A BIO-NOTE
OF PANCHANAN MOHANTY
After a brief stint at the Odisha Educational Service
and Berhampur University in Odisha between 1980 and 1990, Panchanan Mohanty
joined the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies at University
of Hyderabad, Hyderabad in 1990 as Reader. After being promoted to the post of
Professor of Applied Linguistics in 1998, he served this University till his
superannuation in 2018. After that he was invited to join GLA University,
Mathura where he headed the Department of English from 2019 to 2023 and then to
Nalanda University, Rajgir, Bihar where he worked as Dean i/c. of the School of
Languages and Literature. He has participated in more than 450 national and
international conferences, seminars, and workshops in different countries and
published more than 170 papers in journals like General Linguistics, Language Policy, Language Problems and Language Planning, Journal of
Professional and Academic English,
Mother Tongue, Glottometrics, Indian Linguistics, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, Indian
Journal of Linguistics, Papers in
Linguistic Analysis, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in
Humanities, Journal of Information and Telecommunication, Translation Today,
Jadavpur Journal of Comparative
Literature, etc. and book-chapters in anthologies published in India
and abroad on sociolinguistics, language teaching and testing, contact and
convergence, historical linguistics,
ethnolinguistics, language endangerment studies, translation studies, cultural
studies, psycholinguistics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics,
comparative literature, comparative literature, computational linguistics,
quantitative linguistics, audiology. His poems have been published in the Odia
literary monthly magazines like Asantakali,
Samabesha, Saurava, Shishulekha and in
the weekly pages of Odia newspapers.
He has written and edited 36 books in English and
Oriya published in India and abroad besides translating 4 books to Oriya. He
has held positions in different
professional linguistics associations and journals, like President of the
Linguistic Society of India, Pune, Vice-President and President of the Dravidian Linguistics
Association, Thiruvananthapuram, Chief
Editor of Indian Linguistics, journal
of the Linguistic Society of India,
Pune, deputy editor of International
Journal of Dravidian Linguistics,
journal of the Dravidian Linguistics Association, member of the Executive Body of Foundation for
Endangered Languages, U.K., Round Table for Protection and Preservation of
Indigenous Traditional Knowledge and
Endangered Languages, a national body set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of
India, and Advisory Committee of the
Google, Inc.’s Project “An Online Collaborative Effort to Protect Global Linguistic Diversity”, etc. He has done
field-work on six tribal languages spoken in Odisha and Maharashtra. He was
instrumental in discovering two undocumented minor/tribal languages named
Walmiki, spoken in the Koraput district of Odisha and Malhar that he identified
as a North Dravidian language spoken in the interior areas of the Cuttack and
Dhenkanal districts. He has prepared a dictionary of a critically endangered
language of the Munda family named Gorum/Parenga that is spoken by less than 50
fluent speakers in the district of Koraput, Odisha.
At present, he is a member of the Editorial Board of The Papers of Moscow State University
(Oriental Studies), The Endangered
Languages Yearbook (Brill),
International Arab Journal of English For Specific Purposes (hosted by
Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique), Translation Today, journal of the
National Translation Mission, Govt. of India along with the editorial boards of
a number of linguistics journals. He is also a Governing Council member of
Indian Council of Social Science Research,
New Delhi (Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Govt. of India), member of the Committee for the
Presidential Awards for Certificate of
Honour and Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Samman
(Classical Languages) of Ministry of Human Resource Development., Govt.
of India, member of the Core Committee
of Scheme for Protection and
Preservation of Endangered Languages, and member of the National
Advisory Committee of the Bharatvani
Project both of which have been initiated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt.
