Tamra, today, is however only used by the islands’ elders and is at risk of fading away from their language forever.
There is a word in the Nicobarese language that translates into “a calm sea”.
“That which we cannot name, we cannot understand — or manage, or act on. The mainstream climate narrative in India is largely in English or has been transliterated from the English into local languages, Ms. The survey also revealed that everyone from farmers and fishers to forest-dependent people in 15 States believed that with the loss of vernacular words, ecological literacy is vanishing.
As seasons go awry, species go extinct, and livelihoods change, words and phrases in several Indian languages are at the precipice of vanishing altogether, according to a new analysis. As weather patterns change, so does the way dew forms and the mahua flowers, and with that “entire systems of knowledge and ways of relating to the natural world” stand to be wiped out, the report read. Karwa said, adding that climate communication excludes a majority of India’s multilingual people. In Bihar, terms linked to the monsoon, such as jeth ke baadal – May clouds, signalling the sowing of rice sowing – “have been abandoned as their ecological referents have disappeared, including the bird species that served as monsoon indicators”.
Raunkha refers to the festive atmosphere during collective sowing in Haryanvi. The new analysis, by the ‘Losing Words, Losing Worlds’ initiative, found that as the environment changes, nearly a hundred words and terms tied to seasons, species, soils, tides, and the skies appear to be fading or have already been lost from 22 languages across India. The findings were drew on a survey of around 100 people conducted by Marisha Karwa, a journalist-turned-climate communicator, and 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters, during October and November 2025.
Oos ki nami means “dew moisture” in Bundeli in Madhya Pradesh. There is even a term to describe “twilight on wetlands” in Assamese, beelor godhuli . In Khasi, spoken in Meghalaya, shyllien connotes the “pre-monsoon fragrance”.
