UoH faculty member elected president of Linguistic Society of India

Hyderabad: A faculty member of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), Professor Garapati Umamaheswara Rao, has been appointed the president of the Linguistic Society of India (LSI). He is the first LSI president from the Telugu states.

In a career spanning 35 years, Prof. Rao has worked as the director of the Center for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies at UoH and has been the president of the Dravidian Linguists' Association and a member of the General Council, Kendra Sahitya Academy.

Under Prof. Rao's leadership, the LSI will focus on conservation of endangered and nearly-extinct languages of India, on mother tongue as a medium of instruction, the teaching of mother tongue, and the study of Indian languages in line with the new education policy.

Prof. Rao said efforts will be taken to set up short-term workshops in linguistics at various Central and state universities to train teachers of Indian languages and to acquaint linguists about the latest developments in the field of linguistics. He said the institute will give the highest priority to the development of Indian languages and linguistics by the development of machine translation systems.

The Linguistic Society of India has a unique position not only in India but also in other countries. Every year the society organises national and international conferences and seminars for research, training, communication, and applications for the development of Indian languages. Many eminent linguists from India and abroad participate in these conferences and publish research papers on Indian languages.