Taatung Tatung and Other Amazing Stories of India’s Diverse Languages

Languages make us human. The ability to communicate and be understood through songs, art, words, inscriptions, or even gestures is essential because we, as a species, cannot live in isolation. And each one of these languages has its own journey.

Early humans leaving messages on cave walls; three men on a raft stumbling upon a language they weren't looking for; a secret language that evolved to hide a people; the world's only undeciphered language that is 4000 years old. The stories in this book take you from the northeastern-most tip of our country to the forests in central India, from indigenous languages that are thousands of years old to those that have developed recently.

Engrossing, entertaining, and packed with trivia, this book is for non-fiction lovers and students, who have a keen interest in all things India!

Review
This well researched and easy-to-read book brings home to readers the tremendous language diversity of India. The delightful narratives in it form for the young readers a fascinating introduction to India's linguistic riches. A much, much needed work. -- G.N. Devy, Chair, People's Linguistic Survey of India

In Taatung Tatung, Vaishali Shroff covers the full spectrum of India's glorious linguistic tradition, from the well-known (the trials of the Bangla Language Movement) to the fascinating and overlooked (the powerful symbolism of Hijra Farsi). This book is an eye-opening examination of a critical aspect of our culture, as well as a warning against allowing languages and their rich legacies to disappear. -- Dr Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, Lok Sabha and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology

About the Author
Vaishali Shroff is an award-winning children's author and columnist based in Mumbai. More than 200 of her stories, both fiction and non-fiction, have been published across various books, readers, magazines, newspapers, and online platforms. Many of her works are about challenging and sensitive yet pertinent subjects and act as icebreakers to initiate difficult conversations. She loves to write research-based books, especially related to the environment. She wrote The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur, which is the first book exclusively on India's dinosaur fossil heritage and won the 2019 Best in Indian Children's Writing (BICW) award in the Environment Tales category. Shroff has been invited as a speaker in various literature festivals across the country. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram (@vaishaliwrites) to know more about her work.