On 21st February 2022, commomerating the International Mother Language Day, Udaygiri Foundation Trust organized a webinar on the topic - The Threat of Language Extinction – It`s Imminent Consequences on Us.

Three eminent speakers, namely Mr Jatin Nayak, Mr JP Jagdev, and Mr Anil Dhir and it was moderated by Ms Supriya Das. The Webinar started at 5.00 pm (IST)

Ms Supriya set the context and invited Mr Jatin Nayak to share his views on the subject.

Apart from other things, Mr Nayak identified the education sector as the single largest sector which is neglecting the mother language and is the Wrecker-in-Chief for the deteriorating status of the mother language. He was all for people learning and using other languages. According to him, it is natural and rational for people to be competent in other languages like Hindi or English. However, he insisted upon continued use of the mother language in all seriousness.

Mr JP Jagdev was the next speaker to share his views. He threw up specific numbers to highlight the destruction the mother language has suffered in recent years due to several reasons. Be it the ever-evolving school curriculum or aspirations of parents to put their children into English medium schools or the fast-shrinking horizon, everything has been instrumental in hurting the cause of the mother language. He emphasized upon effective communication, which he thinks is a life skill. He was further of the opinion that business communication has irrationally taken over as business language.

Mr Anil Dhir was the last of the speakers to share his view and he looked concerned in his views.He however looked concerned. He raised an alarm for the sub-language groups like the tribal languages. According to him, the tribal languages carry the various traditions of the tribes. There are no records of their tradition otherwise. His concern was; with the deterioration or death of their languages, their traditions, which are not documented even today, will also die an untimely death.

There were 45 people who joined the webinar from different parts of the world. They were extremely delighted to see this kind of effort and praised it too. The essay which was on this topic was found to be relevant by the OdishaBytes and they carried it as an indepednt article.