With 1 Surviving Speaker, Dura Going Dodo Way

By Smita Magar

The Kathmandu Post

KATHMANDU, Jan 9 - Soma Devi Dura is 82. Given the life expectancy of an average Nepali, she is nearing her last days. Soma Devi's death won't merely be the death of an individual. The only source of a language of Nepal's western hills will die with her.

Researchers and university professors say the octogenarian lady is the only native speaker of the Dura language, which used to be spoken in parts of Lamjung and Tanahun districts in western Nepal.

"My finding is that the only living person who can speak Dura is Soma Devi," says Kedar Bilash Nagila, a PhD scholar who is writing a thesis on the critically endangered Dura language.

Nagila says Soma Devi is the only authentic source of information for the thesis which he is preparing as a sequel to his MA thesis.

Professor Madhav Prasad Pokharel, a senior linguist at the Central Department of Linguistics at Tribhuvan University says, "In case anything happens to Soma Devi, the entire effort to preserve the endangered language will receive a jolt."

Soma Devi lives in Handikhola of Dura Danda, Lamjung. Her husband, son and five daughters cannot speak Dura.

Nagila said lack of transmission of the Dura language between generations is the major reason behind its becoming endangered, while the dominance of Nepali speakers in surrounding areas is another reason.

Modnath Prashrit, a culture expert, said a language becomes endangered when the  community to which it belongs decides that it is an impediment. "Children may discard their native tongue after realizing that other more-widely spoken languages are more useful," he explained.

Kishore Dura, president of Dura Seva Samaj, added, "Government policy promoting only the Khas (Nepali) language also led to the endangering of indigenous languages like Dura".

Dura Seva Samaj and researcher Nagila have been planning to bring Soma Devi to Kathmandu with the support of the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities so that the language of which only 1,500 words and 250 sentences have been documented so far can be documented.

"We are very concerned about the threat faced by the Dura language, "said Lok Bahadur Thapa, member secretary of the Foundation. He said the Foundation is holding discussions with both the researcher and the Dura Seva Samaj to bring Soma Devi to Kathmandu.

To add to the threat faced by Dura, Soma Devi is blind and deaf and would need special hearing equipment to facilitate documentation of the language. "We hope we will be able to overcome the problems soon," said Thapa.

Kishore said there is a ray of hope for the language as it is now being taught to children of the Dura community with the help of the 1,500 words and 250 sentences that have been documented. Two books have already been prepared on the language. "We are trying to publish an edited version of the books," he said.

Prof Yogendra Prasad Yadav, chief of the Central Department of Linguistics at TU, said, "The key to getting a language revitalized is getting a new generation of speakers."

Published: The Kathmandu Post

Posted on: 2008-01-09

20:54:35 (Server Time)

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The last of Nepal’s Dura speakers

By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kathmandu

PLANS are being made to extend medical help to an octogenarian woman in Nepal who is the last known speaker of a minority language. None of the rest of Soma Devi Dura’s family speak Dura, despite being from the same ethnic group. The only other person who could speak the language died last August. Now Soma Devi Dura’s health is ailing at her home in the hills of western Nepal, and she has severely impaired sight and hearing.

Surprises:

But the 82-year-old is a rich source of songs and folklore in the Dura tongue. In order to communicate with her husband, children and grandchildren she has to use other languages, because she is now believed to be the only surviving speaker of Dura, which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family.

Languages decline like this when parents fail to pass them down or children lose interest in them. But some scholars are striving to preserve Dura. Kedar Nagila, who as a child played with Dura children who had already lost their language, has compiled 1,500 words and 250 sentences. He wants to take Soma Devi to Kathmandu for medical treatment, and to interest Dura children in taking lessons in the language.

‘Amazingly fluent’:

Nepal has more than 100 tongues, several with fewer than 100 speakers each. Research can throw up surprises. Recently the three recorded speakers of another language, Kusunda, all died or disappeared. But campaigners for indigenous rights went to western Nepal and found a mother and daughter speaking it, and an isolated woman in a different district.

