A joint meeting of the organizing committee was held to deliberate with regard to commemoration of 75th year of Sumi Literature Board on September 24.
Dimapur, September 25 (MExN): A joint meeting of all the Sumi frontal committee and sub-committee of the organizing committee was held on September 24 to deliberate with regard to commemoration of 75th year of Sumi Literature Board (SLB).
The SLB will celebrate its platinum jubilee with HK Khulu IAS, Rtd as the planning committee, chairman. The meeting was attended by Sumi Hoho, Sumi Kukami Hoho, Sumi Totomi Hoho, Sumi Officers union and many other, stated a press release issued by Media and Awareness Committee, Platinum Jubilee, SLB.
During the meeting, HK Khulu said that the meeting resolved to hold its platinum jubilee celebration on December 13, 2022 at Multipurpose Hall, Zunheboto with ‘Ni za tsa na ni ju-aje’ as its theme. It resolved to have Minister Agriculture, G Kaito Aye as chief guest, Advisor School Education, KT Sukhalu as guest of honour and Advisor, Tourism, Art and Culture Khehovi Yepthomi for release of Sumi Dictionary.
SLB Advisor, Dr Hokishe Yepthomi shared that the SLB erstwhile ‘Sema Literature Committee’ was started in 1947 with Ikhevi Yesca as Chairman and Avito Kiba as Secretary. “Records of that time were lost in the course of convulsion in the history at that time, however after a long gap, in 1958 ‘Education Literacy Association’ was formed with Hokishe Sema, former CM, the then CO of Zunheboto as Chairman and HC Khullu, ASIS as Secretary,” he stated.
Dr Hokishe said that in 1962 the ‘Sema Christian Literature Committee’ was started and ultimately on August 10, 1971 the Government of Nagaland constituted the ‘Sema Literature Committee’ with Hokishe Sema, the then CM of Nagaland as the Chairman. “The name continued as ‘Sema Literature Committee’ from 1947 till 1980 whence it changed to ‘Sema literature Board’ and then to ‘Sümi Literature Board’ thereafter,” he added.
SLB, Chairman, Vihoshe Muru informed that “Government of Nagaland gave permission to introduce Sümi language under modern Indian Language as a subject in HSLC in November 1977, the NBSE gave the approval in 1978 and the first exams were conducted in the year 1980 further Nagaland University approved the introduction of Sema (MIL) in Pre-University (PU) on January 1997 and the subject was first introduced in Mount Olive College, Kohima in the same year.” He added that after conversion of PU into Higher Secondary, Sümi MIL is used in GHS Zunheboto, GHS Dimapur and other.
Muru said that the Sütsa Academy Zunheboto started in 2009 and so far 319 students have passed out and 14 have been absorbed by the Government as language teachers, Sütsah Academy Thilixu started in 2015 with 260 students having passed out till date and diploma course in Yemhi college has started this year and presently they have 3 dictionaries namely Anglo Sümi Dictionary authored by Lozhevi Sema 1992, Anglo-Sumi Tsashe 1999 authored by Scato Swu and Hokishe Yepthomi and another authored by Dr Nishena Nekha and presently under the initiative of the department of Art and Culture an Anglo Sümi dictionary with diacritic markers is undergoing printing and is expected shortly and added that the Diacritic- Sümi language is a tonal language and to ameliorate the difficulty faced in writing, the community through its frontal organizations recommended the use of diacritic markers especially the acute (`) and grave (‘) to denote rising and lowering voices.
He added that as per NEP 2020, “all children from Pre primary to class 5 are to be taught in their mother tongue and in order to fulfil this requirement ground work has been started.” With a view to introduce Sümi in the Undergraduates courses, the Academic cell has started work on textbooks. Efforts are on to bring out the books before the next academic session, he informed.
During the meeting, essay competition result was declared where Ihoshe Kinny from WSBAK emerged as the inner, Ilina H Achumi from SBAK Nito Mount the 1st runner-up and Iuly H Aye from SBAK Aizuto as the 2nd runner-up. It may be mentioned here that a library for SLB will also be build to commemorate Platinum Jubilee for which former Minister Ihezhe Zhimomi will donate books and equipments.
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