ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY

The Mohammadan Anglo Oriental (MAO) College was set up by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in 1875, a great visionary of his time. By 1920, the College was transformed into a University, and it was named Aligarh Muslim University. The first Chancellor of the university was a female, Sultan Shah Jahan Begum. Modeled on the University of Cambridge, it was among the first institutions of higher learning set up during British Occupation.

Aligarh Muslim University provides both taalim and tarbiat, and opportunities for cross culture interaction, where the country's North and South, East and West are brought emotionally, culturally, linguistically and psychologically closer in this educative experience of living together.

In spite of the establishment of a number of universities and institutions of higher learning all over the country, Aligarh Muslim University has been maintaining its national and international character as an institution of excellence. It has more than 37327, students, 1,686 teachers and some 5,610 non-teaching staff on its rolls. The University now has 13 faculties comprising 117 teaching departments, 3 academies and 21 centres and institutes. Recently NIRF has ranked Aligarh Muslim University as the third best Central University in India.

DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS

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. With free wi-fi access, the Departmental 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 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 Programme (SAP) to the Department of Linguistics. The Phase I and Phase II of DRS-SAP have been completed. The Department publishes very reputed UGC Care listed and peer reviewed journal, Aligarh Journal of Linguistics (AJL) on regular basis.

LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF INDIA (LSI)

The Linguistic Society of India is a body of intellectuals working on languages and promotion of Linguistics. The society has been in existence since 1928 and has build a strong network of Linguistics scholars. Over the years, LSI has also become a household name among the linguists of this country. The society organises an annual conference attracting a wide range of participation from India and abroad. These events bring together generations of linguists. So far, the society has organised 44 events, and this one is the 45th edition of ICOLSI. Arguably, LSI events serve as a gateway to Linguistics for most Linguistics scholars in this country.