Professor Anvita Abbi is a renowned researcher on minority languages and perhaps the only one in the Indian subcontinent who has done first-hand field study on all the six language families from the Himalayas to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

During her studies in 2003–2004, she identified a new language family of India—the Great Andamanese, which was corroborated in 2005 by population geneticists. Her pioneering work was recognized by the Government of India and she was awarded the Padma Shri in 2013.

In 2015, she received the Kenneth Hale Award, most prestigious in the field of linguistics, for her outstanding contribution to the documentation and description of Indian languages, from the Linguistic Society of America, where she was also elected as an honorary member.

Prof. Abbi taught linguistics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University for 38 years and was the President of the Linguistic Society of India, and has been invited as a visiting professor and researcher at prestigious institutions in the USA, Europe, Canada, and Australia. She served long as an expert from UNESCO on issues concerning languages.

She has 22 books to her credit, including the Dictionary of the Great Andamanese Language. English-Great Andamanese-Hindi (2011) and A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language: An Ethnolinguistic Study (2013).

The Kolkata Mail correspondent caught up with Professor Anvita Abbi on her research and studies regarding The Great Andamanese.

What are the six language families in India?

Professor Anvita Abbi- Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Tai Kadai, and Great Andamanese are the six language families.

How did you come across The Great Andamanese?

Professor Anvita Abbi- During my work on ‘Linguistic Survey of the Andaman’ in 2000-2001 I came to know of this tribe and two others, viz Jarawa and Onge, and their languages. The comparative study of these three languages proved that the Great Andamanese constitutes a separate sixth language family of India comprising ten distinct but mutually intelligible languages.

When you were writing the folk tales and songs of this tribe, did you learn the language?

Professor Anvita Abbi- Yes, one cannot interpret the songs without learning the language. Although the language learning process starts from day one of the fieldwork, yet, mastery or competence in the language started much later when I was working on preparing the Great Andamanese dictionary and grammar. See the scans of these two works.

You have been working on a language that is on the verge of extinction. What steps do you think the Government should take for preserving these languages?

Professor Anvita Abbi- Languages not placed in the orbit of orthographic representation are seen as developmental debacles and signs of backwardness. Thus, the most significant and immediate initiative by the Government should be to script these languages and bring them into the space of teaching in and about indigenous languages in the primary schools. Introducing these languages in the school will bring dignity and honor to our heritage languages and will help societies to overcome their inferiority complex.

How did you and your team gather these folk tales and songs? How long did it take?

Professor Anvita Abbi- Some stories such as the Creation Tale of Phertajido took more than a year in getting complete elicitation while others were collected in a couple of weeks. The present book gives a copious account of the process of elicitation and revival of the lost language.

Songs were collected in the post-tsunami relief camp within a short period. However, interpretation and translation took exceptionally long. It could be done only after the Great Andamanese dictionary and Grammar were written down. The research was conducted between 2005-2008 documenting all the aspects of the Great Andamanese language.

By now six books are brought out on various aspects of the language but this book [Voices from the Lost Horizon] is unique as it is the very first and perhaps the last document on the oral tradition of one of the oldest civilizations on this earth.

Were the tribes cooperative?

Professor Anvita Abbi- Not initially as they were depressed and dejected by the tsunami, the time when I first met them, but gradually they opened up and were not only friendly and cooperative but caring. I experienced this when I lived with them in the jungles of the Strait Island.

What was the biggest challenge while conducting research on this language?

Professor Anvita Abbi- The biggest challenge came in the form of the language itself which was on the brink of extinction with less than 9 speakers who were a sort of semi-speakers, who had stopped speaking in their heritage language. No one had heard any story for the last 40 years nor had anyone sang in Great Andamanese languages.

In such a scenario, my constant struggle was to motivate them to remember and narrate or sing. Boa Sr the main singer of the 46 songs given here obliged without much ado as she remembered songs but extracting narrations was really challenging. I am happy that finally, I could document all these to as best of my ability before these voices turned into whispers.

Will you also focus on the three other tribes in Andaman and also research their language too?

Professor Anvita Abbi- I have already done so. See the scan of the book that came out in 2006 from Germany. The comparative study of the three languages gave me evidence beyond doubt that Great Andamanese languages constitute the Sixth language family of India. My research was later corroborated by the population geneticists.

What is next in line for you as a researcher?

Professor Anvita Abbi- I along with my team members involved in documenting two endangered languages of the Nicobar Islands viz. Sanenyo and Luro. The work is near completion.

We hope that Professor Anvita Abbi continues with her amazing work in the field of languages.