They were brought together, and the woman was able to converse in Kusunda for the first time since 1940, when she was 10 years old. Linguistics Professor Madhav Prasad Pokharel said she was “amazingly fluent”. Although he has been inspired by the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, he admits that reviving these tiny Nepalese languages is unlikely. But he argues fervently that they can and should be preserved and taught.

Published: BBC News World

Tuesday, 15 January 2008, 17:23 GMT

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Battle to save the last of Nepal's Dura speakers

By Andrew Buncombe

Asia Correspondent

Thursday, 17 January 2008, Soma Devi Dura is blind, partly deaf and in failing health. At the age of 82 she is also the last direct link to one of the hundreds of Asia's indigenous languages threatened by extinction.

Mrs Dura is believed to be the last remaining speaker of Dura, the language once spoken by the Nepalese ethnic group from which both she and the language she alone can speak take their names. The only other known speaker of Dura died last August.

Scrambling to complete a dictionary of the language and a compile a record of Dura culture, researchers are seeking to obtain medical treatment for Mrs Dura both to help her and to give them more time to finish their work. With her agreement they intend to bring Mrs Dura to Nepal's capital Kathmandu, from her home in the west.

Kedar Nagila, a linguist who wrote a PhD thesis on the endangered language, said 1,500 words and 250 sentences in Dura had already been documented. By bringing Mrs Dura to Kathmandu and using specialist hearing equipment, he hopes she will be able to provide even more information. "They are planning to come next month," he said. "The lady is the last speaker of Dura."

The ethnic Dura live mainly in the hilly farm country of the Lamjung district of Nepal. Experts say the demise of their language has been a gradual process, exacerbated by a "one-nation, one-language" policy instituted by the Shah dynasty, the royal family which has ruled Nepal since the late 18th century. "This policy made Nepali the only dominant language used in administration, education and media at the cost of other languages. As a result, minority-language speakers like the Dura gradually shifted to Nepali, thereby giving up their mother tongues," said Professor Yogendra Yadava, head of linguistics at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan University. "This is the critical stage of language endangerment applicable not only to Dura but also several other minority languages such as Kusunda, Dumi, Raji, Raute and Baram spoken in Nepal where 96 per cent of 126 Nepalese languages are facing extinction."

Mrs Dura's husband, son and five daughters do not speak Dura and she has no alternative but to speak with them in another Nepali language. Asked what Mrs Dura's death would mean for the Dura language, Professor Yadava said: "It'll certainly be a great loss to the Dura community as they will lose the symbol of their identity. This will also mean a significant loss to the world's knowledge as every language is unique in expressing concepts and thoughts."

With the words and sentences already collated, officials are beginning efforts to teach the language to Dura children. Two teaching books have already been prepared and the community is awaiting funds for publication.

"Sadly, we do not have sponsors for publishing of the research book on our language," Kishor Dura, a senior Dura official told The Kathmandu Post. "We are on the verge of losing our identity with the loss of our language and yet no one seems to be sensitive enough to realise the fact that with our language lost we will lose the cultural values it carries for our community."

A handful of other Dura sources exist in the form of word-lists and government reports. Most of these are now held at the Himalayan Languages Project at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The project's director, Professor George van Driem, said the historically low status of the Dura people had also been a factor in accelerating the loss of the language. He said it was ironic that the Shah dynasty – poised to be ousted by Nepal's parliament – was descended from the Dura people.

And despite the challenge confronting the activists in Nepal, he believes Dura can be rescued for future generations. "Dying languages can indeed be saved," he said. "If people resume raising the children in the ancestral tongue, then the language can be saved. Documenting a language can help, but documented languages can also die, and some dead languages are quite well documented. The key is raising the children in the native tongue of the community and not in the national language."

Experts are unsure of the precise origin of Dura but traditionally it has been placed in the so-called West Bodish group of Tibeto-Burman languages.

Published: The Independent

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