New Delhi, Aug. 28: Misgivings over a Unesco report that has described 191 Indian languages as endangered and five as extinct have prompted the Centre to begin work on a white paper on tribal languages in each state.

Sixty-four languages that the latest Unesco World Atlas of Endangered Languages describes as endangered are spoken in the Northeast and along the Indo-Nepal border, 39 in the Northeast alone.

“Many of the languages listed as dead or endangered are very much alive and kicking. The government has decided to send fact-finding teams to every state to document the tribal languages, especially those declared dying or dead by Unesco,” an official with the tribal affairs ministry said.

The Centre for Tribal and Endangered Languages, a division of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, has been entrusted with the task. “The CIIL will bring out a white paper on the state of tribal languages. Once it is out, there would be hard evidence which can be presented before any international body,” the official said.

Work is already on with the head of the Centre for Tribal and Endangered Languages, Prof. G. Devi Prasada Shastri, visiting the Northeast.

The issue was brought to the notice of the government by tribal leaders. “We received representations that widely spoken tribal languages Aimol and Tarao have been reported as extinct by Unesco,” the official said. The two languages figure on Unesco’s critically endangered list, a classification that would mean they are spoken only by the elderly and that too on rare occasions.

S.L. Warte, chairman of the Aimol Literature Society, described the Unesco report as “unfortunate” and demanded immediate correction.

Ch. Jashobanta, a linguistics professor at Manipur University, said: “It is wrong to declare these languages as dead or dying. Of course, the population that speaks these languages may not be large, but these languages are being spoken by the respective communities and are not dead.”

Jashobanta, however, agreed that the languages would count as endangered by international standards because they are spoken by less than 10,000 people.

According to the Central Institute of Indian Languages, there is confusion over the definition of language.

“Most of the languages listed in Unesco’s e-atlas are not considered languages but mother tongues in India. We go by the Census of India (2001) definition. If there are 10,000 or more speakers it is recognised as a language, otherwise it is a mother tongue,” a researcher with CIIL said.

Mother tongues are not included in the Eighth Schedule, a list of 22 officially recognised languages.

Aravind Sachdeva, who specialises in tribal languages, said: “Only if a language is in the Eighth Schedule will it be taught in schools as part of the three-language formula…. But when there are a number of tribal languages, as in states like Arunachal Pradesh or Manipur, it would not be practical to include all in the list.’’

Sachdeva also pointed to an increasing tendency among tribals to speak Hindi or English as the reason for languages being labelled endangered.

But Asam Sahitya Sabha president Rongbong Terang and educationist Tabu Ram Taid believe tribals can protect their languages.

“I do not think any tribal language of Assam would ever become extinct. I can speak Assamese, English, Hindi and many other languages. But my mother tongue is Karbi and I speak in Karbi with my family and friends,” Terang said, describing the Unesco report as exaggerated.

Taid, closely associated with the preservation of his mother tongue Mising, also disagrees with the Unesco report. Mising, on Unesco’s endangered list, is spoken by 517,170 people out of a total population of 587,310, according to the 2001 census.

“Mising today has a firm written tradition and has even been introduced in primary schools in areas predominantly inhabited by Misings,” Taid said.

An email seeking Unesco’s response went unanswered till Saturday evening.