Satarupa Dattamajumdar
I. THE INITIATION
The project entitled “An Enquiry into the Status of Lepcha” carried out from March 2007 to February 2012 was taken up by The Asiatic Society, Kolkata as a follow up of the National Seminar on North East Languages and Literature held from 20th to 22nd March, 2006 with an objective ‘to make an assessment of the knowledge of Tibeto-Burman group of languages mainly spoken in the increasingly sensitive area of North East India’. Amongst the topics deliberated on different languages of the north-east Indian states like Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, Lepcha, a Tibeto Burman language (spoken in Darjeeling District of West Bengal and Sikkim) was the one that was also discussed in the three-day seminar. Mr. Lyangsong Tamsang, the President of The Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association (ILTA), Kalimpong put forth the grievances of the Lepcha speech community regarding marginalization of their language. The under privileged situation of Lepcha especially in Darjeeling hills was addressed emphatically by Mr.Tamsang. The need for survival of the language of Lepcha speech community was felt which in its turn led the authority of The Asiatic Society to undertake a research program on the status enquiry of the Lepcha language, the language spoken in Darjeeling district of West Bengal and in Sikkim. The research work of the project has been carried out with field investigation in full co-operation with the members of the Lepcha speech community of Darjeeling district in West Bengal, Dzongu valley of North Sikkim and Gangtok in general and The Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association, Kalimpong in particular.
At the initial stage the project took into consideration the social status, historical
backdrop, the demographic profile, the linguistic status and the ethno-linguistic
vitality of the Lepcha speech community in both the States of West Bengal and Sikkim. After the first field investigation (in both the places) the major difference regarding the status of Lepcha in two geo-politically different areas was revealed. Lepcha language in Sikkim was found to enjoy the status of being one of the official languages of the state and most importantly Lepcha has attained a position in the curriculum of the educational system provided in the government schools.
Contrary to this, in West Bengal Lepcha has no official status and the language has no place at any level of the educational curriculum structured by the government. But one interesting situation was noted during the first field investigation. It was with the Kalimpong Lepchas that the Lepcha indigenous literature known as Naamtho Naamthaar meaning ‘a record of literary tradition’ is found to be preserved though mostly in manuscript form. These indigenous literature, the dates of which are still to be deciphered, are available in different Lepcha villages of Kalimpong. These were found to be the repository of the indigenous knowledge, the world view and culture of the Lepcha speech community. These literature also reflect the socio-historical phases of this part of the Himalayas. Such a situation automatically triggers our argument regarding the probability of the Lepchas being culturally nurtured for generations and of being conscious enough to document their acquired knowledge in the form of literature. Field investigation also revealed that attempts are being made to preserve the language in various forms with the sole initiative of The Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association, Kalimpong.
The above observation regarding the position of the Lepcha language in two states clearly showed the crisis for linguistic identity of the Kalimpong Lepchas in spite of having a literary tradition and a script of their own. Therefore it became imperative to focus on the linguistic status of Lepcha as realised in Kalimpong with objectivity and to concentrate especially on the language attitude of the Lepcha speech community in maintaining vis- à-vis shifting their language. Thus the second field work was conducted in Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district of West Bengal only with special emphasis on the linguistic status of Lepcha, i.e., the language as it is spoken in the present day, their language attitude and the ethno-linguistic vitality of the speech community. The inter group relation and speech accommodation in the social network have been viewed with much importance in connection with the Lepcha language of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Some Naamtho Naamthaar have been studied with due importance in order to access the original language structure and also to develop an understanding of the world view of the speech community. As a result a comparative analysis of the present day structure of the language and the language structure realised in its earlier form (as available in earlier documents) has been attempted as a part of the status enquiry of the language. Thus this status enquiry of Lepcha has been attempted in this study with a hope that it would be able to contribute positively to the direction of language planning.
II. THE LEPCHAS
The Lepchas are the original inhabitants of Sikkim and are mostly settled in north Sikkim district (Dzongu valley) and also settled in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. According to 2001 census, total Lepcha population in India is 50,629. The population
strength of Lepcha in Sikkim is 35, 728 and 14,731 in West Bengal.
Lepchas are also settled in Bhutan (lower valleys in the West and South) and in Nepal (Mechi zone, Ilam district)—the population strength being 34,700 (in the year 2000) in Bhutan [Ref: http://kcm.co.kr/ Bethany_ eng/p_ code5/341.html] and 3,660 in Nepal (in the year 2001) [Ref: http://en.wikipedia,org/wiki/ Demographics_ of_ Nepal]
Geographical location of Lepcha Speaking Area
A map of Lepcha speaking area that covers parts of present day West Bengal and Sikkim is presented below.(It is to be mentioned that the main Lepcha speaking area of Sikkim,
i.e., Dzongu valley is near Mangan.)
