by: Madhav P PokharelPosted on:

Role and relevance of linguistics in Nepal

  1. 1.   Linguistic study of Nepalese languages: historical axis

 

1.1 Beginning of lexicography and traditional grammar (19th century)

Linguistic scholarship on the Nepalese languages begins with the publication of wordlists of Nepali, Newari, Magar and Limbu in the beginning of the 19th century initiated by Kirkpatrick (Kirkpatrick, 1811) who was followed by Campbell and Hodgson ( (Hodgson, 1847), (Hodgson, 1847-1848), (Hodgson, 1953), (Hodgson, 1957a), (Hodgson, 1957b), (Hodgson, 1957c)) who published wordlists in Lepcha (Campbell, 1840), Koch [Rajbamsi], Bodo [Meche], Dhimal (Hodgson, 1847), Gurung, Kiranti, Lhoke, Limbu, Magar, Murmi [Tamang], Newari, Sherpa, Sunuwar (Hodgson, 1847-1848), Kham (Hodgson, 1953), Vayu [Hayu] (Hodgson, 1957a), Rungchhenbung [Bantawa], Chhintang, Nachhiring, Waling [Bantawa], Yakkha, Chaurasya [Umbule], Kulung, Thulung, Bahing, Lohorung, Lambichhong [Mugali], Balali, Sangpang, Dumi, Khaling, Dungmali (Hodgson, 1957b), Darai, Danuwar, Pahari, Chepang, Baram, Kuswar, Kusunda, ‘Pakhya’ [पाखे (नेपाली?)], Thaksya‘ [Thakali?], Tharu (Hodgson, 1957c) (Hodgson, Reprint 1880 (Indian edition 1992)).

Grierson (1881-1887) published a series of articles on the seven languages of North Bihar like Maithili (Grierson, An introduction to the Maithili language of North Bihar, 1881b), Bhojpuri (Grierson, 1884), and the Kaithi script (Grierson, 1881a) which was used to write those languages.

The first published dictionary of a Nepalese language is probably Conrady’s (1893) bilingual dictionary of Sanskrit into Newari where Sanskrit is a source language and Newari, a target language. Mainwaring’s (1898) dictionary of the Lepcha is the first dictionary where a Nepalese language is used as a source language.

Linguistic study in Nepal is iconically similar to the history of the subject linguistics. Ayton’s grammar (Ayton, 1820) of the Nepali language is the first western traditional grammar among the Nepalese languages. Until that time, the Paninian (पाणिनि, इपू ५०० [ब्रह्मदत्त जिज्ञासु. सं. १९८५ इ.]) school of grammar may have been used to explain the grammatical intricacies of the Nepalese languages, however, there is no direct evidence to support this speculation. Ayton‘s grammar is the precursor of the scholarship of traditional grammars of the Nepalese languages written both following the Sanskrit and English traditions. The order of person in the verb paradigms in a Paninian grammar is 3rd (he/she), 2nd and 1st (he-you-I). Ayton‘s grammar has caused disturbance in that order by introducing a new order (I, you, he). This mismatch has created confusion in naming 1st and 3rd person in the Nepalese grammatical tradition.

 

1.2 Beginning of historical comparative study (20th century)

Turner‘s (1887) grammar and vocabulary of Nepali (Toba, 1998) is the first step towards historical linguistic scholarship in a Nepalese language. Turner completed his classic historical scholarship on Nepali lexicography in 1931 (Turner R. L., 1931) which expanded with the publication of his dictionary of Indo-Aryan (Turner R. L., 1966) together with his papers on comparative linguistics (Turner R. L., 1985). In this way Turner (1887) was the first linguist to both link and break the tradition of publishing vocabularies and traditional grammars. Turner‘s etymological dictionary of Nepali and the historical comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan are both classic works. Balkrishna Pokharel (पोखरेल ब. , २०१९ (1962)), Dayananda Srivastava (Srivastava, 1962) and Chura Mani Upadhyaya Regmi (उपाध्याय-रेग्मी, २०२५) followed the scholarship of comparative philology (or historical linguistics) introduced in India by Suniti Kumar Chatterji (Chatterjee, 1926).

 

1.3 Beginning of synchronic study and genetic classification

Grierson‘s (1909-27) Linguistic Survey of India gave ample amount of space to many Nepalese languages. Short introductions, grammatical sketches collection of texts and the classification of Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian languages in the Survey help to understand Nepalese languages and group them into one or the other genetic affiliations. Grierson‘s work is still serving a classic reference to several of the Nepalese languages.

