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Language in South Asia – diversity & endangerment Anju Saxena Göteborg University/ Uppsala University presentation outline (1) South Asia: geography and linguistic situation (2) Language diversity and endangerment in South Asia Complicating factors: multilingualism is a part of the South Asian tradition unclear census figures insufficient language descriptions (3) What is happening today? South Asia (a.k.a. the Indian subcontinent) 500–1000 languages Bangladesh Bengali Bhutan Dzongkha India 2 official lgs: Hindi and English + 22 national lgs Maldives Dhivehi Nepal Nepali Pakistan Urdu and English Sri Lanka Sinhala and Tamil Several of the official languages of other South Asian countries are also national languages of India: Bengali (Bangladesh) Nepali (Nepal) Tamil (Sri Lanka) Urdu (Pakistan) Language families Indo-European (Indo-Aryan and Iranian branches + English) Dravidian Sino-Tibetan (the Tibeto-Burman branch) Austro-Asiatic (both the Munda and Mon- Khmer branches) + language isolates (the Andamanese languages, Burushaski, Nihali, Kusunda and possibly some other languages) Language families in India (source: Central Institute of Indian Languages) Great diversity 1: no of speakers Language family % speakers in population Indo-European 80.4% (78.7%+1.7%) (Indo-Aryan, Iranian) Dravidian 17.5% Tibeto-Burman 1.2% Austro-Asiatic 0.9% Great diversity 2: no of speakers 18 major lgs vs. other languages in India (1991 census) 18 scheduled (i.e., national) lgs 96.29% 96 non-scheduled languages (the 3.17% figure also includes 0.07% who speak “other languages” defined as those languages which have less than 10,000 speakers) Great diversity 3: regional variation Major Minor Minor Others lg lg 1 lg 2 A Kerala 96.6 2.1 0.3 1.0 Punjab 92.2 7.3 0.1 0.4 Gujarat 91.5 2.9 1.7 3.9 Arunachal 19.9 9.4 8.2 62.5 B Pradesh Nagaland 14.0 12.6 11.4 52.0 Importantly, these are APPROXIMATIONS No exact information about • the number of languages, and • the number of speakers of a particular language Some contributing factors: (i) dialect continua; (ii) multilingualism; (iii) incomplete census data; (iv) inadequate language descriptions and linguistic surveys Multilingualism: long tradition spanning three millenia - Societal multilingualism, e.g. language use in the life of a businessman in Mumbai: “His mother tongue is Gujarati. He lives in Mumbai [where Marathi is the dominant language]. How many languages do you think he uses in a day? In order to buy vegetables, he uses a colloquial variety of Marathi with the vegetable seller, then he travels by Metro to go into the city. As many ticketsellers are Anglo-Indians [and not Gujarati or Marathi speakers] he talks to them in colloquial Hindi. In connection with his business he comes in contact with people who speak Gujarati, Kacchi and Konkani. He communicates with them in these languages. He is educated enough to read English newspapers, and in the evenings he watches Hindi films on TV with his family.” Consequences: 1. Contact-induced changes ”India as a linguistic area” 2. Language shift A case study Language contact: Sangla Valley, Kinnaur Spoken in each village: - Kinnauri - Harijan boli -Ores Focus here: Kinnauri and Harijan boli Population: Kinnauri: 48 778 (1991 census) Harijan boli: 6 331 in Kinnaur (1998, Ethnologue) 6 331 includes all non-Kinnauri languages of this district Genetic relationships Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Himalayish Tibeto-Kinnauri West Himalayish Indo-European Kinnauri Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northern zone Western Pahari Harijan boli Previous work on these languages Kinnauri: Some work on Lower Kinnauri Harijan boli: None to date Linguistic convergence