Map of Lepcha speaking area (Reproduced from G.L. Van Driem 2001, Languages of Himalayas,
Leiden:Brill. p. 823) (Ref: Plaisier, 2007 p.8)
Note: The colouring of the map has been done by the present author.
Linguistic Filiation of Lepcha
According to Grierson (1908 Linguistic Survey of India.Vol.III, Pt.I.) Lepcha language (which is also known as Rong/Rongaring/Rongring) belongs to the Tibeto Burman language sub-family under Tibeto-Chinese language family. He placed Lepcha in the non-pronominalised group of the Himalayan languages under the Tibeto-Burman sub-family.
The immediate cognates of Lepcha are Sunwar, Gurung and Magar in the non-pronominalised group and Kiranti and Dhimal in the pronominalised group. The speech community calls themselves ‘Mutanchi Rongkup Rumkup’.
III. THE STUDY
Different aspects of Lepcha life and language have been studied by different scholars at different points of time. The first major work on Lepcha can be the contribution of Col. G.B. Mainwaring. Mainwaring (1876, A Grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) Language, As it Exists in the Dorjeling and Sikim Hills. Calcutta) wrote the first descriptive grammar of the Lepcha language. Mainwaring deals with the phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects of the language. He traces eight vowels, thirty five consonants and nine finals (diacritics used for final sound elements) in the language. Various word classes in the morphology have been dealt with examples in detail. Further, he considers Lepcha language as pre-eminently an ‘Ursprache’, a monosyllabic language possessing isolating structure and to some degree agglutinative structure as well. Mainwaring also mentions the politicohistorical development of the language hinting at the hegemony of the Tibetans, Bhotias, Nepalese, and Hindustanis that played a major role in hindering the development of the language at different points of time. Subsequently, Mainwaring (1898, Dictionary of the Lepcha Language, Revised and completed by Albert Grunwedel. Berlin: Unger) is a dictionary of the Lepcha language which also deals with the rules of Lepcha language structure and phonetic nature of the speech sounds of the language. The dictionary which was initiated by Mainwaring was revised and completed by Albert Grunwedel. The retrospective literature on Lepcha speech community and Lepcha language reveals the fact that though Lepcha has been viewed by different scholars from different points starting from 1840 to 2007, a detailed enquiry regarding the status of the language was a desideratum which has been attempted in the treatise entitled “An Enquiry into the Status of Lepcha”.
IV. POPULATION AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF LEPCHA
An interpretation of the demographic profile of Lepcha has been attempted keeping in
view the census data of 2001 and 1991 (for comparison) — total native speakers by country, distribution of Lepcha speakers by state, numerical growth of Lepcha population from 1971 to 2001, number of bilingual and trilingual speakers and number of bilinguals by language of 1991 and 2001census. Emphasis has been given to bilingual and multilingual context of Lepcha. In order to have an understanding of the social
dynamics of the Lepcha language, an account of the socio-political history of
Lepcha land and the people have been taken into consideration. Lepcha life has been viewed from the point of view of traditional way of life, interference in the language due to immigrant population like Tibetan and Nepali, loss of status of the language during British rule, condition of the speech community after the period of World War-I. The present state of affair for the speech community has been dealt with greater emphasis. A renewed interest towards revitalization of the language and culture during last few years with the sole effort of ILTA in Darjeeling district of West Bengal has been seen as a revivalist movement of this speech community.The demographic data of Lepcha as realized from the data of the census report helps us to deduce some observations regarding the speech community as a linguistic entity which are enumerated in the following:
1. The population strength of Lepcha speakers is more in Sikkim than in West Bengal. (Perhaps the geo-political history of the Lepcha inhabiting region explains the situation).
2. Though the population strength of the speech community is not very high, the
growth rate of population is on the rise for last two decades (1981 to 1991 and
1991 to 2001). But there is a decadal decrease of percentage of population during1971 to 1981.
3. Amongst the second languages that are spoken by the Lepcha speakers in India, Nepali holds the first position, the number of speakers being 30,471, English holds the second position, the number of speakers being 3,415 , Hindi holds the third position, the number of speakers being 2,119 and Bhotia holds the fourth position, the speaker strength being 1,423.
4. Bangla, in spite of the state official language for the Lepchas of West Bengal has practically no impact on the Lepcha speaking population (if we accept the census position).
