Prof. PANCHANAN MOHANTY

 

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.