With its remarkable linguistic diversity, Nepal is home to 123 languages, according to the 2011 census, making it a haven for linguistic studies.
However, many of these languages are teetering on the brink of extinction, with some already lost to history. Linguists have raised alarms about the urgency of documenting and preserving these languages before they disappear entirely.
A global crisis
It is shocking that a language dies every 40 days. And 61% of tongues spoken as a first language worldwide in 1795 are now dead. Globally, around 2469 languages are on the brink of extinction, while 3054 are currently endangered (43% of all languages).
By the end of the century, around 1,500 known languages may disappear. Every two weeks, a language dies with its last speaker, while 50 to 90 per cent of them are predicted to vanish by the next century.
Of all named languages, 634 are extinct, and 141 (22%) have only recently (within the last 40 years) gone extinct. There are 335 languages with fewer than 10 speakers (11% of all endangered languages).
By the end of the century, around 1,500 known languages may disappear. Every two weeks, a language dies with its last speaker, while 50 to 90 per cent of them are predicted to vanish by the next century. These staggering statistics reveal a rather frightening state of the present world. Languages that took millennia to develop are ceasing to exist, pushing societies toward the harsh realities of loss of history, culture, and identity.
Languages on the brink
What Wikipedia describes as “a risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers” is not the only meaning of language.
Anatomically, language became possible only after humans evolved around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. For a language to have diverged enough to be mutually incomprehensible, a reasonable limit would be 1000 years.
One of the major reasons for the endangerment of indigenous languages is the dwindling number of speakers, driven by deforestation, migration, and changing social dynamics. When people from different linguistic backgrounds marry, they mostly adopt Nepali as their primary language, leaving their native tongues forgotten.
“The languages spoken in Nepal need comprehensive documentation; if not, they will vanish in about 50 years,” says Prof. Dr Nobel Kishor Rai, a linguistics expert who has extensively studied endangered indigenous languages, particularly the Rai languages.
Professor Dr Madhav Prasad Pokharel from Tribhuvan University explains, “When two persons from different Rai languages get married, they resort to the Nepali language in the family. This has posed a serious challenge to the survival of mother tongues.” The situation is especially dire for languages like Kusunda, where only a few speakers remain, and they live in different places, further isolating the language.
At least 24 languages and dialects in Nepal are in peril. The next ones on the verge of disappearing are Dura, Kusunda, and Tillung, each of which has only one speaker left.
Muktinath Ghimire, a poet and literary critic from Lamjung, Nepal, has published Dura Jatiko Lok Kathaharu (translated as The Folk Tales of the Dura Community). As one of the few remaining speakers of the Dura language, he’s now working on opening a school to help others in his community learn and preserve it — “We can’t let this language fade away,” he affirms.
Even more worrisome is the fact that approximately eleven languages—Byangsi, Chonkha, Longaba, Mugali, Sambya, Pongyong, Bungla, Chukwa, Hedangba, Waling, and Khandung—are already extinct and cannot be revived. Numerous other indigenous languages, such as Koche, Lhomi, Kisan, Kusunda, Lingkhim, Kagate, and Chhintang, are also in grave danger, with fewer than 100 speakers remaining.
“Tangran is the language of Duras, which I am documenting through those handful of Dura language-speaking people,” says Kedar Bilash Nagila, currently working on his PhD dissertation, which documents the critically endangered language.
This effort is not unique; the revival of Hebrew in Israel and the Māori language in New Zealand serve as reminders that even lost languages can be brought back with determination and dedication.
State’s involvement in language erasure
The exclusion of Nepal’s Indigenous languages traces back to the territorial expansion “reunification” campaign led by Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768. “One language, one culture, and one religion” policies were first put into place under Shah’s rule and continued under the Ranas.
King Mahendra’s reign and the Panchayat era continued this suppression, silencing the linguistic rights of indigenous communities, pushing Nepali as the lingua franca to the detriment of other national languages. It wasn’t until the restoration of democracy in 1990 that the issue of linguistic diversity began to gain traction.
The exclusion of Nepal’s Indigenous languages traces back to the territorial expansion “reunification” campaign led by Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768. "One language, one culture, and one religion" policies were first put into place under Shah's rule and continued under the Ranas. The 1990 Constitution affirmed Nepal as a multilingual and multicultural country, recognising all languages spoken as mother tongues as national languages and guaranteeing communities the right to protect and develop their languages.
One notable achievement was the introduction of the mother-tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) programme in 2007, which initially covered eight languages in a few chosen schools. With positive outcomes, this initiative was later scaled up to include 21 schools, aiming to integrate mother-tongue education into 7,500 schools as part of the School Sector Reform Plan (2009-2015).
Despite these efforts, challenges in implementation persist. “Policy-wise, the government is very liberal and clear. But when it comes to the implementation part, it’s weak,” remarks linguist Amrit Yonjan-Tamang, highlighting the gap between policy and practice.
While bodies like the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) have undertaken some efforts, such as publications and a pilot linguistic survey, they face significant challenges due to inadequate funding.
Revival responsibilities
Since the state actively contributed to the systemic erasure of Indigenous languages, the government must now take proactive steps to revive and preserve those on the verge of disappearing. Regarding the preservation of indigenous languages, Dr Lal-Shyakarelu Rapacha states, “Ultimately, the survival of these languages depends largely on the dedication of mother-tongue-speaking communities themselves.”
While these are valid points, a community with limited speakers whose languages are not mainstream can only do so much. Since the state actively contributed to the systemic erasure of Indigenous languages, the government must now take proactive steps to revive and preserve those on the verge of disappearing.
Languages once outcast deserve more than policies on paper, and the onus of revival being put on the communities who suffered the systemic exclusion is downright unfair.
With active participation from the respective communities, the state should be responsible for maintaining the survival of the languages so that they can no longer be endangered.
Sudipa Mahato is a junior editor with Nepal Connect.