Ph.D. scholar and researcher Ankit Dwivedi loves to write and tell stories. He is translating stories into Bundeli or Bundelkhandi language. He is a native of Lalitpur, a city that lies at the heart of Bundelkhand. He speaks the dialect of Bundelkhandi and uses the Devanagri script to write it. Ankit’s research work during his Masters's programme has been a qualitative study of a local language newspaper run by women which have influenced him to explore local language learning possibilities for children. Though there are millions, according to Ankit, who speaks Bundelkhandi language, there is a dearth of interesting and engaging reading material for children in the region. Ankit wants to change all of that by translating and creating a digital library of books in Bundelkhandi. In an email interview he tells us the challenges of translating in his mother tongue and how stories can make for the best company in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Where is Bundelkhandi Spoken?

The Bundelkhandi language is an Indo-Aryan tongue that is spoken in central India's Bundelkhand area. It is a member of the Western Hindi cluster of Central Indo-Ayran languages. Devanagri script is used to write the Bundeli language words.

The poems of the Alha-Khand epic are early instances of Bundelkhandi literature. In the Banaphari area, bards continue to preserve it. The epic tells the story of heroes from the 12th century CE. The age of Emperor Akbar is when formal Bundeli literature was first produced. Kesab Das, a poet from the sixteenth century, is one notable author. During the nineteenth century, Padmakar Bhatt and Prajnes both produced a number of works. At the Chhatrasal of Panna's court, Prannath and Lal Kabi produced a large number of works in the Bundeli language.

Bundelkhandi Language And Its Origins

Rajputs and various other warlike tribes used to primarily speak the Bundelkhandi language. Additionally, it is regarded as an Indo-Aryan language and is mostly spoken in Madhya Pradesh's Bundelkhand area. It is also spoken in various areas of Uttar Pradesh, usually more so in the south. 

Bundeli is, however, mostly regarded as the western form of Hindi. It is traditionally connected to Braj Language and was only largely spoken in the north Indian region till the 19th century. There are allegedly 20 distinct ways to speak in this verbal communication.

There are up to 20 million native speakers of this vocal communication. It employs the Devanagari script as its writing system. Even in Madhya Pradesh, the biggest state in India with an area of around 443446 square kilometers, it is recognised as the most often used expression.

This Is What A Bundelkhandi Language Translator Has To Say

Ankit wants to change all of that by translating and creating a digital library of books in Bundelkhandi. In an email interview, he tells us the challenges of translating in his mother tongue and how stories can make for the best company in the world.

Why did you decide to translate storybooks to Bundelkhandi as part of Freedom to Read? 

It is always a pleasure to read in the language we have grown up speaking. I realised that there weren't too many many stories or picture books in Bundelkhandi. So, this is my effort and a little step towards building a digital library in Bundelkhandi that is free and accessible to all.

Describe your process of translations and how long does it take usually?

I translate those stories that I enjoy myself as a reader. I spend some time capturing the essence of the story in the original language and wondering how it may be preserved in the language I am translating to. Then, comes the play with words. Reading it out loud helps. As for time, I would say, sometimes it takes two to three hours to translate a story. And sometimes, edits may take days.

What kind of a person do you think makes the best kind of translator for children’s stories?

I believe children use their senses in a much more mindful way than adults. They don’t just want to walk through a garden, they want to taste it, smell it and they want to know how everybody who is living and breathing there feels. For adults, seeing the world from the child's perspective can be an effort and practice. Those who are willing to make that effort can be great at writing, illustrating or translating children’s stories.

 

What is the hardest thing about translating from English into Bundelkhandi? How do you navigate words or phrases that are tricky to translate?

It is definitely tricky. In Bundelkhandi, just like many other dialects, who is speaking and how one speaks shapes what is being said. Just to give an example, the "Kaay" sound in Bundelkhandi is used to call people out like ‘Hey there’, and make exclamatory remarks like ‘What! Really?’ or in an interrogative speech to ask ‘Why?’. So, while writing, one has to consider what possible meanings the reader might be making out of these. I offer translations to people who speak the language and see how they are reading it. Repeating this process many times over gets us a better draft.

Can you tell us anything about yourself and your job that would surprise us?

I work with stories as a researcher and a storyteller. They make for a great company and people of all ages need the warmth and love they bring. I have seen adults heartily enjoying the simple linear ‘we know what’s going to come’ stories and I have seen children engaging deeply as we peel the layers of complex grey characters. I hope as adults, we take children more seriously. And ourselves, maybe a little lesser. 

How Does Learning a Native Language Help Children?

In a way that few other things can, learning a native language may make you feel more connected to your ancestors and culture. The ability to think in one's mother tongue might act as a constant reminder that one is culturally varied and can always retreat to one's "home."

In addition to facilitating communication and interpersonal connections, our native tongue also helps us to comprehend and appreciate our own and our predecessors' cultural heritage. For kids, especially those from various familial situations, it fosters an awareness and understanding that is beyond useful.

