Citizen archivists record South Asian oral traditions ^{CEFR B1}

Citizen archivists across South Asia are recording oral traditions to preserve knowledge that is fading under modernization and cultural homogenization. The project Enhancing Indic oral culture on Wikimedia projects supported native speakers from 14 language communities and produced 227 recorded items, including folk songs, riddles, oral histories and traditional medicinal knowledge. Many of these forms are often excluded by mainstream education and mass media because they are passed down mainly by oral practice.

Archivists use phone cameras to record videos, then transcribe the material for accessibility and link it to open platforms such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikipedia. This approach helps speakers access the material and researchers to study it.

Examples show how local change affects songs. In Tulu areas, O Bele pardhana songs, called kabithe, were sung communally while planting and harvesting. Tulu archivist Kavitha Ganesh said older people no longer practice farming and do not remember these songs well; machines, changing jobs and a move to Areca farming reduced the social setting for learning them.

In Angika, around 80 collected folk songs often sung by Dalit women present different images of gods; one Shibguru song describes Lord Shiva sleeping without his third eye and thieves breaking into a temple. Torwali practices were reasserted at the Simam Festival 2011 and Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) uploaded videos to Commons. In Eastern Tharu, archivist Sanjib Chaudhary recorded a migration song that mentions the Sursari/Saptari river and is researching the Kosi diversion history suggested by the song.