‘The Listener Nagaland’ underway at Tetso College

DIMAPUR — A three-day programme called ‘The Listener Nagaland-a festival of orality’ got underway at Tetso College in Sovima on Thursday.

Gilvan Müller de Oliviera, head of UNESCO Chair in Language Policies for Multilingualism, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil, spoke on ‘language as intangible cultural heritage (ICH).’ He shared that under the UNESCO Chair in Language Policies for Multilingualism, there are eight research axes including multilingualism and internationalisation, intercultural mediation, language education, translation and accessibility, economics and linguistic rights, information and communication technologies, borders and diasporas, and multi-language literatures.

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He said that in contrast to the field of writing, the place of orality and oral knowledge is through folklore, anthropology and ICH. He informed that ICH aims to change the effective place of cultural products and producers, citing that ICH belongs not just to the cultural group with which it is associated but to the nation and the world. He added that it has a universal character and lesson for humanity.

The advisor of Law and Justice and Law Revenue, TN Mannen, expressed that in the midst of the fast-growing digitalised and technology world, it was refreshing to know that ‘they are here to rediscover where our tradition and past life started.’

He lamented that in a tribal society, every time an old man dies, an important part of tradition dies. He stated that people who have knowledge about tradition have become rare, especially in the Naga society.

During the programme, NEIIPA (North East India Indigenous People’s Archive) was launched by Gilvan Müller de Oliviera along with Hewasa L Khing, principal of Tetso College, and Wichamdinbo Mataina, assistant professor and convenor of the NEIIPA project.

Hewasa L Khing shared that NEIIPA arose out of the visible lack of availability of material and readily available knowledge for researchers, scholars or just anyone wanting to know or see more about the tribals of Northeast India.

An initiative by Tetso College, she stated that NEIIPA is a comprehensive digital repository dedicated to hosting cultural and linguistic materials of the region and is one of the first of its kind in the region. She also invited researchers, scholars and native language activists to submit any linguistic materials to be archived at the NEIIPA, which could be accessed at .