Not only that but young children who had access to age-appropriate books and literature in their mother tongue had better pre-literacy abilities than kids who only had access to books in their second language.

Furthermore, Children who initially learn to read in their mother tongue will find it simpler than children who never learn to read in their first language to learn to read in their second language.

Even though they must acquire new letters, sounds, and words to become proficient readers in a second language, children who can read in their mother tongue comprehend the process of reading.

You can read Bundelkhandi stories translated by Ankit here. 

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Today (February 21, 2017) is International Mother Language Day,  a worldwide, annual observance to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.  It also marks the close of ‘Freedom to Read’: StoryWeaver's campaign through which we pledged to help create stories in 15 new languages for children to read and enjoy in their mother tongue languages.  

As a report on mother tongue literacy from UNESCO reaffirmed “children should be taught in a language they understand, yet as much as 40% of the global population does not have access to education in a language they speak or understand”.

Suzanne Singh, Chairperson Pratham Books says, “Mother tongue literacy has a very important role to play in the overall development of a child. And stories in mother tongue languages help children introduce new words and ideas into a child’s world and expand the boundaries of their minds. The ‘Freedom to Read’ campaign was our effort to make many more stories available in languages that are underserved and underrepresented in the mainstream ”.

Languages from around the world

Through the Freedom to Read campaign, we have helped community users, translators and NGOs add stories in 13 new languages in the last 6 months. These languages represent the linguistic diversity of the world: from tribal languages to endangered languages to the mainstream.
 

 

Not-for-profits like The Rosetta Foundation and Translators Without Borders have helped us further our campaign mission with translation support. Eminent linguists like Dr. Ganesh Devy, scholars such as Professor Sukantha Chaudhry and book champions like Sujata Noronha and Jaya Bhattacharji Rose have been instrumental in helping identify languages in need of joyful stories for children.

Community crusaders 

The success of our Freedom to Read campaign wouldn't have been possible without our amazing community! Here are some of their inspiring stories. 

Jèrriais  a Norman language spoken in Jersey, off the coast of France has been in decline over the past century. Anthony Scott Warren, one of the few Jerriais teachers left in the region  discovered StoryWeaver through the All Children Reading Website, and requested that we add this ‘threatened’ language to the platform. Read more about how he and his colleagues plan to use StoryWeaver to teach the next generation Jerriais.

Muhamadreza Bahadur reached out to us to add Kurdish which is categorised as ‘an endangered language’ to StoryWeaver. Muhamadreza shared that he was keen to translate children’s stories to the language for two main purposes; promoting literacy in the languages among Kurdish children, and second, to help populate and enrich the corpus of literature in the language. Kurdish is available in both the Arabic and Latin script and 21 stories have been translated.

“Saurashtra is a language spoken by a group that migrated from Gujarat two centuries ago to cities like Madurai, Chennai and Tanjore. The script for this language is no longer in use and while it does follow the Devanagiri system, many native speakers cannot read Hindi. The only languages available to write Saurashtram are English and Tamil.” wrote Pavithra Solai Jowahar who asked us to add her mother language and has been busy translating stories and creating a book of rhymes in the languages. Read her story here.

Gnanaharsha Beligatamulla was searching the internet for stories to read to his child when he stumbled across StoryWeaver. “I really enjoyed reading the stories and the platform inspired me to want to translate stories to Sinhala for my daughter. If other parents can use the stories too that would be wonderful!” 

Rebeka Gemeinder’s mother tongue is Swiss German (Alemannisch), a language spoken in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Liechtenstein. Unfortunately the language gets lost more and more everyday as she writes in a blog post for us.  Read it here.

Amelia Bonea  is a historian based at the University of Oxford. Originally from Romania, she has lived and worked in Japan, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom. When not engaged in academic research, she likes to read and translate children’s literature, most recently on StoryWeaver. Read Amelia's lovely blog post on mother languages, here.   

Maharani Aulia has been one of our most prolific Indonesian translators. An author of children’s stories and non-fiction work, Maharani has written biographies and contributed to anthologies. She has also translated more than 110 children and young adult books from English into Indonesian.Her passion for children’s picture books, and dream of writing one lead her to Pratham Books StoryWeaver. “At first I just downloaded stories in English to learn. But my friend told me that we can also translate stories into our language. So, I translated one story and found I couldn’t stop because I wanted more stories on StoryWeaver to be read by Indonesians, especially children.” Maharani believes that India and Indonesia are similar. “The two countries are multicultural, have many interesting stories that should be spread and shared. So, I will still translate stories on your website. Maybe someday I will contribute with my original stories.”

In the classroom

Here are just a few of the ways in which educators, not-for-profits, librarians and language lovers are using StoryWeaver in the classroom.

