Experts discuss preservation of Dameli language of Chitral

Report Ejaz Ahmed
ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: The Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) Islamabad held a one-week workshop for the language community of Dameli with financial assistance from Small Grants and Ambassador’s Fund Program of USAID.
The FLI, a non-governmental and non-profit organization working on language and heritage preservation in northern Pakistan since 2003, has taken up the task of preserving of national heritage. Chitral is home to minimum 12 languages being spoken in various parts of the district but except few these languages are on the verge of extinction due to being just oral and undocumented. The workshop was held to facilitate documentation of Dameli which took place in Aspar village in Damel valley of Chitral.
As many as 15 people from the community comprising of local writers, researchers and teachers attended the workshop. FLI’s training facilitators Mr. Inamullah, Mr. Nasim Haider and reputed Khowar language promoter Mr. Farid Ahmad Raza assisted the workshop participants in learning the language documentation processes.
The main objectives of the workshop were to help the community to discover the grammatical structure and enhance the work to standardize the writing system of the language. UNESCO has declared ‘Dameli’ one of the extremely endangered languages of Pakistan. FLI with support of community language researchers is committed to preserve this language along with other national heritages of Pakistan.
The workshop was one of the series of activities FLI has planned in its one-year project supported by Small Grants and Ambassador’s Fund Program of USAID. Along with Dameli, the project will cover the languages of Gawarbati and Yidghain Chitral and Ushojo language in Swat. The workshop for each language will be followed up with field works and publications in vernacular languages.