Bhopal | 9–15 June 2026

The Society for Endangered and Lesser-Known Languages (SEL) participated in a seven-day documentation camp held in Bhopal from 9–15 June 2026, organized by Lok Kala and Boli Vikas Academy, Bhopal, as part of the ongoing project for the enrichment of Talking Dictionaries of ten nomadic and lesser-known languages. The camp was held at the BHEL Guest House, Bhopal and brought together SEL linguists, field workers and community language informants. The languages covered were Pardhi, Banjara, Bediya, Luhaadi, Kuchbandhiya, Nat, Kalbelia, Banchhada, Kanjar and Kalandar.
The SEL team included Dr. Kavita Rastogi (President), Vishnu Singh, Ajay Kumar Singh, Sumedha Shukla, Ruby Singh, Adwitee Verma, Murtuza and Ajeet. Two representatives from each community, except Bediya, participated as language informants. The camp provided an important opportunity for the SEL linguists to interact directly with the speakers, many of whom they met for the first time.
During the camp, new words were collected and the sentence questionnaire was completed. A few demonstration data-elicitation interviews were also conducted to familiarise the field workers with systematic techniques of linguistic data collection. The interactions between the linguists, field workers and community informants were highly fruitful and helped strengthen the quality and reliability of the linguistic data.
The camp marked an important step towards enriching the existing Talking Dictionaries with verified, usage-based lexical and sentence-level data, while also strengthening collaboration between community members, field workers and linguists. The collected material will contribute to the further documentation, preservation and revitalization of these lesser-known languages.