The Ministry of Tribal Affairs held the first meeting of the Working Group on Tribal Languages on October 15, 2026, chaired by Secretary Smt. Ranjana Chopra. The hybrid workshop brought together eminent linguists, academics, researchers, and community language practitioners from across India, including Padmashree Chamu Krishna Shastry, Chairman of Bhasha Samiti, and Dr. K. Sreenivasa Rao, former Secretary of Sahitya Akademi.
The Working Group includes representatives from leading institutions such as the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Indian Institutes of Technology at Delhi, Dharwad and Kanpur, Tezpur University, Manipur University, Assam University, Sikkim University, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, Council for Diversity and Innovation (CoDIN), and Bhasha Samiti. The group will guide efforts toward documentation, preservation, research, and promotion of tribal languages across India.
Secretary Chopra emphasized the importance of language in improving outreach and delivery of welfare initiatives to tribal communities. She noted that Adi Vaani, which began as a translation tool, has the potential to evolve into a comprehensive national tribal language repository containing corpora, primers, dictionaries, and community stories. She also stressed the importance of mother-tongue-based multilingual education for addressing early learning gaps.
The meeting reviewed progress on Adi Vaani, developed by IIT Delhi in collaboration with the Ministry. The platform offers text-to-text translation in nine tribal languages along with speech, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and video subtitling features. It provides searchable access to over 300 primers prepared by Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs). State TRIs have contributed approximately 13.9 lakh text sentences in ten languages and around 300 hours of speech data. The platform has recorded over 48,000 Android downloads and approximately 6,500 monthly users.
Padmashree Chamu Krishna Shastry outlined seven essential pillars for language development: sustained proficiency among speakers; use in education, administration, communication and entertainment; contemporary literature and knowledge content; continuous word generation; technology adoption; teaching-learning materials; and support from governments, corporates and society. He emphasized that speakers must remain central to all language development efforts.
Dr. K. Sreenivasa Rao presented a plan for tribal language documentation and revitalization including state-wise and language-wise directories of writers and scholars; district-level community resource groups with trained tribal youth; revival of existing tribal language institutions; community digital archives hosted through Adi Vaani; and a two-year action plan with quarterly reviews.
Various institutional representatives offered support: Prof. Basavraj Kudagonti (CIIL) suggested prioritizing languages in phases and establishing region-wise teams. Dr. Karthick Narayanan (CoDIN) proposed a federated network of digital archives. Dr. Amalesh Gope (Tezpur University) offered expertise in speech technology for tonal languages. Representatives from the National Education Society for Tribal Students noted that over 525 Eklavya Model Residential Schools serving 1.7 lakh students could use the platform.
The Ministry will circulate agenda items and prepare a roadmap for moving forward, emphasizing that language resources developed with communities should remain community-owned. This meeting marks a significant step toward coordinated efforts for documentation, digital preservation, and promotion of tribal languages through the Adi Vaani platform.