By: Talat Mohsin
As a school boy, Banwang Losu wanted to be a pilot. Little did he know that one day he would be internationally recognised for his work in linguistics.
Wancho is a Konyak language which is native to the Wancho tribe of Arunachal Pradesh. Earlier, they used a Roman script to write it. But the Roman script could not do justice to the various variations of pronunciations in the Wancho language. Everything changed in between 2001 and 2012, when Losu designed a unique alphabetical script for the language. Not only was he successful, in addition the script was also officially published into the Unicode Standard in version 12.
For the 37 year old Losu, it’s a dream come true. He had taken the initiative when he was struck by the fact that his tribe did not have a own script which had all the nuances needed by the language.
“In today’s world when parents are going for English medium education for their children, the only way to promote and keep Wancho script alive is through the use of internet.” Says Losu (as published in the Deccan Herald.)
By profession, Banwang Losu is a government school teacher. He had also released a book on the Wancho script in the year 2013.
