Namaste Sorosoro! Here we are, 7 months after a first journey canvassing in India, the Sorosoro foundation (Sorosoro Trust) is finally coming to life on the subcontinent…

India is one of the world’s richest countries in terms of different languages and cultures: between the 22 official languages, the near hundred unscheduled languages counting over 10,000 speakers, and the numerous languages of very low diffusion, the next study of the Indian linguistic landscape (scheduled in 2011) could well count over 1,000 languages altogether! The majority of these unscheduled languages is threatened on the shorter or longer run.

The objective of Sorosoro India is to document around a hundred unscheduled languages, the country’s main non-official languages, within 3 to 5 years of time. A heavy task indeed: field linguists will first need to be trained, several filming crews will need to be set on feet, and the process experienced by Sorosoro on a small scale will need to be transposed into a wide scale process. The operations will begin in January 2011 with a first training workshop.

Foundation under Indian law, the Sorosoro Trust Council presently includes three members: Ganesh Devy, Professor of literature and mastermind of the Adivasi Academy (“Tribal Academy”), Professor K.V. Subbarao, who has already been working on 40 tribal languages, and Anuj Sharma, specialized consultant in social structures acting in favour of the underpriviledged. The three original founders will be joined in 2011 by Rozenn Milin, Director of Sorosoro International.