5. It is to be noted that Lepcha in spite of being a minor language, is spoken by a number of speakers of major languages like Nepali and Bhotia. This is a situation which is not found in case of many of the minor languages of the country.
V. LINGUISTIC STATUS OF LEPCHA: A GRAMMATICAL SKETCH
A grammatical sketch of Lepcha has been attempted from the point of view of
phonological, morphological and syntactic aspects. Based upon the grammatical description of the language (as realized in the present day use), an assessment of the
Lepcha language has been done keeping in view the phenomenon of language maintenance, shift and loss of the language structure. The language change has been seen mainly from the view point of phonology and morphology (or lexical levels). Some of the specific linguistic features dealt with in this part of the study are presented in the following.
1. The pronunciation of two consonants, /ph/ and /f/ are sometimes found to overlap in spontaneous speech though not always. This may be due to the influence of Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language.
2. The presence of retroflex sounds in Lepcha is claimed to be a Tibetan loan mainly used among the Sikkim Lepchas where Tibetan influence is immense. The Kalimpong
Lepchas especially those who are involved in the revivalist movement of the language (under the umbrella of ILTA, Kalimpong) deny the presence of such a feature. But field investigation in Kalimpong reveals the use of retroflex sounds like [], [h], [] also, though not as a consistent feature. Thus diffusion in the phonological level can be said to be taking place in Lepcha.
3. The vowel sounds // and // sometimes overlaps in the pronunciation of the
Lepcha speakers.
4. The pronunciation of // and /z/ sounds is often found to overlap in spontaneous
speech.
5. The use of article, /mu/ ‘the’ (e.g., maro mu muli ‘the person said’) as attested in
Mainwaring (1876) is not widely found in the spoken form of the present day
Lepcha language.
6. The distinction of the gender by suffixing /-bu/, /-mot/, etc. is attested in
Mainwaring (1876:24). Though /-bu/ is available in current speech of Lepcha (e.g., hikbu ‘cock’),
/-mot/ is not found in the present day speech of Lepcha.
7. The dual form which was once a regular feature of the language has become
almost a non-existent phenomenon of the language except a few remnants, for
example, the existence of dual number in the nominative form of second personal
pronoun /ni/ is observed to be used marginally in earlier literature.
8.The plural forms /kayu/ ‘we’ (nominative plural of first personal pronoun) and
/hayu/ ‘they’ (nominative plural of third personal pronoun) have been used as the
base to which the plural marker /-p/ or /-s/ is being added to the new plural construct
to form /kayup/meaning ‘we’ and /hayup/ or /hayus/ meaning ‘they’.
9. It is claimed in the earlier works that there is a specification regarding the use of the
plural markers depending upon +human (i.e., /-s/) and – human (i.e., /-p/) noun forms
to which it is suffixed. Such a distinction has been losing ground in the present day
speech of the Lepchas.
10. The present day speech of Lepcha attests the comparative and superlative degrees
of adjectives being expressed either from the context of the sentence and (or) by
using a comparative conjunction /len/ ‘than’. Although the use of superlative forms is
attested in the earlier literature of the language, such forms are not available now.
12. The occurrence of the nominal modifiers followed by head noun is attested in the earlier
literature, whereas, the nominal modifiers in Lepcha are found both, to precede and to follow the head noun.
A brief note on the characteristic features of Naamtho Naamthaar, the indigenous
literature of the Lepchas, has also been presented in this part of the work.
VI. THE LINGUISTIC STATUS OF LEPCHA: DEVELOPMENT OF THE
LANGUAGE
This part of the study has been dealt with in the fourth chapter of the work. The
linguistic status of Lepcha has been studied from the point of view of the development of the language. The official status of the language in both the States —
Sikkim and West Bengal has been taken into consideration. The developmental profile of the language has been seen from the point of view of different kinds of literature like religious writing, printed oral tradition, folk tales, songs, drama, novel, essays, narrative writing, poems, glossary, translation works, text books, news sheet and bulletin. The use of Lepcha language in audio-visual media, print media, and internal oral and written communication in different domains has been viewed with importance. The position of the language in case of administration, legislation, judiciary, education, trade and commerce has been enquired and two different pictures emerges in two States—— Sikkim and West Bengal. Sikkim exhibits at least symbolic recognition of the language for its use in legislation, government administration and judiciary. Lepcha language is taught as a subject in the educational curriculum (Govt.) in Sikkim, whereas, it is absent in case of West Bengal. It is the effort of ILTA, Kalimpong that has enabled the speech community to revive the use of their mother tongue (Lepcha as a subject is taught in the night schools of Darjeeling district) and retain their culture.
