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| Narayanan, Dasanoor, Attappady, Palakkad |
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What is your mother tongue? When someone asked this question to the adivasi Narayanan of Dasanoor in Attappady, he had no answer. But from the embarrassment of that silence, he built an alphabet for the dialect of adivasis, wrote the first novel in it and is about to see the novel emerging as a movie in the adivasi tongue.
Now an employee in the Scheduled Tribes Department at Agali, Narayanan remembers his student days when the adivasis could not relate to the textbook names and interpretations. No wonder many dropped out quite early. It made Narayanan think of creating an alphabet for their language.
He spend time among the Irula, Muguda and Kurumba hamlets as well as dwelling places of Malayarayar, Kanikka, Jain Kurumbars and Mullu Kurumbars. Though they all speak the same language, there is some difference in the pronunciation styles. After considerable effort for 3 years, Narayanan devised the alphabet for their language.
His development of ‘Achukovai’ alphabet for the ‘Adin’ language consists of 13 vowels, 26 consonants, 2 compound letters and 12 letters representing signs. Using this alphabet, he translated school text books up to the 4th standard and started teaching the children in the hamlets. He even started a school ‘Kaanakam’ for adivasi children, including dropouts from the ordinary schools. Now the school attracts students from the adivasi neighbourhoods of other States also.
And in this quest with language, he even wrote a novel titled ‘VIdhi Maladkth’ based on life of adivasis in Attappady. Ramachandran Mokeri, Director of School of Drama at Thrissur has agreed to use this novel, among other sources, for the feature film he is planning to do in adivasi language.
The quest of an individual for the identity of his mother tongue had come quite far.
Narayanan and students at the school
Courtesy: Baby Arun (text), Rajan M.Thomas (photo), Sree, Malayala Manorama, May 23, 2004
Contributed by: Administrator
