Language, Ecology, and Cultural Diversity: An Ecolinguistic Study of Amitav Ghosh's Jungle Nama

Abstract Despite the rapid and growing interest of scholars in the environmental issues in literature in the last few decades, there is a remarkable gap in investigating how aspects of language, ecology, and cultural diversity interact in literary studies, particularly in the oeuvre of Amitav Ghosh. This paper aims to study Jungle Nama (2021), a verse novel by Amitav Ghosh, from an ecolinguistic perspective by exploring the intricate and delicate relationship between language, ecology, and cultural diversity. The paper adopts a descriptive approach to examine how Ghosh has incorporated eco-friendly themes in his novel to bring a practical difference in the worldview by opposing perilous narratives about the human-nature symbiosis and attempting to trace new and beneficial narratives for the planet Earth. This paper establishes that, using creative language to express ethnic diversity, this poetic retelling of a classic Sundarban fable vividly depicts the symbiotic interaction between humans and the environment. This paper further examines how Ghosh has woven his narratives, blending them with myth, folktales, and hybrid languages, to underline the wider topicality of such narratives in the present context. Key Words: Language, Ecolinguistics, Ecology, Cultural Diversity, Amitav Ghosh, Jungle Nama