Such statements are commonly
heard when you belong to a community that has thrived with all its might to
retain its feeble existence in the world where the lingua franca is
quite different. Hence, it gives me a feeling of despair on seeing a
language losing its identity, be it mine or any other. According
to the list of endangered languages in the world, Bishnupriya Manipuri has been
termed as ‘vulnerable’ by UNESCO in 2011 posted by The Guardian, which
generates an impression of it being in danger and unrecognized fully in its own
domain.
This also makes me retrospect to instances where I was termed ‘conservative’
when asked about my community, when others are incognizant of the
language. The Bishnupriya Manipuris
has a strength of more than 50,000 speakers
presently, a huge number of them living in the Sylhet division of Bangladesh
and parts of Assam and Tripura. The
community primarily thrived on an agrarian economy that is rooted to their
culture, but the upcoming generation being educated, look for opportunities to get themselves
employed; regardless of their community interest, thereby discerning them on their skill;
This also reminds me of the instance, where a newspaper
interviewer asked me the question, “Do you recognize Bishnupriya Manipuris
as the real Manipuri or the Meiteis as the same?”, to which I felt subservient but answered on Bishnupriya Manipuri, being an
Indo-Aryan language, having its historic roots in state of Manipur and being
recognized by the state governments of Assam and Tripura.
David Kaufman, Linguist and Founder of the Endangered Language
Alliance(ELA), a non-profit organization in New York has taken an
initiative; a current project on preserving the Bishnupriya Manipuri language
in collaboration with Uttam Singha (founder of POURI International) along with
many other minority languages of the world.
In the Endangered Languages Fair in New York, Uttam Singha, a
renowned expert on Bishnupriya Manipuri had given a presentation on its
ethnicity and stressed on its preservation in the meet held on September 29,
2012. He has been living in New York for 10-15 years, however laments for his
society, its culture, language, history. In Bangladesh he opened an
organisation named POURI through which they publishes various magazines,
articles, newspapers for the propagation of the language. Even
though the language dates back its origin from Manipur, 200-300 years ago from
now, the BPMs got scattered to areas of Assam, Tripura and Bangladesh due to a
conflict arising in the state of Manipur. The
Bishnupriya Manipuri youth, speaking and being brought up in the majority
language constructs the generation to stay away from its roots thereby being
ignorant of its ethnicity, the culture etc., however Uttam Singha yearns for change,
he wants the young generation to buck up and make an attempt to make their
mother tongue thrive instead of being apathetic towards it and letting it fade
casually. He doesn’t want the death of their martyr go in vain. The
Bangladeshi diasporas living in the Jackson Heights, Queens, New York (a place
which consists of more than 160 spoken languages than anywhere in the world),
says, they have been living here since 2000 after leaving their native
Bangladesh. It’s a bittersweet feeling to see their children not being able to
connect with the culture. On the contrary, the world being competitive, keeping
yourself rooted to one’s culture becomes strenuous at times.
Satyajit Singha, a Bangladeshi diaspora says, he left Bangladesh 10-25 years ago and came to America for a better life, and the former’s easy going life is completely different from the life in the latter. They are so busy that he doesn’t have words to express it. Both are completely different worlds. However he hopes to retain the culture in their children’s lives, as when they visit their homeland, they will be able to interact well and gel up with them.
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