VII. LANGUAGE ATTITUDE OF THE LEPCHAS IN THE MULTILINGUAL CONTEXT
The comments on the imminent extinction and marginalization of the Lepcha language in the retrospective literature trigger attention for an intimate look at the language
situation from different points of view. This part of the work examines the Lepcha speakers’ attitude towards their mother tongue and other languages in the neighbourhood. The study essentially concentrates on the Lepchas of Kalimpong subdivision of Darjeeling district. The study also investigates and analyses the motivation behind language choice and use, and the language attitude of the Lepcha speech community. The probable direction of language maintenance and shift which the speech community is experiencing has been studied keeping in view the socio - political aspects of Lepcha life and its impact on the Lepcha language and culture across the time. The chapter concentrates on the three major aspects - language use in different social domains, language proficiency and language preference in mass media. The investigation carried out on the use of language in different social domains reveals the following facts.
1. Lepcha is used generally in the home domain and that too frequently with the older generation.
2. It has been observed that in the formal situation English, Nepali and Hindi are used (depending upon the context and the background of the individuals). But even in the less formal situation in which a speaker spends most of the time of the day, many a time Lepcha is found to be replaced by Nepali and other languages.
3. However, the use of the mother tongue in the situations like social gathering or festival is found to be almost as high as the percentage for the use of the language in the home domain. Such an attitude feeds the integrative motive for expressing solidarity.
The picture that comes out of the study of language proficiency and language
preference of the Lepcha speech community are presented in the following.
1. The Lepchas, almost entirely (cent percent as per the data) claim good proficiency in Nepali, the language of their neighbourhood in terms of listening and understanding and almost entirely (cent percent as per the data) in terms of speaking. In respect to the proficiency level in Nepali it is found to be exceeding Lepcha, the mother tongue in respect to all the four skills, listening and understanding, speaking and making it understandable, reading and understanding, writing and making it understandable.
2. 92.8 per cent and 85.7 per cent of Lepcha respondents show highest proficiency in respect of listening (and understanding), and speaking skill of the Lepcha language. This percentage further reduces to 78.5 and 42.8 in respect to reading and writing skill. The use of mother tongue has been reported to be decreasing even in the family domain of the Lepcha speech community and Nepali is gaining ground along with Hindi. Lepcha is rarely used in the domains like place of work, friends and social gatherings.
3. In the religious domain, Lepcha language is found to be used only by the ‘Bungthing’, the leader of the traditional shamanistic religion whereas Tibetan / Bhotia are used in
the religious matters practiced in Buddhist Gumphas.
4. 64.3 per cent of the respondents claim high proficiency in the Hindi language. The
promotion of Hindi in the government level (especially in central Govt.), the exposure of Hindi through audio-visual media and Hindi as a link language has influenced the speech community to a great extent.
5. Regarding the proficiency of English language especially in respect to reading and writing skill the percentage of Lepcha respondents claiming high proficiency is 78.5 per cent (in reading) and 71.5 percent (in writing).
6. Bangla, in spite of being a neighbouring language and the official language of the State of West Bengal, is found to have very marginal impact on the Lepcha people.
7. The study of Language preference for audio-visual media reveals that Hindi language is preferred by cent percent of the respondents. 50% of the respondents often prefer Nepali whereas preference for Lepcha is as low as 14.3 per cent. In this connection it is felt pertinent to mention that programme in Lepcha are not usually telecast / broadcast from West Bengal. Very naturally the Lepcha speakers are being deprived of the exposure to experience audio-visual programme in their mother tongue.
It is only from AIR Gangtok, a composite programme is broadcast in Lepcha for a
short span of time during evening. Nayuma cable TV Centre, Gangtok occasionally telecast some programme in Lepcha.
It is important to mention that there is no daily news paper published in Lepcha from
West Bengal. Achuley, a quarterly magazine is only published in Lepcha by ILTA,
Kalimpong. Therefore the limited choice of the Lepcha language in the mass media by a
small percentage of respondents makes the low ranking of the Lepcha language obvious.
Quantitative method has been employed for the analysis of the data. The analysis of the
data of language preference and language proficiency takes into consideration a
deterministic approach in order to validate the observation more objectively. The
study no doubt reveals linguistic shrinkage of the language in various domains but it does not attest language shift. Therefore, there is no question of ‘dying’ or ‘death’ of the language.
