<b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Kusunda: People And Language </b>
[ 2008-1-4 ]
<b>Dr. Govinda Bahadur Tumbahang</b>
The Kusundas are the distinct minority population scattered over Gorkha, Tanahu, Palpa, Syangja and Dang of central and Midwestern Nepal. They call themselves as mihaq 'the people' but are called Ban Rajas 'the king of the forests' by other people. Until recently, they lived a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer's life. Ralph Turner in his A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali languages mentions that Kusunda was formerly used as a 'term of abuse for the so-called Rajputs of Nepal'. George van Driem in his book Languages from the Himalayas 2002 says that it may be used in the sense of 'savage'. Reinhard says in his article 'Ban Rajas- A vanishing Himalayan tribe' published in Contribution to Nepalese Studies 1976, journal of the Institute of Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal that it refers to those who 'do not listen to advice and behave rudely'. However, the Kusundas do not mind the pejorative use of the term. According to the 2001 Census of Nepal, their population is 164 out of which only 87 people can speak their language. Their numbers have dwindled as their hunting band splintered due to the loss of forest and their intermarriage with other ethnic groups.
Brian Hodgson, the British resident of the court of Nepal, first introduced Kusunda together with Chepangs in his article 'On the Chepang and Kusunda Tribes of Nepal' published in 1848 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Nepal. Stem Konow published a small sample of Kusunda including a few conjugated verbs in Linguistic Survey of India 1909. In 1968, John Reinhard, an American anthropologist, found members of Kusunda tribe in Gorkha and Surkhet districts and collected a number of Kusunda words together with a short text narrated by Tek Bahadur. Sueyoshi Toba , a Japanese linguist, worked on these materials and co-authored an article 'A preliminary linguistic analysis and vocabulary of the Kusunda language' in 1970. In his article 'The Kusunda language revisited after thirty years' publlished in Journal of Nepalese literature, art and culture in 2000, he tells us how he took down Kusunda words from Raja Mama. Reinhard published additional Kusunda data in 1976.Ross Caughley elicited a few grammatical constructions and some additional words from Chudamani Ban Raja of Palpa in 1980. Prof. Chudamani Bandhu collected a few words from Rajamama's mother in Damauli in 1987. In 1991, Prof. Madhav Pokharel made contact with Prem Bahadur Shahi in Dang and collected a few items of the language. In May 2004, Prof. Yogendra Yadava and Prof. David Watters advanced a proposal to The National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, Lalitpur to bring Kusunda speakers such as Gyani Maiya, Prem Bahadur Shahi and Kamala Khatri to Kathmandu for a three month period of intensive linguistic research. This proposal was accepted and materialized in the form of a book entitled 'Notes on Kusunda grammar by Prof. David E. Watters.
Earlier, Kusunda was classified as a member of the Tibeto-Burman family with close affinity with Chepang and Magar. Prof. Watters classified it as a true linguistic isolate with no relation to any languages on earth. According to him, it has a few lexical borrowings from Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman but they have nothing to do with its genetic lineage. <b>It is phonologically , lexically and grammatically distinct.. It possesses uvular and pharyngealized consonants which do not exist in other languages of south Asia. Conversely, retroflex consonants which are so common in south Asian languages do not appear in this languag</b>e. It has labial, apical, velar, uvular and glottal stops such as /p/, /ph/, /b/, /bh/, /t/, /th/, /d/, /dh/, /k/, /kh/, /g/, /gh/, /q/, /qh/, /G/ and /?/, apical and uvular fricatives such as /s/ and /x/, apical affricates such as /ts/, tsh/, dz/, dzh/, labial, apical, laminal, velar and uvular nasals such as /m/, /n/, /�/, /K/ and /N/, apical lateral /l/, apical rhotic /r/ and semi-vowels /w/ and /y/. It has six vowels: /i/, /Y/ and /u/ in the upper set and /e/, /a/ and /o/ in the lower set. It has diphthongs such as /Yi/ as in sYi, /ai/ as in qaida 'other' /Yu/ as in Yula 'to sell' etc. There are very few case marking affixes such as genitive suffix �yi/-ye, accusative or dative suffix �da. Its syntax follows a basic SV, AVO constituent order with alternative orders used to mark specialized pragmatic notions.
Now, the number of people who identify themselves as Kusunda is no more than 28 and only four or five of whom are mother- tongue speakers according to former vice chairman Prof. Santa Bahadur Gurung as quoted by Prof. Watters in his book. In addition, they are scattered over different districts with least possibility of community formation. Until now only eight speakers, Raja Mama, Kamala Khatri, her mother, her cousin-sister Gyani Maiya, her maternal uncle Prem Bahadur Shahi and Gyani Maiya's three brothers have been found. They have come out recently from the jungle. Prem Bahadur, Gyani Maiya and her three brothers were born in the jungle near Hapur in Pyuthan district of Midwestern Nepal and subsisted on wild roots and hunted animals during their childhood. Prem Bahadur and Gyani Maiya married Nepali speaking Magars and Gyani Maiya's three younger brothers married Kham-speaking Magar women. Therefore, this language has lost functional value in their family. After their death, it is sure to extinct due to lack of intergenerational transformation.
