Department of Linguistics

About the Department

Dept. data last updated on :19/03/2024

The Department of Linguistics was founded by Prof. Masud Husain Khan, Professor Emeritus and an eminent linguist and language enthusiast, in the year 1968. Since its inception, the Department has been providing excellent teaching and indepth research in Linguistics with special reference to Urdu. As the role of Urdu increased in various walks of life, the Department realized its responsibility to gear itself towards providing scientific description of the Urdu language and producing materials needed for the teaching and research of Urdu language. From the very beginning, the Department provided post graduate teaching and research facilities leading to M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics. The Aligarh Muslim University is one of the few universities which offers a full-fledged under-graduate course in Linguistics for both boys and girls separately. Ever since the under-graduate teaching was made available in the Department, the academic activities of the Department have accelerated. Every year the Department of Linguistics organizes National and International Seminars/Conferences on issues of national significance, regularly updates its syllabi, and conducts Workshops geared towards involving students participation. Students qualify the UGC-NET and JRF and Maulana Azad National Fellowhip regularly. With free wi-fi access, the Department and its Seminar Library is being substantially modernized by wide access to online catalogue that can be networked with AMULibNet and can be accessed within the University campus.

The Department has been assigned the status of a nodal centre in the northern region for Documentation of two endangered languages: Birhor and Chinali. The project by Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, Ministry of HRD, Government of India, New Delhi, under Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (SPPEL).

The Department has also been selected for Linguistic Activation and Bi-directional Reading (Urdu): An Eyetracker and Electroencephalogram Investigation. With a duration of 36 months and total Budget of Rs. 3512000/-, this Multi-institutional and Multidisciplinary Project is sponsored by Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. The Department has also completed a Multi-University Major Project sponsored by the UGC titled Internally Displaced Populations and Multilingual Spaces: A Sociolinguistic Perspective, sponsored by UGC, New Delhi.

For providing hands-on training at post-graduate level, students of M.A. IIIrd semester in their Linguistic Field Methods paper collect corpus of spoken data of relatively unknown languages from the surrounding region and analyze them linguistically. The Department has been sending students to work on Korku (a tribal language belonging to Austro-Asiatic language family), Baghati and Sirmauri (spoken in areas around Solan) and many other lesser known languages.

The UGC recognized the scholarly contributions of the Department in terms of teaching and research, as well as the quantum of individual projects successfully carried out by its Faculty members and, thus, awarded Special Assistance Program (SAP) to the Department of Linguistics. The Phase I and Phase II of DRS-SAP have been completed.

VISION:

To be among the best Linguistics Departments in the subcontinent (South Asia) with special focus on Urdu, pursuing excellence in theoretical and applied aspects of linguistic research and teaching relevant to the needs of the community, society and the nation.

MISSION:

  • To offer state-of-the art undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral programs with social relevance.

  • To create an ambience in which new ideas and cutting edge research flourish through effective curriculum and infrastructure so as to produce academic leaders and researchers of tomorrow.

  • To produce trained linguists to describe the various notions of language(s)who will be able to protect and transmit these to future generations to serve the mankind.

  • To give voice and visibility to lesser known languages spoken in and around India.

  • To undertake collaborative projects and consultancy for long term interaction with the academia and industry.

  • To contribute on language policy and planning and aspire to promote and protect the languages of linguistic minorities of the subcontinent.

  • To make policies and provide excellent teaching and research facilities to attract and retain the best faculty members who are specialized in their respective fields.

CORE VALUES:

  • We affirm and are guided by the values of Aligarh Muslim University as a community of scholars and individual.

  • We are dedicated to the promotion of freedom of expression and to diversity in perspective, background, and experience.

  • We value our colleagues, students and treat them with dignity. We trust and support one another and we value everyone's contributions.


Achievements of the Department of Linguistics (4th October 2019 - 3rd October 2020):

Masud husain's Contribution to Urdu Language and Linguistics:


AMU Centenary Year Publication

Aligarh Journal of Linguistics, Volume 10, Issue No. 1, 2020-21


https://api.amu.ac.in/storage//file/17/file_management/1612860142.pdf


AMU Centenary Year Publication

Aligarh Journal of Linguistics, Volume 10, Issue No. 2, 2020-21


https://api.amu.ac.in/storage//file/17/file_management/1612860120.pdf


AMU Centenary Year Publication

AMU JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND MEDIA DISCOURSE VOLUME NO. 3, ISSUE NO. 1-2 , 2020-21