Font released by Sri L. Narsimha Reddy, Justice, A.P. High Court on the occasion of International Mother Tongue Day
On the occasion of International Mother Tongue Day, Sri L. Narsimha Reddy, Justice, A.P. High Court released the Gunjala Gondi Lipi Font in the presence of Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Vice-Chancellor, University of Hyderabad (UoH); Professor Jayadheer Tirumal Rao, Mr. S Sridhara Murthy, Prof. V Krishna, Smt Manoja, Coordinator for Gunjala and other officials, students and staff of the University.
Sri Narsimha Reddy said that it is a unique day today, as not only are we celebrating the International Mother Tongue Day, but also releasing the Gunjala Gondi Lipi Font, on which lot of research has been undertaken with the help of Sri Kotnak Jangu and Sri Vinayak Rao. They have been instrumental in keeping the language alive even today and with the help of Sri Sridhara Murthy the font of Gunjala Gondi Lipi can now be used by many. He also said that the steps should be taken to protecting the Gondi language and culture for the overall development of Gondi people.
Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, VC, UoH congratulated the team for developing the font and releasing the same on the occasion of International Mother Tongue Day at UoH. Prof. Ramaswamy and Sri L Narsimha Reddy later released a book on the Gunjala Gondi Lipi in Telugu.
Mr. S Sridhara Murthy, Font Maker gave a brief presentation of the font and explained its salient features.
Professor Jayadheer Tirumal Rao, Visiting Professor of the Centre for Dalit and Adivasi Studies and Translation (CDAST), UoH, read the report and explained the importance of the find of the archaic Gondi script in Gunjala village.
Smt Manoja while addressing the gathering said that language is our identity and we should make all effort to preserve it for our future generations.
Prof. V. Krishna, Coordinator, CDAST gave the welcome and Dr. Bheem Singh proposed the vote of thanks.
The Gondi (Gōndi) or Gond people are a Dravidian people in central India, spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, eastern Maharashtra (Vidarbha)
Gond or Rajgond are same tribes. The term Raj Gond was widely used in 1950s, but has now become almost obsolete, probably because of the political eclipse of the Gond Rajas.
The Gondi language is related to Telugu and other Dravidian languages. About half of Gonds speak Gondi languages while the rest speak Indo-Aryan languages including Hindi.