Reviving lost languages of those who walk the tightrope on society’s margins

From calls of "Kalu Madari aaya" echoing through gullies to children running behind jamooras, jugglers and dancing bears, the street spectacles of another time have now nearly vanished.But in a rare cultural rescue, a team of youths led by history teacher Hemant Lodhi stepped in just in time, spending 6 months living among Kalandar, Kanjar, Nat, Banchara and Kal Bheliya communities to document 1,800 spoken words of their fast-disappearing language. And it was all recorded in the voices of the nomadic people themselves.For generations, these communities earned their living through street performances—bear and monkey shows to the beat of a damru, snake charming, rope walking and acrobatics—speaking in coded tongues understood only within their world. But as animal protection laws tightened, bears and monkeys were confiscated and released into forests, their traditional livelihoods collapsed. Forced to abandon nomadic life and settle down, the communities slipped to the margins, and with that, their spoken languages began fading from daily life.Sensing the urgency, Lodhi, a teacher from Raisen district, led a 15-member youth team into the settlements of these communities. Over months of fieldwork, conversations and trust-building, the team painstakingly collected words that were never written down before."It was last year that we did this. We worked in teams and visited the settlements of the people from the nomadic tribes. The most difficult part was gaining their confidence. We recorded their language and words in their native language," Lodhi told TOI. "The digital record is being finalised, and the entire dictionary will be available online on the academy's website in some days," he added.The result is a digital "talking dictionary"—a first for these communities—featuring nearly 1,800 words such as ‘Geebat' for chugli and ‘Uthit Na' for uthna. Prepared using the International Phonetic Alphabet, each word is supported by images of everyday objects like flowers, utensils and tools, making the language accessible to younger generations.The dictionary will be hosted on the state-run Janajatiya Lok Kala Evam Boli Vikas Academy portal in Hindi, English and other languages, allowing the endangered tongue to be read, heard and understood from anywhere in the world. It is likely to be uploaded in 1 month's time, sources said. Beyond the Kalandars, languages of the Nat community—famed for rope-walking feats—and the Banchara community were also documented, with work ongoing. The communities still walk the tightrope but maybe now they can be understood better.