More than 150 years ago, Brian Hodgson had predicted its total extinction after the lapse of a few generations and Ethnologue in 1990 reported that Kusunda had gone extinct with the death of its last speaker Chudamani Ban Raja in 1985. It has saddened linguists and language lovers who had regarded a language as the invaluable treasure of distinct culture, knowledge and wisdom but thanks to the effort of linguists at home and abroad as well as of the National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, the Kusunda speakers were traced, the language was recorded and the
language community has been blessed with Kusunda grammar. The government should acknowledge their invaluable contribution, take immediate steps to promote the language by developing orthography, writing text books and by running literacy programmes and save this most seriously endangered language from extinction. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is only one explanation. The trend towards retroflexion started in the Indic languages at a later time.
[ 2008-1-4 ]
<b>Dr. Govinda Bahadur Tumbahang</b>
The Kusundas are the distinct minority population scattered over Gorkha, Tanahu, Palpa, Syangja and Dang of central and Midwestern Nepal. They call themselves as mihaq 'the people' but are called Ban Rajas 'the king of the forests' by other people. Until recently, they lived a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer's life. Ralph Turner in his A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali languages mentions that Kusunda was formerly used as a 'term of abuse for the so-called Rajputs of Nepal'. George van Driem in his book Languages from the Himalayas 2002 says that it may be used in the sense of 'savage'. Reinhard says in his article 'Ban Rajas- A vanishing Himalayan tribe' published in Contribution to Nepalese Studies 1976, journal of the Institute of Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal that it refers to those who 'do not listen to advice and behave rudely'. However, the Kusundas do not mind the pejorative use of the term. According to the 2001 Census of Nepal, their population is 164 out of which only 87 people can speak their language. Their numbers have dwindled as their hunting band splintered due to the loss of forest and their intermarriage with other ethnic groups.
Brian Hodgson, the British resident of the court of Nepal, first introduced Kusunda together with Chepangs in his article 'On the Chepang and Kusunda Tribes of Nepal' published in 1848 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Nepal. Stem Konow published a small sample of Kusunda including a few conjugated verbs in Linguistic Survey of India 1909. In 1968, John Reinhard, an American anthropologist, found members of Kusunda tribe in Gorkha and Surkhet districts and collected a number of Kusunda words together with a short text narrated by Tek Bahadur. Sueyoshi Toba , a Japanese linguist, worked on these materials and co-authored an article 'A preliminary linguistic analysis and vocabulary of the Kusunda language' in 1970. In his article 'The Kusunda language revisited after thirty years' publlished in Journal of Nepalese literature, art and culture in 2000, he tells us how he took down Kusunda words from Raja Mama. Reinhard published additional Kusunda data in 1976.Ross Caughley elicited a few grammatical constructions and some additional words from Chudamani Ban Raja of Palpa in 1980. Prof. Chudamani Bandhu collected a few words from Rajamama's mother in Damauli in 1987. In 1991, Prof. Madhav Pokharel made contact with Prem Bahadur Shahi in Dang and collected a few items of the language. In May 2004, Prof. Yogendra Yadava and Prof. David Watters advanced a proposal to The National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, Lalitpur to bring Kusunda speakers such as Gyani Maiya, Prem Bahadur Shahi and Kamala Khatri to Kathmandu for a three month period of intensive linguistic research. This proposal was accepted and materialized in the form of a book entitled 'Notes on Kusunda grammar by Prof. David E. Watters.
Earlier, Kusunda was classified as a member of the Tibeto-Burman family with close affinity with Chepang and Magar. Prof. Watters classified it as a true linguistic isolate with no relation to any languages on earth. According to him, it has a few lexical borrowings from Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman but they have nothing to do with its genetic lineage. <b>It is phonologically , lexically and grammatically distinct.. It possesses uvular and pharyngealized consonants which do not exist in other languages of south Asia. Conversely, retroflex consonants which are so common in south Asian languages do not appear in this languag</b>e. It has labial, apical, velar, uvular and glottal stops such as /p/, /ph/, /b/, /bh/, /t/, /th/, /d/, /dh/, /k/, /kh/, /g/, /gh/, /q/, /qh/, /G/ and /?/, apical and uvular fricatives such as /s/ and /x/, apical affricates such as /ts/, tsh/, dz/, dzh/, labial, apical, laminal, velar and uvular nasals such as /m/, /n/, /�/, /K/ and /N/, apical lateral /l/, apical rhotic /r/ and semi-vowels /w/ and /y/. It has six vowels: /i/, /Y/ and /u/ in the upper set and /e/, /a/ and /o/ in the lower set. It has diphthongs such as /Yi/ as in sYi, /ai/ as in qaida 'other' /Yu/ as in Yula 'to sell' etc. There are very few case marking affixes such as genitive suffix �yi/-ye, accusative or dative suffix �da. Its syntax follows a basic SV, AVO constituent order with alternative orders used to mark specialized pragmatic notions.
Now, the number of people who identify themselves as Kusunda is no more than 28 and only four or five of whom are mother- tongue speakers according to former vice chairman Prof. Santa Bahadur Gurung as quoted by Prof. Watters in his book. In addition, they are scattered over different districts with least possibility of community formation. Until now only eight speakers, Raja Mama, Kamala Khatri, her mother, her cousin-sister Gyani Maiya, her maternal uncle Prem Bahadur Shahi and Gyani Maiya's three brothers have been found. They have come out recently from the jungle. