Xobdo in the Cyberworld
Utpal Borpujari*
I find Xobdo.org one of the most innovative efforts to preserve the languages of North-East India digitally on the cyberspace. This is surely the need of the time, especially when many of our traditional words are slowly going to oblivion because of lack of usage arising from the worrisome trend of many schools not even teaching tiny tots in their mother tongues in a bias towards English, with parents and society somehow convinced that learning English as the first language would make their children some kind of wonderkids (while it is a fact that early learning in mother tongue gives a child the best comprehension).
This effort is also highly worthwhile because in this age of computers and Internet, it gives the user instant access to words from our languages. Xobdo is a volunteer effort, and thus it will grow only with our support (though I myself am personally guilty of not contributing to it yet). In the long run, I would like to see Xobdo to also develop a dictionary of languages within North-East India.
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* The author is a journalist based in Delhi and is a member of Xobdo.