Grierson was followed by Shafer ( (Shafer, 1955) (Shafer, 1966)) and Benedict (Benedict, 1972) both of whom have included several Sino-Tibetan (or Tibeto-Burman) languages of Nepal in their classification. Glover‘s classification (Glover, 1969) comes in between. They were followed by Hale ( (Hale, 1973) (Hale, 1982)), Egerod (Egerod, 1973-1974), Voegelin and Voegelin (Voegelin & Voegelin, 1977), Bradley (Bradley, 1997), van Driem (van Driem, 2001), Thurgwood (Thurgwood, 2003), Noonan (Noonan, 2007), Matisoff (Matisoff, 2008), DeLancey (DeLancey, 2009) and several others.

Balkrishna Pokharel (पोखरेल ब. , २०२२) has classified Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman Kiranti languages of Nepal. However, as Hale (Hale, 1982) has noted, the classification of Sino-Tibetan languages is not an easy task and it somewhat differs from the modality of classifying Indo-European languages.

Since Central Department of Linguistics came into existence in 1996, our priority has been to encourage students to describe a hitherto unwritten language. In this way we have produced more than 60 MA and a few PhD dissertations,  but nobody has come to the front to incorporate our products to update classifications of both the Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages. Someone has to take the lead in this fertile land. This problem needs to be addressed by both native and foreign linguists and institutions like Central Department of Linguistics and Linguistic Society of Nepal.

 

Summer Institute of Linguistics

Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) started working on Nepalese languages in early 1960s. It started teaching MA linguistics in Tribhuvan University; it oriented and motivated Kamal Prakash Malla, Ballabh Mani Dahal, Chura Mani Bandhu, Tej Ratna Kansakar and some others to seek PhD degree in linguistics. Kenneth L Pike, Austin Hale and several other famous linguists of the SIL gave them basic orientations and trainings in linguistics. Many linguists from different parts of the world were motivated to conduct research on different Nepalese languages and several reports have come out (Toba, 1998).

 

Winter‘s linguistic survey

Werner Winter came to Nepal with an aim to conduct a survey of Nepalese languages in early 1980s and Hanβon (Hanβon, 1991) is the product of that venture.

  1. 2.   Teaching of linguistics in Nepal

 

2.1 Sanskrit linguistics

From the historical perspective, Nepalese scholarship in linguistics starts with the synchronic study of Sanskrit grammar. Sanskrit linguistic research begins with the synchronic analysis of the Vedic texts sometimes around 1000 BC ( (Varma, 1929 (2nd edition 1961)). There are many schools of Sanskrit linguistics out of which the phonetic observations of the Pratishakhyas (1000-500 BC), etymological study of Yaska (Varma & Dev, 1953), capturing the generalizations of the language embedded in both the Vedic and classical Sanskrit texts with about 4000 algebraic generative rules by Panini (पाणिनि, इपू ५०० [ब्रह्मदत्त जिज्ञासु. सं. १९८५ इ.]), and the semantic study culminated in Bhartrhari (700 AD) stand out (Coward, Harold G.; Raja, K. Kunjunni, 1990). Sanskrit universities in South Asia highlight only the last two schools. Linguists like Bloomfield, Firth and Chomsky have appreciated the linguistic scholarship of Sanskrit, but it is pity to have found that in South Asian universities the departments of linguistics do not generally teach Sanskrit linguistics. Should Nepal think about it?

 

2.2 Comparative philology and historical linguistics

Balkrishna Pokharel is the only Nepalese who completed master’s degree in comparative philology. Soon after he got his degree from Calcutta University towards the beginning of 1960s, he started teaching linguistics in the Nepali Department of Tribhuvan University. Before Pokharel the subject was being taught by Ramraj Panta (1957). Chura Mani Bandhu (उपाध्याय-रेग्मी, २०२५) got inspiration from Pokharel to follow Suniti Kumar Chatterjee’s (Chatterjee, 1926) scholarship. It was Balkrishna Pokharel (पोखरेल ब. , २०१९ (1962)) who initiated historical comparative linguistic studies in this country. Today the subject of philology is merged into historical linguistics. Balkrishna Pokharel also introduced fieldwork, studied Nepali dialects, worked on historical phonology and the diffusion of grammatical features from neighboring languages to Nepali.

