This paper reports on a sociolinguistic study of the Baram language undertaken as a part of the Linguistic and Ethnographic Documentation of the Baram Language (LEDBL) project funded by the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (HRELDP) and hosted by the Central Department of Linguistics at Tribhuvan University in Nepal. This study, carried out in different Baram-speaking areas in the Gorkha District (Western Nepal), is based on the analysis of data collected by the LEDBL team between May 2007 and April 2010, employing tools such as sociolinguistic questionnaires and Swadesh Wordlist, as well as interpersonal interactions and conversations with members of the Baram community and Baram language consultants. The main objectives of this sociolinguistic study were to: i. Identify the areas of Baram settlement; ii. Gather information about Baram speakers; iii. Collect details about various sociolinguistic aspects of the language such as the language name, language variation, knowledge and use of the language, language attitudes, vitality and maintenance, and the level of language endangerment.
This paper evaluates the knowledge of languages and domains of language use to investigate the factors and forces responsible for language shift (LS) in the Majhi community. The data used are solely based on Chalise (2014). The community became bilingual in Majhi and Nepali several generations ago. A small number of people have knowledge of English, Hindi, etc., but they do not use them in daily life conversations. The patterns of Majhi language competence and its use in different domains in different generations indicate that there was a stable bilingualism in the past, but a notable degree of language shift began around four decades before, and it has been accelerating since then. We do not find any vital changes in the essences of personal factors. But the essences of group factors have been changed because of modernization and globalization. In the last three decades, the nation has adopted a favorable policy for minority languages, but LS has accelerated in this community. It suggests that language policy was unable to withstand the forces of modernization and globalization. We cannot deny modernization and globalization therefore it is our challenge to find out the ways to strengthen language maintenance (LM) in the context of modernization and globalization.
Baram and Thami share seventy-two PTB reflexes. Eighteen of them are identical in both languages indicating a higher level of shared retention. Twenty-four of them are identical in Baram and Thami, depicting a higher level of shared innovations. The similarities in the remaining thirty reflexes show the shared retention, and the similar patterns of phonological changes in Baram and Thami present the situation of shared innovations. Twenty similar roots in Baram and Thami, but not Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) reflexes, present further evidence of shared innovations. All the pieces of evidence justify the very close genetic affinity between Baram and Thami.
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