Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture

About Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture

Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture (PILC) is an autonomous research centre established with a view to promote advanced research in the fields of Linguistic and Culture in the Union Territory of Pondicherry. PILC is the only research centre which has been established and is being financially supported by the Government of Pondicherry. The institute is being managed by the Governing Body with the Education Minister as its Chairman, and the Education Secretary as the Vice-Chairman. PILC has been recognised as a research centre by the Tamil University, Thanjavur. With this recognition PILC could now offer part-time Ph.D. programmes in Linguistics, Anthropology and Tamil literature.

Linguistics and Culture, combined together as thrust areas of research in PILC, are a rare combination of subjects which have not been taken care of by any of the institutions in and around Pondicherry. Perhaps, in the whole of India, Pondicherry was the only region until 1981 where linguistics was completely unknown as a discipline.

In 1981, the International School of Dravidian Linguistics (ISDL) came forward to start centre at Pondicherry with the grant-in-aid of the Pondicherry government. Later, in 1986, the Pondicherry government decided to take over the regional centre under its direct fold and rechristened it as the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture.

PILC has been conducting various research programmes under three faculties, namely Faculty of Linguistic Studies (Dr.L. Ramamoorthy; Dr. T. Parasuraman), Faculty of Ethnographic Studies (Dr. S., Bakthavatasala Barathy; Ms. V. Pragati; Mr.S. Pilavendran), Faculty of Literary Studies (Dr. R. Sampath; Dr. M. Soudarsanne; Dr. N. Selvaraj). Majority of the research programmes are very much relevant to the Union Territory of Pondicherry.