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Language plays an important role in society. Whether it is for communication, building social solidarity, or passing down norms from generation to generation, language affects society at large through individuals. However, in most modern countries, people are fluent in multiple languages, and it is common for one language to be valued more than another.
The decline of local dialects and languages, the trend of children not learning their mother tongue and the lack of sense of responsibility of parents to preserve traditions and languages are common issues in Bhutan and other Himalayan religions. The use of local dialects/languages seems to be limited to the family sphere, more specifically among the elderly, and even on social media, many people tend to use common languages such as English.
Similar concerns were expressed at the 27th Himalayan Languages Symposium in Guwahati, India (June 12-14). Some 86 linguists, scholars and anthropologists came together to present and discuss languages. The symposium is an annual open academic forum for Himalayan linguists. The symposium discussed the importance of sociolinguistics, syntax, phonetics, phonology, language systematics and language typology.
The first founder of the workshop, Dr. Georg van Drim of the University of Bern, author of the Dzongkha grammar, said the workshop was important because it looked at Himalayan languages from a scientific and linguistic perspective, which function in smaller speech communities. “It is vital to study, explore and document these languages, especially the local dialects of Bhutan. This is important not only for Bhutan’s survival but also for its future prosperity. Languages should be valued and respected so that future generations can be drawn to and express themselves in the language of their choice.”
George mentioned that such conferences provide an opportunity for many linguists/researchers in Bhutan to connect and exchange ideas with different linguists from other communities and understand how to document and analyze languages in depth. However, this requires a strong strategy to encourage language research and documentation.
The symposium brought together nearly 150 scholars, anthropologists, linguists and researchers who study the language, indicating that it is time for locals to conduct research and analyze the languages of their communities, rather than having foreigners record these languages from their perspective. Nearly 70 different unique languages, including the three Bhutanese languages, were presented and discussed. Scholars and linguists discussed the importance of their characteristics, the sounds of different languages, language documentation, and the risk of extinction of these languages. The symposium, which invited scholars who study the language, provided an avenue for many Himalayan linguists, including anthropologists, to explore the idea of language documentation.
If we look closely, we find that many of the languages that are being studied or have been studied have fewer than 10,000 speakers still speaking most of them. For example, the continued record of Bhutanese Lopez and Monba An interdisciplinary approach estimates that there are fewer than 800 chief There are 150 speakers of the language in seven villages in southwestern Bhutan. It is estimated that there are fewer than 400 speakers in Bhutan. Monba Distributed in eight villages.
The ongoing research is being conducted by Mareike Wulff and linguist Dr. Gwendolyn Hyslop of the University of Sydney in Australia, in collaboration with the host institution in Bhutan, the Center for the Study of Gross National Happiness (CBS). chief,Depend on Lopezand like Depend on Monba community, it is considered to be a highly endangered isolate within the Trans-Himalayan/Tibetan-Burman language family.
Sociocultural anthropologist Woolf said this is worrying because both communities are indigenous minorities whose languages and cultural practices are endangered and remain under-described. “That’s why documentation is done to record endangered languages and cultural practices. By providing language data and analysis, anthropologists can get a more accurate picture of cultural practices and provide highly specialized data on indigenous cultural practices. Linguists can benefit from getting into the more complex language systems that people live in,” she added.
Representing another Bhutanese dialect, Kuenga Lhendup is pursuing a PhD in Linguistics and is conducting a study on the internal phylogeny of the Kurtöp language. The study involves proposing a historical reconstruction of the proto-Kurtöp language and is affiliated with the University of Sydney and CBS. Kurtöp is spoken in several villages of the three gewogs of Lhuentse in eastern Bhutan. Based on phonological, morphological and lexical observations, six dialects have been identified as Dongkhar, Zhalun, Shawar, Na, Gangzur and Tangmachu.
Internal phylogenies help linguists track the historical development and evolution of a language and help understand how dialects or varieties diverge from each other over time and why.
Kuenga stressed that Bhutan has a rich language heritage, but unfortunately, most of them are endangered or close to extinction, including the national language Dzongkha. Therefore, documenting the languages is of vital importance.
According to UNESCO, more than 3,000 endangered languages could disappear in the next 100 years. Therefore, language research can help document these languages to ensure that the cultural and historical knowledge contained in them is not lost. From a linguistic perspective, a Family Language Policy (FLP) is a policy that community members can adopt at the micro level of the family. It is the explicit and implicit planning of language within the family and among family members; frequent exposure to other languages in the area and frequent language contact. Conscious language selection and language management efforts such as FLP are needed to maintain the language.
The 27th Himalayan Languages Symposium was held this year at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. The next symposium will be held next year in Oregon, USA. The 10th language symposium was held in Bhutan in 2004.
Contributors
Yang Chen C Ren Zeng
Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Research Center
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