgiri communities, the Kota language contains highly specialized vocabularies related to metallurgy, pottery, and complex musical systems,” says Armstrong. The vocabulary is distinct, and while it shares some words with the Toda language, it has also developed in its own way. “Traditionally, Kota has been a spoken language, with knowledge passed through songs, rituals, and community stories, though today there are efforts to write it using the Tamil script,” says Ganesh.Kota displays a distinctive system of vowel harmony and dense consonant clusters, setting it apart from languages such as Toda despite close geographic proximity.Irula: Sound of forestsIrulas have beautiful and distinct words for ‘sound of the forest’ and ‘night wind’. Spoken by about 12,000 people, Irula serves as a linguistic bridge between the plains and the deep forests of South India. Traditionally renowned as expert honey collectors and herbalists, the Irulas’ language is a repository of traditional ecological knowledge, containing thousands of precise terms for medicinal plants, animal behaviour, and forest ecosystems that remain undocumented in modern science, says Armstrong.Linguistically, Irula occupies an intermediate position between early Tamil and Malayalam, offering critical insights into the historical divergence of these two major Dravidian languages. “Today, Irula is considered a vulnerable or endangered language because many speakers are shifting to dominant languages such as Tamil. There is little institutional support, and the community faces social and economic challenges,” says Ganesh. Most Irula speakers are bilingual or multilingual and often mix Tamil or Kannada with their daily speech.Soliga: Rich in spiritThe word shola or sola, which means dense mountain forest in the language, is famous across South India, as it describes the evergreen forests of the Western Ghats.Originating in the Biligiriranga Hills, Soliga (spoken by about 40,000 people) is the language of one of India’s oldest forest-dwelling communities. The Soligas were the first tribal community in India to receive formal recognition of forest rights within a tiger reserve. The nuanced vocabulary describes relationships among humans, forests, and wildlife, says Armstrong. The vocabulary is tied to forest life and spiritual practices, with many words for honey collection, medicinal plants and animals. It also includes borrowed words from Kannada and Tamil. “Soliga is mainly a spoken language, rich in myths, songs, ritual chants, and ecological knowledge,” says Ganesh. Soliga employs an intricate system of deictic markers or linguistic elements that encode location and distance relative to mountain slopes, demonstrating how landscape directly shapes linguistic structure.Badaga: Living historyGeedai, meaning mist or mountain fog, is a word that appears frequently in Badaga oral poetry. The language supports a vast oral epic tradition, including proverbs, ballads, and ritual poetry that collectively document the social and cultural history of the Nilgiri plateau over several centuries. Badaga is notable for its rare, retroflexed vowels, a phonetic feature that produces a distinctive depth and resonance and is of exceptional interest to linguists.Spoken by 1.3 lakh people, it has the largest speaker base among IELLAB’s focus languages, yet it faces rapid language shifts as younger generations increasingly adopt English and Tamil. Traditionally, Badaga was a spoken language, though today it is sometimes written using the Tamil script. It has a rich tradition of folk songs, proverbs, and stories that reflect an agricultural way of life. Today, it is mostly spoken within the community but is increasingly influenced by Tamil through education and media, and it is considered a vulnerable language with younger generations shifting to more dominant languages.
