The West Bengal Wikimedians User Group is collaborating with the School of Language and Linguistics of the Jadavpur University to document and preserve five endangered languages spoken in West Bengal, India: Kharia Thar, Koda, Kudmali, Mahali and Toto. To achieve this, five postgraduate linguistics students from the department have been chosen as paid Wikimedians-in-residence (WiR) after a departmental interview process. They have received training to add lexicographical data to Wikidata. Each WiR has been assigned one of the endangered languages and provided with existing data collected during previous field projects conducted by the department. The entries will be evaluated by Dr. Atanu Saha, a faculty member of the department and the user group will bear the expenditure of the entire process. This initiative aims to enhance the digital presence and accessibility of these languages, contributing to their long-term preservation and revitalization efforts. The project can be tracked in this Programs & Events Dashboard.
