Language Ecology - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2019

This paper aims to illustrate the relationship between documentary linguistics and ethnographic discourse analysis and to explore how language and cultural practices are connected in order to understand the linguistic practices and Black Tai death ritual as a key site of engagement. The Black Tai death ritual is selected in order to present the determined efforts made in maintaining Black Tai ethnic identity through cultural practices.

Nexus analysis is introduced and deployed in this research to present the significance of Black Tai’s key communicative activity and social actions involved. In the analysis, the Black Tai death ritual is investigated. The study shows that documentary linguistics makes a noteworthy contribution to understanding the Black Tai’s linguistic and cultural heritage. It reveals that although death rituals are practiced in much the same way as they were in the past, there have inevitably been some significant changes depending on the locations, with specific adaptations and adopted elements based on the surrounding cultures (i.e., Thai culture and religious beliefs) and socio-economic conditions. Black Tai communities are at a settled stage of their death ritual practices by integrating certain aspects of Buddhism into their rituals.

In order to construct a modern Black Tai identity among generations, younger generation engagement is challenging but it is essential for the inter-transmission of death rituals. With this dynamic cultural practice, the Black Tai are a good example of an adaptive and diverse ethnic group.

Kristang is the critically endangered heritage language of the Portuguese-Eurasian community in Singapore. Using newly-identified mentions of Kristang in the Singapore National Library Board’s NewspaperSG digitised collection, I present a preliminary sketch of a hitherto-undocumented and previously poorly understood part of Kristang’s history in Singapore between the 1880s and the late 1920s, demonstrating that, in addition to the use of Kristang in religious functions, there existed a vibrant Kristang theatre scene involving multiple Eurasian theatre troupes performing in Kristang. This in turn has allowed for a more coherent understanding of Kristang’s historical domains of use and the place of the language and speech community in multilingual colonial Singapore, especially in terms of its relationship with the various hybridised theatrical forms developing throughout Southeast Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century, and a revised understanding of Kristang’s history in Singapore overall.

This paper presents a close inspection of the research conducted with a sociolinguistic survey of Nepalese languages developed by Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LiNSuN) Project (2008–2018). The paper provides an overview of the linguistic situation of Nepal with brief outlines of various linguistic surveys in different times. It also examines the various sociolinguistic surveys (SLS) and their implications. Through a reflection of my personal engagement in various activities of the surveys, e.g. Kaike (Regmi 2012), Bhojpuri and Awadhi (Thakur and Regmi 2013), Khadiya (Dahal and Yadava 2014), Gangai (Gautam and Thakur 2014) and Thulung (Gautam and Sapkota 2014), Aathpahariya (Regmi 2015) and Tharu (Yadav 2015), Limbu (Gautam and Thakur 2016), and Dhuleli (Prasai and Regmi 2017) and Lohwa (Gautam 2017), and quantitative information available in the literature, it is concluded that previous surveys have mainly focused on sociolinguistic features and have disregarded the ethnolinguistic characteristics.

This paper reports on a sociolinguistic study of the Belhare speech community which is a part of the Belhare language documentation project funded by the Language Commission of the government of Nepal in 2018. This article presents sociolinguistic information on Belhare, a lesser known speech community originally settled in Dhankuta, east Nepal. The main contribution of this paper is to examine domains of language use, language use among generations, attitude towards Belhare, Nepali and English, Belhare speakers as multilingual speakers, languages resources and language proficiency among children.

Jharkhand, India, is home to around 20 indigenous languages. People from around 33 indigenous communities use these languages. Around 2010, the state used to experience children’s highest dropout from primary schools in the nation. In the education system there was no clarity about how to address this persistent issue. In 2011, the author set up a research cell titled M-TALL (Mother-Tongue-based Active Language Learning) akhra in the state. The center undertook a socio-linguistic survey which revealed that around 96% children in the state did not speak in Hindi. They communicated in their local indigenous languages at home, playground and market. The study also found out that children failed to understand their teacher and textbooks written in Hindi. Initially the duty bearers did not pay any attention to the findings. The M-TALL akhra researchers continued their exploration and collected a lot of learning resources from each community. They developed bilingual picture dictionaries in 9 indigenous and regional languages for use in children’s early grades. Then M-TALL akhra developed a pre-school education package. In 2016, the state government with help of M-TALL akhra developed culturally sensitive new textbooks in 5 indigenous and 2 regional languages. Using these, the state initiated a mother-tongue-based multilingual education programme in around 1000 schools.

Language is an integral part of the social identity and ethnicity of a community apart from being its mode of communication. Language plays a key role to preserve the history, culture and identity of a community. In this era of globalization, cultural and linguistic homogenization is a common trend. The state and dominant linguistic communities expect ‘others’ or the minority groups to assimilate into the dominant culture and language. Arguments for the maintenance and revitalization of minority and endangered languages have been made by many linguists around the world. Language rights, language planning and language documentation programmes are some steps taken by government and externally-funded organizations to protect endangered and indigenous languages. Besides the initiatives taken by the non-members of the community, the future of an endangered language and culture has been decided by the role and attitude of the community towards its community-specific linguistic and cultural identity. India is a very diverse country as far as its linguistic and cultural heritage is concerned. This project is enriched with insights from field experience in various districts of West Bengal, a state in India, where the speakers of endangered linguistic communities are aware of their linguistic rights and are highly engaged in the language and cultural revitalization, and in that their degree of progress and success is commendable. This paper aims at demonstrating the major role played by the communities themselves in language-revitalization programmes.