Collaborative Mission for Indian Language Sciences

Collaborative Mission for Indian Language Sciences (CoILS)

A multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary effort for advancing Language Science for Indian languages

and enabling its applications in health, education, technology, and culture

India is the only nation on this planet with such enormous linguistic diversity. It is home to over 1,500 languages from four language families, with more than 120 major languages and 22 constitutionally recognized languages. Indian languages substantially differ from each other, yet they remarkably share certain structural properties, making them a perfect test case for psycholinguistics theories and AI applications. No wonder, historically, Bharat has been a land of passionate linguists. Today, language science research has important implications for health, technology, education, and industry. For example, the treatment of language deficits in children and adults (mainly stroke survivors) requires research and development concerning how humans comprehend and produce language. Language behavior in utterances during a conversation can be used to assess the mental health and emotional states of the speaker. Research on language variation and the typology of Indian languages is instrumental in building large language models and other AI technologies for low-resource languages. Similarly, language acquisition research and language proficiency assessment are critical for learning, education, and language evaluation exams. Moreover, language behavior can be analyzed to infer customer and investor sentiment for industries.

India’s vast, underexplored linguistic diversity, along with its rich historical tradition of language research, makes it a perfect destination for building language science theories. Developing such a large-scale language science program and enabling its crucial applications in health, technology, and education calls for a collaborative mission for Language Sciences and applied research on Indian languages. Such a collaborative effort should involve multiple institutions, multiple Indian languages, and multiple disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, AI engineering, epidemiology, neuroscience, speech-language pathology, education psychology, and data sciences. We invite researchers from all relevant disciplines to join the mission!

Vision statement

To position India as a global leader in language sciences by harnessing its unparalleled linguistic diversity, fostering cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, and driving transformative innovations in health, technology, education, and industry.

Mission statement

The mission aims to build a nationwide, multi-institutional, and multidisciplinary collaborative framework to advance the scientific understanding of Indian languages and develop innovative applications for health, technology, and education. By uniting experts in linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, AI engineering, speech-language pathology, epidemiology, education psychology, and data science, the mission will create open resources, scalable technologies, diagnostic tools, and educational solutions. This collaborative effort will accelerate discoveries in language processing, enable AI technologies in native languages, enhance healthcare outcomes, and preserve India’s linguistic heritage.

Objectives

Theoretical objectives

A theory of processing universals for Indian languages that can predict invariant and variant aspects of language comprehension and production across Indian languages
A complete theory of language processing in humans that can explain data from Indian languages (with verb-final typology and rich-case marking) as well as fixed word-order languages (such as English)
Models of language comprehension and production in a bi/multi-lingual population
Models of first and second language acquisition
Models of word recognition and reading for Indian languages
An evolutionary theory of language as a complex adaptive system
Historical, comparative, and sociolinguistic dynamics for Indian languages
Models of impaired language processing that can explain language comprehension and production behavior in Individuals with Aphasia

Societal impact

Develop diagnostic and rehabilitation tools for language disorders (e.g., Aphasia) and reading deficits
Facilitate early detection of language delays in children
Improve accessibility for marginalized and disadvantaged linguistic communities
Strengthen cultural unity by facilitating easy learning of non-native Indian languages informed by language acquisition research
Assisting in mental health and emotional assessment using language behavior analytics

Technology development

Language learning app for multiple Indian languages (similar to Duolingo)
LLMs, ASR, MT, and NLP tools for low-resource Indian languages, capitalizing on processing universals of Indian languages
Low-resource-consuming tools for sentiment analysis, content moderation, and language diagnostics

Resource development

Large-scale psycholinguistics benchmark dataset for Indian languages (Psych-IL)
Large-scale benchmark for language deficits
Annotated word corpora for multiple Indian languages (see Shabd)
Independent Measurement Benchmark for individual differences research
Dialogue corpora for Indian languages
Standardized proficiency tests for Indian languages (similar to GRE, TOEFL)

Research Programs

T01: Variability and universals of Indian languages program

Processing universals of Indian languages
Historical and comparative linguistics models

T02: Language processing theory development program

Complete theories of language comprehension and production that can explain data across typologically different languages
Universal word recognition model
Language processing in transformer-based architectures

T03: Language evolution and typology modeling program

Role of cognitive constraints and communicative needs in language evolution
Functionalist models of language typology and grammar

T04: Language acquisition theory program

Models of first language acquisition for Indian languages
Models of second language acquisition

A01: Language impairment diagnosis and rehabilitation

Speech and language disorder diagnostics
Aphasia rehabilitation and personalized therapy apps
Treatment of dyslexia and other reading difficulties

A02: Language behavior analytics program

Consumer/investor sentiment analysis
Forensic linguistics
Mental health screening

A03: AI & Technological Innovations program

Speech and language disorder diagnostics
Aphasia rehabilitation and personalized therapy apps
Treatment of dyslexia and other reading difficulties

Collaborators on board

Research groups

Psycholinguistics lab, IIT Delhi
Kanpur Language Processing (KaLP) Lab, IIT Kanpur
Language and Cognition Lab, IIT Kanpur
Translational Neuroscience Lab, IIT Kanpur

Healthcare Institutions

Pauranic Neuro Center

Industry Partners

TBA

Where do we matter?

Rehabilitation of Aphasia (one-third of stroke survivors)

Annually approx. 150000 individuals survive stroke in India. Stroke is the second leading cause of long-term disability after Ischemic heart disease. One-third of the stroke survivors acquire Aphasia: Disability to produce or comprehend language, severely impacting their rehabilitation. Proper diagnosis and treatment of Aphasia require large-scale research on language comprehension and production in individuals with Aphasia in multiple Indian languages. This is where we come in. We plan to do experimental research on Aphasia, develop standardized diagnostic and intervention tools for the Indian population, and train practitioners to meet the demand of rehabilitation centers.

2. Treatment of language learning delays, reading deficits, dyslexia, and other language deficits in children

3. Language behavior analytics: Mental health assessment, forensic analysis, consumer sentiment, investor sentiment analysis

4. Language learning software for Indian languages

5. Solutions for LLMs, ASR, MT, and NLP for low-resource Indian languages, capitalizing on processing universals across Indian languages

6. Standardized proficiency tests for Indian languages (similar to GRE, TOEFL)

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