of India and implemented through Central
Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru. He was a member of the Committee set up
by the University Grants Commission to evaluate the Centres for Endangered Languages
established in different central universities. He was an Executive Council
member of University of Hyderabad, Central University of Andhra Pradesh,
Maulana Azad National Urdu University, and Court member of Central University
of Karnataka. He was Visitor’s (President of India) Nominee for Indira Gandhi
National Open University, New Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar,
Central University of Odisha, Koraput, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda. Now
he is Visitor’s Nominee for Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa
Vidyalaya, Wardha and a Distinguished Member of the Academic Council of Banaras
Hindu University, Varanasi.. He was Honorary UGC Chair Professor of the
Department of Tribal Affairs of Central University of Odisha. Besides being a
vocal advocate of multilingual education, he strongly believes that the
survival of biodiversity crucially depends on the conservation of linguistic
diversity. He was a member of the Government of India Delegation on “A
Policy Dialogue on Multilingualism and
Quality Assessment” to European Union at
Brussels and Warsaw and a member of the Expert Group Meeting on
“Towards UNESCO Guidelines on Language
Policies: A Tool for Language Assessment
and Planning”, UNESCO, Paris. He was an invitee chair in a session on
“Towards UNESCO Atlas of World Languages: Building International Partnerships
for the Creation of Language Monitoring Instrument” in the UNESCO Conference on
“Improving Access to Multilingual Cyberspace” held in Paris (2014). He was a
member of the Jury for the Translation Prize (Odia) of the Sahitya Akademi, New
Delhi (2017).
He has been a peer-reviewer for many professional
journals published from various parts of the world and publishing houses across
the globe. He has also taught as a visiting professor at a number of
universities in India and abroad. He was the Senior most Professor of the
University, Dean of School of Humanities, Dean of Students' Welfare, Head of
(i) Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies, (ii) Centre for
Endangered Languages and Mother Tongue Studies, the first centre of its kind in
an Indian university and founded by him, (iii) Centre for Buddhist Studies,
(iv) Department of Urdu at University of Hyderabad. He was coordinator of the
UGC Special Assistance Programme for Language Technology project at the Centre
for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies and a member of many language
technology projects sanctioned by the Ministry of Information Technology, Govt.
of India. He was Principal Investigator
of three major projects entitled “Development of INDRADHANUSH: An Integrated
WordNet Project for Indian Languages:
Oriya”, “Shallow Parser for Indian Languages: Odia”, and “Indian
Language Corpora Initiative: Odia” sanctioned by the Department of Information
Technology, Govt. of India. Besides, he was the Co-Consortium Leader for
the multilanguage project “Shallow
Parser for Indian Languages” and Chairperson
of the Peer Review and Steering Group of the Department of Information Technology Project “Development of Dependency
Tree Banks for Indian Languages”. He was
also the Principal Investigator of projects on endangered languages under the
Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of Central
Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.,
Govt. of India. He has so far supervised 43 Ph. D. and 37 M. Phil. students
from India and abroad in various areas of Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, and
Translation Studies.
He has received awards like Visuv Milan Puraskar (1982,
Prajatantra Prachar Samity, Cuttack), Kshetrabasi Sahitya-Vidya Puraskar (1992,
Odia Gabeshana Parishad, Cuttack), Jaswant Ray Nanak Chand Memorial Award (1998,
Bhogilal Leherchand Institure of Indology, Delhi), Jhankar Puraskar (2004,
Prajatantra Prachar Samity, Cuttack), Pandit Gopinath Nandasharma Prabandha
Puraskar (2014, Utkal Sahitya Samaj, Cuttack), Prabasi Odia Samman (2019, The
Intellects, Delhi), Award for the best monograph on Dravidian Tribes (2025,
Dravidian Linguistics Association, Thiruvananthapuram), Felicitation by Society
for Endangered Languages (2025, Lucknow) held at Madurai Kamraj University,
Madurai, Jagabandhu Singh Smruti Samman-2026 (Jagabandhu Singh Memorial Trust,
Bhubaneswar & Odisha Sahitya Academy, Bhubaneswar) besides Associateship of
the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla (1993-99).
He lives in Hyderabad and works as Honorary Professor
at School of Languages, Linguistics and Indology at Maulana Azad National Urdu
University, Hyderabad and Adjunct Professor at Department of Humanities and
Social Sciences, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur.