VIII. ETHNO-LINGUISTIC VITALITY OF LEPCHA
This chapter investigates and analyses the ethno-linguistic vitality of the Lepcha
language keeping in view the developmental profile of the language with reference to
the state of West Bengal. The range of language use has been studied in this chapter
keeping in view the Ausbau (language of elaboration) dimension of Lepcha. Lepcha has been examined in the light of the four basic aspects of language development profile — Policy, Codification, Elaboration and Implementation. The
vitality of the language has been seen in terms of the increase in number of publication. The growth rate of Lepcha publication gained momentum from the second half of the last century and accelerated a significant rise in the first decade of twenty-first century. This rise in publication is mainly due to the effort of ILTA of Kalimpong, Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
A gross composite picture of Publication in Lepcha
The composite data of Lepcha publication is presented graphically below in order to view the growth rate of publication that gained momentum from the second half of the last century and accelerated a significant rise in the first decade of twenty15 first century. It is worth mentioning in this context that this rise in publication is due to the sole effort of ILTA of Kalimpong, Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
Graph - 1
Growth of Publication in Lepcha (in Kalimpong) across the Time period
Keeping in view the developmental profile of the language in two different regions, the ethno-linguistic vitality of Lepcha in both Sikkim (Dzongu valley) and West Bengal has been examined in terms of the parameters proposed by Landweer (2008). The eight indicators — (1) Relative position on the urban-rural continuum, (2)Domains in which the language is used, (3)Frequency and type of code switching, (4) Population and group dynamics, (5)Distribution of speakers within their own social networks,(6) Social outlook regarding and within the speech community, (7) Language prestige and (8) Access to a stable and acceptable economic base have been taken into account in order to examine the probable direction of language maintenance and shift of the speech community in two regions. The present investigation brings into light, the fact that, the language is probably passing through a transition regarding language change. This may not lead to language death, shift or loss though it cannot be denied that linguistic shrinkage (which has been observed in different levels of the language, like lexical, grammatical and the use of the language in different domains), is a definite phenomenon of the Lepcha speech community.
IX. CONCLUSION: THE IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY IN
LANGUAGE PLANNING
The status enquiry of the Lepcha language that has been attempted in the treatise finds its relevance in the language planning aspect of the country. Lepcha which has been seen throughout the study as a language of a minor tribal community inhabiting in the hilly region of north eastern part of India had a developed literary tradition and script of its own that dates back to 17th century approximately. But with the passage of time due to the change in the sociopolitical scenario of the country, the language lost its hold in the social domains of Lepcha life and became marginalized over a period of time. Different sociocultural spaces have been filled up with different languages across the time. This interplay of time and space has given rise to the sense of inequality that has led to social crisis for the Lepchas especially in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Therefore the present study on the status enquiry of Lepcha was felt imperative.
Thus the study carried out throughout the treatise has categorically dealt with the demographic and linguistic status of Lepcha and have analysed the present linguistic status from the point of view of socio-political history of the land. In order to trace out the ‘framework of power and competing interest’ that is operative in case of Lepcha, an attitudinal study has been attempted and ethnolinguistic vitality of the speech community has been examined.
The social hegemony of the competing linguistic groups in the environment of a minority community determines the inequality and domination of specific groups. It is by means of language planning that a minority language can be introduced in the social institutions like education, administration, judiciary, and mass media in order to establish the linguistic rights of the speech community prescribed as policy framed in Indian constitution. This in its turn helps to legitimize the social status of the minority language and the relationship of the language with that of the state machinery becomes positive. Indian constitution which is the fountain head of language policies takes care of all the linguistic communities of the country for their maintenance and development. Language policy by the government often reflects the interest of the dominant group that controls the state machinery. This is often found in case of numerically dominant ones. Language policies are often found to privilege some at the cost of denying the same to others. But lack of linguistic right hits the crisis for identity of a speech community which is ultimately reflected in the socio-political level. Under such a situation a speech community is likely to experience ‘revitalization’ of their language within their own social system. Such an effort is evident in case of Lepchas also in their revivalist programme that has gained impetus in last fourteen years initiated by ILTA, Kalimpong. The present discussion concludes with suggestive measures to incorporate the Lepcha language in the school curriculum followed in the Government schools of Darjeeling hills of West Bengal.
Thus such a sociolinguistic study of a marginalized speech community like Lepcha is likely to contribute in the language planning aspect with an objective understanding of the present position of the language. Such an analytical case study is hoped to provide positive impact in framing language policy on the part of the government. Though the study does not claim to be a foolproof one, it can be hoped that the study carried out in the present treatise may form a happy basis for further research work on Lepcha as well as on such other minority or marginalized languages especially of north east Indian states from the point of view of language planning and language policy.
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