 

  1. 3.   LSN and CDL

 

Linguistic Society of Nepal (LSN) was established in 1979 when Subhadra Subba (1973), Kamal Prakash Malla (1973), Ballabh Mani Dahal (1974), Chura Mani Bandhu (1978), Tej Ratna Kansakar (1978) and Shishir Kumar Sthapit (1978) completed PhD in linguistics. Every year, since it came into existence, this Society has been organizing an international conference and publishing an issue of its journal Nepalese Linguistics.  Through the conferences and the issues of the journal the Society has served a platform for interaction among linguists from Nepal and abroad, who have had interactions on the various aspects and linguistic issues of mostly Nepalese languages.

Since its beginning, every year the Society constantly gave an impetus to establish a linguistic department in Tribhuvan University; however, it took almost 17 years when its demand was fulfilled when the Vice Chancellor was Kamal Krishna Joshi and the Rector was Madhav Prasad Sharma. Initially, the Society was run by linguists and teachers of various departments of language and literature like Nepali, English, Sanskrit, Hindi and Nepal Bhasha, but now it is almost completely run by the products of Central Department of Linguistics. Previously, seminars and conferences were conducted mostly by the contributions from its members, but now several institutions like University Grant Commission (UGC), National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN), Nepal Academy, Tribhuvan University, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and various other institutions and dignitaries are contributing to the success of the conferences and the publication of the journal.

The Department has produced more than 60 students and we are satisfied by the quality of our products. They are presenting papers in various national and international conferences, participating in the interactions on issues in linguistics and publishing papers. They are editing the journals like Nepalese linguistics and Gipan. They are helping Nepal and its various mother tongue speakers by writing grammars, dictionaries and orthographies on different unwritten languages and a bunch of them is active in the Linguistic Survey of Nepal.

However, most of our products are unemployed. The University Service Commission (USC) has appointed only a single student (Ramraj Lohani) of ours on a regular basis for the last 13 years. If the USC had appointed 2 of our products every year, there would have been at least 30 permanent teachers for the last 15 years. This situation has had an adverse effect in the enrolment which suddenly dropped almost by 90% for the last 3 batches. Concerned University authorities should hopefully note this nightmare sympathetically about the Department. I remember one of the First Year students’ comments: ‘How can the Department attract students so long as the admission seeking population sees the majority of the Department’s products including our teachers, some of whom are from the first batch, are unemployed?’

In cooperation with NFDIN the Department has also documented and described many languages and got the reports published. Although there have been problems in a few publications where our students’ names have not been printed as the real researchers, such a practice should be discouraged and corrected in future, but the cooperation between the institutions should continue. NFDIN has also been financially supporting the Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSun) project.

 

  1. 4.   Evaluation of CBS (2001) linguistic data

 

Following are a few mistakes, in Chapter 4 of Population monograph, that need to be addressed in the next Census report:

  1. None of the Dura people can speak the Dura language. It is spoken by a single speaker Muktinath Ghimire who speaks it as a second language. Som Maya Dura, an octogenarian, has been found to be speaking varieties of argots based on Nepali, not the Dura language. Paradoxically, according to our population census report (CBS, 2003) the number of Dura speakers is more than 3000.
  2. Only 5 or 6 of the Kusundas speak their mother tongue with varying competence, but the CBS report (Yadava, 2003) shows that there are 87 Kusunda speakers.
  3. The monograph treats Kisan as a Nepalese language (p. 140), but Sadhani as a foreign language (p. 156). In fact the Kisan are Dravidian people who have lost their language. Kisan appears as a Dravidian language (p.147) in the report. Sadhani is the lingua franca of peoples in Jharkhand. In Jhapa also Sadhani/Sadani/Satna/Sadri serves as the lingua franca the peoples who are somehow tied to the tea gardens. It is, therefore, justified to call the language Sadri rather than Kisan. How could there be only two speakers of Sadhani (p.57)?
  4. The monograph (p.156) has also listed Koche as a foreign language. Koche is another name of Rajbamshi, who have occupied most of Jhapa and Morang.
  5. Population census reports show that before the political change of 1990, there is a gradual decrease in the population of Maithili, Tharu, Tamang, Newar, Limbu and Magar corresponding to a gradual increase in the population of Nepali speakers, which culminates to nearly 58% in 1981, but after the after the political change there is a gradual decrease in the population of Nepali (which has gone down to 48%) corresponding to the gradual increase in the population of the languages mentioned above (पोखरेल म. प., २०६७). Change in the language attitude and awareness should be given credit to this kind of crisscross. In any case, this example questions the authenticity of our census data.

