It was a Self Driven Inquary Project in Srishti. I have selected the topic to work.
Lepcha Language has become an endangered language. The thing that interested me
more on this issue is that even though there are so many Lepcha speakers, this language
is losing its importance. Any Language is important for the purpose of communication
among people. Humans are living being that lives in a group or community and cannot
survive alone. Thus, it is a necessity in social terms to communicate in a common
language to express emotion. Language is a an immensely important element, so when a
language is transferred from a generation to another, it also transmits the other aspects
(customs, rituals, religion, belief, norms, etc.) of that culture using that language as the
medium.
India is a country with huge cultural diversity. Thus when one culture is under threat it
means others can also face it someday. The rich culture and tradition is what makes India
more colourful with numerous festivals. And hampering of even single of them will lead
to fading of this joyful diversified nation.
So, I felt it is highly important to preserve a language along with all other associated
things with it.
To represent things through visual communication I use a visual language in the name of
design. Someday, say like after 10 years if I encounter that people are not able to
understand my visual language, I will feel suffocated. The language of visual art that I
know and use will no longer get the opportunity to get expressed. This will make me feel
extremely helpless, making me unspeakable and mute. And I will be left with the pain of
not being able to communicate anymore as expressive way as I used to previously.
In this poster I wanted to represent the connection of
a man with his or her mother tongue since birth. Thus I have used the Lepcha alphabets to
show umbilical cord. This reflects the strong connection, and the symbolism of mother
word in the mother tongue. The way a child is connected to its mother by umbilical cord,
the same way it is to the language of mother tongue
In this poster I wanted to represent linguistic
imperialism. In certain situation, one language loses its importance due to the dominance
of some other language. For Lepcha also there are such languages like- Nepali, Hindi and
Bengali.
In this poster I wanted to represent the endangered
situation of the Lepcha language. The way a plant loses its leaves by shedding in autumn
the same way lepcha language is being shedded and losing its existence due to multiple
factors.