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Article published In: Documentary Linguistics: Working with Communities
Edited by Sumittra Suraratdecha and Toshihide Nakayama
[Language Ecology 3:2] 2019
► pp. 189–208

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Sociolinguistic survey of Nepalese languages

A critical evaluation

 | Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
Published online: 9 September 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.19004.gau
Abstract
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, Ambika. 2012. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Kaike. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), Bhojpuri and Awadhi (Thakur, Indresh and Ambika Regmi. 2013. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Bhojpuri. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), Khadiya (Dahal, Binod and Surya Yadav. 2014. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Khadiya. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), Gangai (Gautam, Bhim Lal and Indresh Thakur. 2014. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Koch and Gangai. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and Thulung (Gautam, Bhim Lal and Suren Sapkota. 2014. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Thulung. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), Aathpahariya (. 2015. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Aathpariya. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and Tharu (Yadav, Surya. 2015. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Tharu. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), Limbu (. 2016. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Limbu. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and Dhuleli (Prasai and Regmi 2017) and Lohwa (, 2017. A Sociolinguistic Survey of Lohwa Language. Unpublished report. LiNSuN Central Department of Linguistics, TU, Kathmandu.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), 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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Writing systems
    • 1.2The legal status of Nepalese languages
  • 2.Linguistic surveys in Nepal: An overview
  • 3.Sociolinguistic Survey of Nepalese languages (2008–2018)
    • 3.1Sociolinguistic questionnaires
    • 3.2Recorded text testing (RTT)
    • 3.3Sentence repetition test (SRT)
    • 3.4Participatory method (PM)
    • 3.5Lexical similarity (210-word list)
  • 4.SLS progress activities
    • 4.1Pilot survey (2008)
    • 4.2SLS management and administration
    • 4.3SLS progress report
  • 5.Case studies in SLS
    • 5.1Upper hill languages
    • 5.2Rai Kiranti languages
    • 5.3Language spoken in Terai
    • 5.4Cross-border languages
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Geographical factors
    • 6.2Sociocultural factors
    • 6.3Language contact and multilingualism
    • 6.4SLS nature and tools
    • 6.5Ethnolinguistic observations
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
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