Pragat Shikshan Sanstha works with 150 Zilla Parishad in the Phaltan district of Maharashtra where where they have set up community libraries. Volunteers from the community are appointed as coordinators for each library where they facilitate reading, conduct storytelling sessions and activities around the stories. All these libraries have one tablet and a small projector attached to it through which stories are projected. Pragat Shiksha Sanstha regularly downloads Marathi stories from StoryWeaver, puts them on pendrives which are then passed on to the 150 schools. The teachers project the stories via the tablet and the projector and conduct storytelling sessions.  Over 10000 children are impacted through this project.

Professor Sukantha Chaudhry, an eminent scholar and respected translator extended his supporter to our campaign. “I was so taken with the concept of StoryWeaver that I experimented in downloading and sharing some of the Bengali stories to  children in rural state schools. The students were from underserved backgrounds and often first generation learners.” Professor Chaudhry visited a few in schools in South Dinajpur district and in Birbhum district. “The response is overwhelming -- the children love the stories, in the utterly novel on screen digital format (which they are often seeing for the first time in their lives) and respond articulately with great enthusiasm. Their teachers indicated that it was certainly helping them hone their reading skills and, more importantly, acquire a love of reading.” Professor Chaudhry is working on a plan to make such offline reading sessions a regular practice in schools across the state of West Bengal through active teachers' networks.

Taking stories to children around the world

As all content on StoryWeaver is openly licensed, many organisations around the world have discovered, adapted, translated and used content from the platform. Little Thinking Minds has created the first ever online reading platform to advance Arabic literacy in schools. Read how they are using StoryWeaver, by clicking here.

The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program is selecting and adapting content from StoryWeaver’s collection of children’s books for local language e-book initiatives. Read more about their work here.

A big, big, thank you to our amazing community across the world who have translated and created stories and shared them with children. See you soon on www.storyweaver.org.in! Here's to more stories in more languages for more children to enjoy! If you'd like to translate stories in your mother tongue, and can't find it on StoryWeaver write to us at [email protected] and we'll add it!   

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Duration - 6 months extendable up to 1 year 

About Us 
Pratham Books (www.prathambooks.org) is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India. As a publisher serving every child in India, Pratham Books has always pushed the boundaries when it comes to exploring innovative ways in which to create access to joyful stories and have been fortunate in finding partners to collaborate with who share this vision. 
In 2015, Pratham Books increased its footprint by going digital. StoryWeaver (www.storyweaver.org.in)is a digital platform that hosts stories in languages from India and beyond so that every child can have an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The stories can be read, translated, versioned, or downloaded for free. All stories on the platform are openly licensed. 

We are looking for a Project Manager based out of Chhattisgarh who can spearhead a statewide campaign. The person is responsible to successfully implement the campaign and deliver on the KPIs while managing internal and external stakeholders. 
An ideal candidate should have proven experience in campaign and project management. 

Key Responsibilities: 
As a Project Manager, you will manage the day-to-day communication and operational aspects of the project. Your core responsibilities will be to: 
● Create and maintain detailed timelines/work plans for all project deliverables and key milestones; hold internal and external teams accountable to project plans. 
● Serve as the primary point of contact for all operational questions about the project internally and externally 
● Establish and nurture government relationships in the state education department to further the campaign outreach and impact 
● Design and deliver campaign outreach initiatives in the state and ensure mobilization of resources at the ground level 
● Identify stakeholders and attendees for crucial recurring and ad-hoc discussions; capture meeting notes and escalate communications to align on deliverables and troubleshoot roadblocks. 
● Deliver project status updates to internal and external teams 
● Undertake ad-hoc translation requests for short messages and social media posts. 
● Support in preparing project launch, weekly check-ins, to identify and capture recommendations for future execution.
● Working closely with other team members to capture feedback throughout the project lifecycle and to contribute to the iteration of existing processes aimed at making project delivery more effective. 
● Support the organization in monitoring and evaluation exercises 
● Gathering and summarizing key takeaways for monthly project reports 

Required skills and experiences: 
● Minimum 2 years of experience in the education sector, project management or social media outreach campaigns 
● Bachelors / Masters degree with relevant experience will be considered for the role 
● Proven experience in project management, social campaigns, digital marketing campaigns and/ or project management preferably in the education sector 
● Exceptional communication and project-management / organisational skills 
● Proven ability to build consensus and work effectively within a cross-departmental team 
● Excellent track record of time management, systems organization, and follow-up

● Agility and flexibility towards evolving responsibilities and last-minute project changes 
● A confident facilitator to coordinate discussions between multiple internal stakeholders (such as an interdisciplinary team of different specialists across different geographies) 

Language Skills: 
Excellent proficiency in reading, writing and speaking Hindi. Additional knowledge of local languages of the state is desirable 

Nice to have but not mandatory: 
● Past experience in the education sector. 
● Masters degree with past work experience in social sector organising and advocacy. 
● Experience running lean campaigns that emphasize scaling of success, ideally within the education/social sector 
● Willingness to travel around the state if required 

Location: Raipur 

Write to us: 
Email your resume with the Project Manager (Chhattisgarh) -StoryWeaver in the subject line to [email protected]. Also, send us a short paragraph on why you think you are suitable for the position.
 

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