Social worker Seema Prakash was apprehensive about her assignment when she first came to Khalwa block of Madhya Pradesh two decades ago. As part of the Right to Food campaign, an initiative taken up by civil society organisations across the country to work on hunger and malnutrition, she had to figure out how to educate the communities on nutrition and food security. What she did not expect, however, was that she would not even be able to talk to people.
Khalwa block, located in Khandwa district, is dominated by the Korku tribal community, a Scheduled Tribe. This tribe mostly lives in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, and has its own language. “The Korku language, according to the People's Linguistic Survey of India, is among languages that are nearly lost. It has no script and is written in Devanagri or English. But several words are different from Hindi or other languages that are more commonly known,” says Prakash. For instance, the words for grandfather and mother in Korku are aba and mai; but elder sister is referred to as sonibakjai; earth is ote, and so on.
After trying and failing to communicate with the community, Prakash did some research on the language. “After finally getting the Korku word for malnutrition, shiti, I was able to get through to the people. During this process, I understood just how important language can be to work on people’s welfare, and began to explore what more I could do,” she says. Prakash joined Spandan Samaj Seva Samiti, a non-profit in Khandwa district that works on health, education, forest rights and livelihood. “We began work on documenting the Korku language and created a dictionary of 500 words. Learning the origins of the language was fascinating. The Korku tribe considers itself to have been born from the soil, so people’s names come from nature, such as Devda that means ‘behind paddy’, Jabu that is ‘behind the jamun tree’ and Kasde or ‘river bank’,” she says.
But the dictionary alone did not seem enough. The non-profit then turned to elderly residents of the villages. “They would have discussions at night, sing songs and share stories, and we would note down all of it,” says Prakash. Other local residents, like Sugandhi Vishwakarma from Roshni village in the block, began to help. “We have lived among the community for years, but documenting their language and heritage is a new experience,” says Vishwakarma.
The non-profit also decided to make education more accessible to children of the community by incorporating the Korku language. “We made posters, paintings and other material in Korku and put them up at 100 anganwadis of Khalwa block. National Geographic Foundation provided some financial help in this,” says Prakash. “Studying in Korku has made education exciting for the children and improved their learning,” says Savitri Kasde from Savlikheda village. The District Institute of Education and Training noted this initiative and began a pilot. Now, at the state level, the Tribal Folk Art Academy has started working on the Korku language as well.