contd. Interesting patterns in kinship terms Gloss Harijan Kinnauri Comment younger brother noro bau baits bhai+-ts p. uncle bapu gato bapu tsa:ts (Kc, Kt), P. cacca m. uncle mama muma ma:m (Koci, Kotgarhi) Sk. mamàh mother ma ma ama (Tinani) p. uncle’s wife ma-ts gato ma tsats (Koci, kotgarhi) brother ate ate Possibly a kinnauri loanword oldest brother badote teg ate big[Indic]-brother[?Kinnauri] /bado ate mother’s sister mausre amni-ts, mas:i (Koci, Kotgarhi), Sk. matuhsvasa mats grandmother(p.,m.) api api àbi (Tod), àp (Tinani), àpa (Patani) dad: ‘father’s mother’ (Kc, Kotgarhi) grandfather(p., m.) tete tete tete (Darmiya, Tinani), da:d ‘father’s father, elder brother’ (Koci, Kotgarhi) Both languages becoming more similar to each other: Vigesimal counting system Gloss Kinnauri Harijan Vs. Koci, Kotgarhi (IA) 1 d ek e:k 2 ns dui dui (Sk. d(u)ve, Pa. Pk. duve) 5 a panch pa:ndz (Sk. panca) 10 s das ds (Sk. daSa) 11 sihd gyarah g:ra (Pk. egarasa, Sk. ekadaSa) 20 niza eisa bi (Kc, Kt) (20+1) nizo d eisa ek (20+3) nizo sum eisa trawn tej, tej bi: (20+11) nizo sihd eisa gyarah 2x20+1 nisnizo d dweesa ek 2x20+10 nisnizo ry dweesa das pdza (Sk. pancaSat) 100 ra raah S: (Sk. Satam) 2x100 ns ra dui raah Cultural convergence Common festivals: • Phulaich, • Phaguli Village god: Shri Naranji Some observations about the “caste system” in this region • Classical Vedic caste system: Brahmins, Ksatriya, Vaisya, Sudra and ontouchables • Interesting application of this caste system in this region: Kinnauris (TB) as Rajputs (thus, Ksatriyas in the traditional caste system), and Harijans (IA) as Scheduled castes (thus, Shudra/untouchables in the traditional system) • Symbolic One language = One culture? Stable multilingualism in modern times? Drastic changes in socio-cultural spheres in recent times Increasing bilingualism: Rate of bilingualism (concerning the 114 lgs named in the census) 1961 census 9.7% 1991 census 19.44% About the census figures: Positive that there is a census every 10 year in India (since 1881) but language data are self-reported all languages with less than 10,000 speakers are classified under the heading “Other” Linguistic descriptions, surveys? The only reliable survey till date is Grierson’s Linguistic survey of India (1887-1907) several attempts since then some descriptions of some lgs available many languages and linguistic situations undocumented and undescribed A case in point: Kinnaur vast geographical area If we concentrate our attention on Kinnauri, a lot of “dialectal” variation no comparative work done Kinnauri: Dialectal variation Gloss Chitkul Sangla mother ama ama father au bɔba daughter ačɪ čɪmed woman mɔrɪŋmi tsʰɛtss food kɔn kʰɔu morning čʰaŋmo sɔm day niri laye come tɔŋ bannu What’s happening today? The “success story” of Santhali languages in Jharkhand: Indo-Aryan (e.g. Sadari, Hindi, Bengali) Dravidian (Kurux, Malto) Austro-Asiatic (e.g. Mundari, Ho, Santhali) Hindi and English are dominant lgs Two opposing trends: (i) promoting English (ii) promoting some lesser-known languages – in particular Santhali – of this region, e.g. as a subject in schools and in University; newpapers Other activities A new linguistic survey is launched in India Nepal has introduced new regulations which, at least in principle, promote other languages than Nepali Language documentation at various places in India, Nepal and Bhutan (financed by national & international agencies) International efforts CNRS (Lacito Archive) Uppsala/Gothenburg Vienna Bern projects in Australia, USA and Germany among others To conclude, there is a need to consolidate our efforts in describing and documenting these lesser-known languages so that they no longer remain lesser-known.
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