There is a word in the Nicobarese language that translates into “a calm sea”. Tamra, today, is however only used by the islands’ elders and is at risk of fading away from their language forever.
As seasons go awry, species go extinct, and livelihoods change, words and phrases in several Indian languages are at the precipice of vanishing altogether, according to a new analysis.
From Marwari to Maithili, Tulu to Tamil, there are words — evocative, nuanced, onomatopoeic, with much exactitude — that describe everything from wild birds and morphing skies to livelihoods.
Oos ki nami means “dew moisture” in Bundeli in Madhya Pradesh. Raunkha refers to the festive atmosphere during collective sowing in Haryanvi. There is even a term to describe “twilight on wetlands” in Assamese, beelor godhuli. In Khasi, spoken in Meghalaya, shyllien connotes the “pre-monsoon fragrance”.
The new analysis, by the ‘Losing Words, Losing Worlds’ initiative, found that as the environment changes, nearly a hundred words and terms tied to seasons, species, soils, tides, and the skies appear to be fading or have already been lost from 22 languages across India. The findings were drew on a survey of around 100 people conducted by Marisha Karwa, a journalist-turned-climate communicator, and 101Reporters, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters, during October and November 2025.
As weather patterns change, so does the way dew forms and the mahua flowers, and with that “entire systems of knowledge and ways of relating to the natural world” stand to be wiped out, the report read. “That which we cannot name, we cannot understand — or manage, or act on.”
The survey also revealed that everyone from farmers and fishers to forest-dependent people in 15 States believed that with the loss of vernacular words, ecological literacy is vanishing. The mainstream climate narrative in India is largely in English or has been transliterated from the English into local languages, Ms. Karwa said, adding that climate communication excludes a majority of India’s multilingual people.
Monsoon in a tree bark
Terms such as patar bhonra, which denotes the seasonal movement of wild bees in a local language in Chhattisgarh, capture “connections between atmospheric signals, biological behaviour, agricultural and fishing timing and cultural practice,” Ms. Karwa wrote.
Hyper-local and multi-sensory terms or words also integrate biological, atmospheric, and social signals. In Odisha’s forests, an elderly person told the reporters that they “could smell the monsoon arrival from tree bark”.
In Bihar, terms linked to the monsoon, such as jeth ke baadal – May clouds, signalling the sowing of rice sowing – “have been abandoned as their ecological referents have disappeared, including the bird species that served as monsoon indicators”.
Likewise, in Maharashtra, the shenvti hawa, the southern breeze that signals pomfret movement, “has become so unreliable that elderly fishermen have abandoned sea-based forecasting altogether, replacing it with phone messages from fish traders in Mumbai,” per the report.
Meanwhile, language is also adapting to climate change. Farmers, fishers, and forest communities described newly emerging environmental phenomena, like bina nishaan to connote unannounced rains; garmi ke baad seedha sardi, an abrupt heat to cold alluding to a vanished autumn; and bhaga jhadu, vanished rains. Conversely, the report noted that in Tamil Nadu, the purattasi mazhai – the September–October rains, critical for samba paddy and crab larval cycles – has failed in four of the last six years.
The vividly illustrated book The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, first published in 2017, is an ode to lost words in Britain. As its authors wrote: “Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children… the words were those that children used to name the natural world around them.”
The authors had expressed hope that the book would conjure “lost words” such as “adder”, that conveyed “the echo of a snake or self-escape or a left-behind ghost; and “ivy,” which the authors describe as “a real high flyer/ Via a bark and stone I scale tree and spire/ You can call me ground cover; I say sky-wire.”
‘Interconnected challenge’
Mahesh Rangarajan, professor of environmental studies and history at Ashoka University, told The Hindu that while the new report is “preliminary”, it is still a “landmark” that reflects a complex set of responses to increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Cultivators must now search for a term for the late onset of winter, or summer extremes, or changes in temperature that affect water bodies.
“Activities like sowing and harvesting, gathering flowers and cutting grass, are all changing and in unexpected ways,” he said, adding that the survey now shows the “way forward”.
Today, almost everyone is losing words: monsoon droughts, cloudbursts in flatlands and ‘false rains’ are experienced but “neither local languages nor English have precise words for them,” the survey reported noted.
Ms. Karwa said she hopes to collaborate with institutions, the government, and partners on the ground, along with committed funders keen to address climate as “an interconnected challenge”.
“The survey must be an annual affair at a deeper, pan-India scale, document native language environmental lexicon from people, folk tales, media and archival research,” she told The Hindu.
Published – August 29, 2026 08:00 am IST
