Amrit Sufi
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I am a linguist, a researcher, and a language diversity champion. Apart from Hindi and English, I speak Angika- an Indo-Aryan language I learnt from my grandmother. As with several underrepresented languages online and in real life, Angika is usually abandoned by its own inheritors as language and culture homogenization grows globally. However, that does not have to mean that we resign to the situation. With the help of phone cameras, some training and support, several people from various countires are now documenting the oral culture of their language on Wikimedia projects, read more here.
So far I have managed four Wikimedia funded projects focused on representation of linguistic and knowledge diversity on Wikimedia projects:
- The Oral Culture Transcription Toolkit: A toolkit that provides detailed information on documenting the oral culture and knowledge within one's language.
- Needs assessment for the documentation and revitalization of Indic languages using Wikimedia projects: A needs assessment research focused on understanding the requirements of a common person for documenting their language.
- Indic Oral Culture Project: An experimental project that empowered citizen archivists to document their oral culture on Wikimedia projects.
- Enhancing Indic Oral Culture on Wikimedia projects: the project empowered citizen archivists from 14 language communities while focusing also on their integration on Wikimedia projects and forging collaborations for academic rigour and better transcription.
- Documenting and disseminating Indic oral culture on Wikimedia projects- Phase II: is building on the community and representation of oral culture to enrich Wikimedia projects with underrepresented languages and knowledge forms.
Storytelling about language and culture representation via Wikimedia projects:
Articles detailing how Wikimedians have been using Wikimedia projects to bring their languages are culture online-https://globalvoices.org/author/amritsufi/
Articles with updates on oral culture documentation:
- https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/04/26/nine-south-asian-language-communities-come-together-to-document-their-oral-culture-via-wikimedia-projects/
- https://diff.wikimedia.org/2025/11/27/how-citizen-archivists-in-south-asia-confront-the-online-marginalization-of-oral-cultures-and-languages/
- https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/07/06/documenting-oral-culture-on-wikimedia/
About my hands-on work
I am a steering committee member of Language Diversity Hub since July 2025. I am a steering committee member of Wikimedia GLAM/GLOSS working group since August 2025.
As a Wikimedian, I usually contribute to Angika oral culture on Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons by uploading oral culture videos videos and their transcriptions.
Find more about my mother tongue Angika's oral culture and material culture collection here.
I am serving as core organizing team member for WikiConference India 2026 (Kochi, India) and Wikimedia Language Diversity Conference 2026 (Accra, Ghana).
Wikimedia oral culture user group
If you want to contribute to oral culture documentation on Wikimedia projects, join the Wikimedia oral culture user group (unrecognized) to become a part of the discussion on pathways and practices around the same. Link here.
Know more
Interested in knowing more about my work on language and culture preservation? Read these newspaper articles covering oral culture documentation on Wikimedia projects:
- From Igbo to Angika: how to save the world’s 3,000 endangered languages in The Guardian
- Kin’s speech: One woman is archiving folk songs of insult and dissent from Bihar in Hindustan Times
To connect with me on LinkedIn, click here.