ALSphere Foundation
Press Release
National seminar on “India as a Linguistic Area: Exploring Shared Features Across Language Families” (ILAESFALF-2025)
ALS Indigenous Languages, The Asian Literary Society, ALSphere Foundation in collaboration with Centre for Linguistics SLL&CS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, Bengaluru organized a two day national seminar on “India as a Linguistic Area: Exploring Shared Features Across Language Families” (ILAESFALF-2025) on the 4th and 5th March, 2025 and a workshop on ‘Writing Grammars’ on the 6th March, 2025.
The Seminar was inaugurated at JNU Convention Centre, JNU, New Delhi on 6th March 2025 in the august presence of Prof. Shoba Sivasankaran (Dean, SLL&CS, JNU), Dr. Hari Madhab Ray (Centre for Linguistics, SLL&CS, JNU), Prof. K V Subbarao (Former Professor, University of Delhi), Dr. Bishakha Das (Administrator, ALS Indigenous languages) and Mr. Manoj Krishnan (Founder, ALS).
This two-day seminar and one-day workshop was an initiative towards exploring India as a linguistic area, language contact, linguistic convergence and divergence, Areal Linguistics, Language maintenance and shift, language variation and change, Languages and dialects in contact, Linguistic diversity and language harmony, Typological features, Intangible cultural heritages, common and shared linguistic expressions, and discourse structure of Indian languages.
In addition to various paper and poster presentations, two panel discussions and plenary talks on the related theme were also organised. The seminar ended with a workshop on ‘Writing Grammars’.
Mr. Manoj Krishnan and Dr. Bishakha Sarma, on behalf of the ALS Indigenous Languages and organizing committee, extended deepfelt thanks to all the distinguished dignitaries, JNU, and CIIL for supporting this initiative that focused on exploring shared features across language families.
Mr. Manoj Krishnan (Founder, ALS) says, “It is important to spread awareness about lesser-known languages to wider audiences. I am glad that we are playing a small role in this direction through the ALS Indigenous Languages Community.”
All the participants of ILAESFALF-2025 appreciated the Centre for Linguistics SLL&CS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, Bengaluru, ALS Indigenous Languages, The Asian Literary Society, and ALSphere Foundation for organizing this national seminar.
