1 LINGUISTIC SURVEY OF NEPAL (LinSuN) ___________________ A Proposal Prepared on behalf of National Planning Commission Government of Nepal ___________________ Drafting Team LinSuN Central Department of Linguistics Tribhuvan University June 27, 2008 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (1 PAGER) ..................................................................................................... 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (4 PAGER) ..................................................................................................... 3 1 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE ................................................................................................. 8 2 CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN NEPAL ............................................................. 9 2.1 VARIOUS ESTIMATES ...................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 GENETIC AFFILIATION .................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 WRITING SYSTEMS ......................................................................................................................... 11 2.4 LANGUAGE AND ETHNICITY ........................................................................................................... 13 2.5 SECOND LANGUAGES AND LINGUA FRANCAS ................................................................................. 14 2.6 EXISTING LEGAL PROVISIONS ......................................................................................................... 15 3 EARLIER LINGUISTIC SURVEYS ................................................................................................ 17 3.1 HODGSON'S SURVEYS ..................................................................................................................... 17 3.2 CAREY'S LINGUISTIC SURVEY OF INDIA ......................................................................................... 17 3.3 GRIERSON'S LINGUISTIC SURVEY OF INDIA (1898-1927) ............................................................... 17 3.3.1 Grierson's Methodology ........................................................................................................ 18 3.4 CONTRIBUTIONS OF SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS (SIL) ..................................................... 20 3.5 POKHAREL AND CHAUDHARI'S SURVEY ......................................................................................... 20 3.6 POKHAREL AND CHAUDHARI'S RESEARCH TOOL ........................................................................... 20 3.6.1 B K Pokharel's Research Tool ............................................................................................... 20 3.7 BANDHU'S FIELD SURVEY AND RNA'S SURVEY DESIGN ................................................................ 20 3.8 RAHUL SANKRITYAYAN'S SURVEY ................................................................................................. 21 3.9 GLOVER'S SURVEY OF GURUNG DIALECTS..................................................................................... 21 3.10 WINTER'S LINGUISTIC SURVEY OF NEPAL (1981-84) ................................................................... 21 3.10.1 Winter's Survey Tool ............................................................................................................ 22 3.11 MICHAILOVSKY'S TYPOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEPALESE LANGUAGES (1988) .............................. 22 3.12 M POKHAREL'S SURVEY OF NEPALI DIALECTS ............................................................................. 22 3.13 AUSTIN HALE'S CNAS PROPOSAL FOR SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEY .............................................. 22 3.14 RESEARCH AND LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION PROGRAMS AT CDL (1999-) ............................... 22 3.15 LINSUN PROJECT .......................................................................................................................... 23 3.16 TOBA ET AL'S SURVEYS ................................................................................................................ 23 3.16.1 Toba et al (2002)'s Survey Tool ........................................................................................... 24 3.17 BIELMEIER'S SURVEY OF TIBETAN DIALECTS ............................................................................... 24 3.18 MINOR SURVEYS .......................................................................................................................... 24 4 OBJECTIVES ..................................................................................................................................... 24 5 METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................................................. 25 5.1 A SOCIOLINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION OF ALL THE LANGUAGES OF NEPAL (OBJECTIVE 1) ................... 25 5.1.1 Lexical similarity ................................................................................................................... 25 5.1.2 Comprehension of Recorded Texts ........................................................................................ 26 5.1.3 Levels of Competence in the National Language ................................................................... 26 5.1.4 Sociolinguistic Questionnaires .............................................................................................. 26 5.2 BASIC LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION: GRAMMAR SKETCHES (OBJECTIVE 2) ........................................ 27 5.2.1 Linguistic Description: Lexicon ............................................................................................. 29 5.3 DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A COMPLETE DATABASE OF THE LANGUAGES OF NEPAL (OBJECTIVE 3) . 29 5.3.1 Database: Written corpora .................................................................................................... 29 5.3.2 Database: Spoken corpora .................................................................................................... 29 5.4 NEPALI SIGN LANGUAGE ................................................................................................................ 30 5.5 USE OF MOTHER TONGUES IN EDUCATION AND LITERACY IN NEPAL .............................................. 30 6 MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................................................. 31 7 WORK PLAN ...................................................................................................................................... 33 7.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 33 7.2 TIME FRAME .................................................................................................................................. 35 7.3 MAN POWER .................................................................................................................................. 35 7.4 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES ........................................................................................... 36 1 2 7.5 PHASE ONE (YEAR 1 AND 2)........................................................................................................ 38 7.5.1 Sociolinguistic Component .................................................................................................... 38 7.5.2 Documentation Component ................................................................................................... 38 7.5.3 Literacy Component ............................................................................................................... 39 7.6 PHASE 2 (YEARS 3, 4, 5, 6, AND 7) .................................................................................................. 41 7.6.1 Sociolinguistics ...................................................................................................................... 41 7.6.2 Documentation ....................................................................................................................... 41 7.6.3 Literacy .................................................................................................................................. 42 7.7 INCOMPLETE DOCUMENTATION ..................................................................................................... 44 7.8 ARCHIVING COMPONENT ............................................................................................................... 44 7.9 FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................ 45 7.10 SUMMARY OF WORK PLAN .......................................................................................................... 45 8 HUMAN RESOURCES AND TRAINING REQUIREMENTS ..................................................... 46 8.1 A PHASE BY PHASE REQUIREMENT ................................................................................................. 46 8.2 SPECIAL TRAINING PROGRAMMES.................................................................................................. 46 8.3 ACADEMIC TRAINING PROGRAMMES ............................................................................................. 47 8.4 ANALYTICAL AND TECHNICAL MANPOWER ................................................................................... 47 8.5 TRAINING ALLOCATIONS ..............................................................................................................