 

  1. 5.   Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSun)

 

At present National Planning Commission (NPC) has assigned our Department the responsibility to conduct Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSun). The LinSun project has chosen the sociolinguistic survey as its primary goal on the first phase. The project has almost completed the survey only 7 languages out of not less than a 100 languages of Nepal and the project has come to the 2nd phase with its present goal to include other 6 languages. At present LinSun is experiencing the following problems:

  1. Every reshuffling of the government triggers reshuffling in the NPC. As a result NPC forgot that it had appointed our Department to conduct sociolinguistic survey of the Nepalese languages. Lack of funding has been one of the major setbacks. The original file was lost and thanks to Dinesh Devkota, another file has recently been created.
  2. LinSun should have chosen seriously endangered languages or languages of remote areas rather than those which are not very far from pitch road in the initial phase. The present strategy of LinSun does not show that it will complete the survey within 7 years, its promised target. If 7 languages are surveyed in 3 years, it may take not less than 45 years (almost half a century) to complete the survey with the present pace. LinSun should revaluate its present pace and target within a rigid time frame.

 

  1. 6.   Growing relevance of linguistics and paradoxical syndromes

 

  1. One of the prime agenda of the Constitutional Assembly is to restructure the country into geographically, ecologically, economically, ethnically, linguistically and politically equitable states. One of the criteria of that restructuring is going to be linguistic, but the political parties do not seem to have felt the delicacies and intricacies of linguistic role. Linguists should acknowledge their roles in the proposed restructuring.
  2. Several Kiranti languages are reported to have been extinct and several others are on the verge of extinction (Hanβon, 1991). Among them Tilung and Linkhim are acknowledged to have spoken only by not more than 5 speakers of the third generation.
  3. There are many patterns of language endangerment in Nepal (Pokharel, September 19-28, 2011). Department of Linguistics is established with an objective to assess and improve the linguistic vitality of the mother tongues. However, the enrolment in the Department does not show that the native speakers have acknowledged the relevance of this Department to their mother tongues.
  4. The majority of the speakers of Nepalese languages are bilingual to Nepali. The degree of bilingualism is becoming gradually not in favor of the mother tongues. Nepali has become increasingly the medium of instruction not only in the majority of schools, but also in the majority of university campuses. Even English is being taught through Nepali medium in the majority of schools and university campuses. It has become ritualistic in the university to design courses and set question papers in English medium although the major part of student-teacher, teacher-teacher and student-student formal interactions are limited to Nepali.
  5. The opposition of the official status of the Nepali medium has been very vibrant in political streets, the Constitutional Assembly and Vice President’s oath in spite of the fact that the medium of opposing Nepali has been mainly Nepali and sometimes Hindi comes at odds.
  6. Most of the Nepalese choose Sanskrit to name their children and institutions. Sanskrit has served the source of calquing scientific and technical vocabularies. Native words are replaced by Sanskrit to draft a prestigious variety of a Nepalese language. Almost all the religious scriptures of Hinduism and most of those of Mahayana Buddhism are written in Sanskrit. Nobody can be literate and educated in Nepali without using a Sanskrit word. High dependence of Sanskrit words has been witnessed when an unwritten language of South Asia undergoes the metamorphosis of a written language. In spite of such a high dependence of Sanskrit upon the written variety of all the Nepalese languages, Sanskrit has become target of political controversy. With this kind of controversy the percentage of ungrammatical Sanskrit words like पुनर्स्थापना and प्राविधिज्ञ is growing in the standard variety of Nepalese languages, because even the courses compulsory Nepali have neglected teaching Sanskrit word formation rules. Such an unhealthy practice should be remedied.
  7. The Gorkhapatra (नयाँ नेपाल) has given two pages’ coverage of the mainly unwritten languages. Among the languages covered are Newar and Maithili which have a long and rich tradition of writing. On the other hand, the Rai languages (which are not less than 30) are given only one page. Sunuwar is given a separate page, because the speakers do not call themselves Rai and mutually communicable varieties of the language Rajbamshi and Tajpuriya are given separate pages. The coverage in the Gorkhapatra needs to be justifyably managed.

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