The motivation for the Lotha project is the increased chances of mother tongue attrition in a person. It is a disappointing fact that our own system inadvertently contributes to language attrition in a person. One example is the rise of English medium schools; another is the restrictions put on naming body corporates while incorporating them, which is the subject of this post.

A body corporate is a legal body such as a company, trust or non profit organisation, that is incorporated into legal existence based on certain acts. The rules and regulations for the naming of body corporates allow only English alphabets and numbers in the name, and the type of the suffix is in English language too. We propose that —

• extended Latin characters are accepted to accurately transliterate Bhāratīya words in the name.
• Devanagiri script is accepted to name the body corporate in a nationally adopted indigenous script.
• The entity types of a body corporate and their suffixes must be in indigenous language: perhaps Sanskrit or Hindi.

We discussed the need to adopt the correct transliteration for Bhāratīya words in another post. Extended Latin characters allow the proper transliteration of Bhāratīya names. For instance, as seen in the table below, the official names of body corporates with indigenous names do not convey the right pronunciation as only the 26 English alphabets are used to name them. We just happen pronounce them correctly because we have heard of them or have been corrected.

Speaking of the second proposal, the official nomenclature for body corporates does not allow any other alphabets but English. This is ironical given the massive rich language history we have as a nation and the limitations of English in conveying our values and culture. The use of Devanagiri script in the official naming of body corporate will mitigate these issues and encourage the use of an indigenous languages and scripts in corporate communications too.

This will also make the incorporation process easier for those who went to a regional language school. We already discussed the need for regional language medium schools in another post, and when such changes are adopted by the people, it is only fair that the system allows them to use these languages in professional spaces.

Speaking of the third proposal, the suffix of a body corporate name denotes the type of the body corporate, such as Pvt. Ltd. Company, OPC or Foundation. These entity type names as well as their abbreviations can be based on Bhāratīya languages. Such names and suffixes are already in wide practice in the world, as seen in the table below.

You can refer to this Wikipedia article to learn more about entity types in various countries.

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Founders have to right to name their body corporates as they choose to. In fact, it is reasonable to have an English name when you are naming the body after someone with an English name, or when you are choosing a name for the meaning of that word, and that word is too long or too difficult to pronounce in the indigenous language.

Whatever language the body corporate is named, the system must allow the proper naming of that body. Nationally, such moves will extend a small amount of encouragement to people to name their body corporates in indigenous languages, which otherwise is largely named in English.

We aren't against English names, we are just against the way English names are given — liberally, replacing and demoting indigenous languages; for language is an indispensable element of culture, and culture enables diversity, diversity contributes to human resilience, and human resilience ensures human continuity.