Odia is one of the official languages in India and the sixth language - after Sanskrit, Kannada, Malayam, Tamil and Telugu - being awarded the classical status in India. It is spoken by around 40 millions native speakers in the province Odisha, but also other parts of India and several countries around the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odia_language. <o:p></o:p>
But it isn’t included in the list of languages that can be learnt on italki. So, native Odia speakers can only choose „Other“ as mother tongue. Odia learners have trouble finding teachers and have no other place for posting notebook entries than under „Other“, where actually nobody will read the entries.<o:p></o:p>
Are you a native Odia speaker or interested in learning Odia? Speak up, so italki adds Odia to the list of their languages! <o:p></o:p>
I'm not learning Odia either, but I want to support your initiative, Mariam :) Great step,
and it's good to know that Sudeep speaks the language :) I like the shape of Odia alphabet.
I've a feeling that italki wouldn't mind at all adding any new language, especially Odia since
it's a real language spoken by more than 40 millions people. Just by checking the languages
that already exist now on italki's list; I mean Dothraki and Klingon! Give me a break :D
Who is going to teach those? Someone who watched all Star Trek and Star Wars seasons?
What a real accomplishment ;P
I've to say that italki is less crazy than Khan Academy though, because they are actually
translating their official website to Lolcat language!! I'm not kidding :')
Here's more about Lolcat :D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat
There are so many things that don't make sense in this world!
Ok, I got the reply by the italki team:
"Actually there was another user that suggested us to add Odia a while ago. And we just passed the request to our tech team in order to add this language to the website. In the near future you will see Odia in the language list on italki website. :)"
I'm not learning Odia but I also support this initiative. Sudeep, maybe you should write on your Profile that Odia is your native language, so that people know if they want to learn it.
Thanks Miriam for your effort to promote Odia which is my mother tongue and I'm one of those 40 million Odia native speakers:) I don't know where are the rest of 40 million-1 people! I think I'm the lonely and only person here who speak Odia:)
By the way, I don't know whether italki will include Odia to its list or not but it has already got a place on the discussion page and notebook entry, thanks to your support and effort:)
