Every language is a repository for the culture and worldview of its speakers. Its grammar and lexicon store the shared experiences of past generations, and through this channel knowledge and beliefs of one generation are transmitted to the next. It confers a sense of identity upon its native speakers. At present there are at least 6000 living languages across the world. Of them, 330 languages have more than one million speakers each and there are about 51 languages with only one speaker each. David Crystal believes that only 4 % languages in the world are spoken by 96 % of the total world human population and incidentally, only 4 % people speak the remaining 96% of the world languages. Gradually these 96 % of the world languages spoken by only 4% people are shifting, decaying or dying out.

It must be understood that with the disappearance of any language, minor or major, not only is the language lost but also its cultural heritage and its worldview. By allowing languages to die out we are destroying what deserves to be preserved. Responses to this problem include local language maintenance and revival programs, and language documentation. All over the world Linguists are trying to save these languages by documenting them, describing their grammars, preparing dictionaries or working on their revitalization.

In our multilingual and pluricultural country India, approximately 380 languages are spoken. It has the world’s fourth largest number of languages. Some patches of this vast linguistic expanse are from the group of 96 % languages mentioned above and are yet unclassified and are witnessing gradual extinction. Many Indian Linguists are working on these lesser known and/or endangered languages.

While working on the preservation and documentation of endangered languages, Dr Kavita Rastogi, Founder Chair of the Conference constantly felt the need for a platform where researchers working on endangered languages could discuss their problems, share their work, and learn about new technology. A platform where one could freely talk about one’s apprehensions, meet senior linguists and get new ideas to work on.

Keeping this in mind she initiated the Endangered and Lesser-Known Languages (ELKL-1) Conference series, the first of which was organized in October, 2012 at University of Lucknow in collaboration with SEL wherein 30 scholars gathered and discussed the challenges faced by these languages and the responses of the linguists. Padamshree Prof. Anvita Abbi gave the keynote address.

In 2013, for ELKL 2 the quantity and quality of presentations swelled up. Prof Panchanan Mohanty (UoH) gave the keynote address. Many senior linguists like Prof. Anvita Abbi, Prof. K.V Subba Rao, Late Prof O.N. Koul, Prof. Awadesh Misra were there to share their views and motivate the young scholars. This time there were around 42 papers covering different language families of India.

We were lucky to have Prof. Jana Fortier from University of California as our keynote speaker during ELKL- 3 in February 2014 which was attended by many Indian and Nepalese scholars. After organizing ELKL consecutively for three years at the same University, a need was felt to involve other Institutes also.

During ELKL 3 a budding linguist, Dr Ritesh, showed his interest in organising the next ELKL-4 and the 4th International Endangered and Lesser-known Languages Conference was organized by the Department of Linguistics at Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra in 2015. The conference was attended by approximately 50 participants. It included 15 high-quality power point and poster presentations by researchers from across the country. Besides these regular presentations, the conference also featured keynote talk by Prof. B.R.K. Reddy, three plenary talks by Prof. Dafydd Gibbon, Prof. Nikolaus Himmelmann and Prof. Jeff Good.

During the conference Dr. Sudhanshu Shekhar from Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi came forward to take the challenge of organizing ELKL – 5 in 2016. Prof. Peter Austin was the keynote speaker. Several scholars discussed and deliberated on various issues pertaining to endangered and lesser known languages of the Indian sub-continent.

In 2017 CIIL, one of the premiere institutes of India came forward to take the torch. In addition to ELKL – 6, they also organized a five – day training workshop conducted by none other than Peter Austin and Julia Sallabank on language documentation. From Mysuru ELKL-7 moved towards the east and in 2018 Dr. Atanu Saha and his colleagues organized the Conference at School of Languages and Linguistics of Jadavpur University, Kolkata where Julia Sallabank was the keynote speaker.

We assembled at Songten library, Dehradun for ELKL-8, organized by Doon Library & Research Centre in the year 2019. Prof. Madhumita Barbora was the keynote speaker. On this occasion SEL also facilitated our patron Prof. Anvita Abbi on its completion of five years. Due to the Covid outbreak in 2020, University of Tezpur virtually organized ELKL-9 and invited Prof. Machill to deliver the keynote. A one day workshop on ‘Orthography Development’ was also organized by them. Many young and senior scholars presented the work during the conference.

दीप हूँ जलता रहूँगा,
प्रलय की आँधियों से अंत तक लड़ता रहूँगा !
न भागना, न रुकना,
मेरी फितरत तो बस जलते रहना है !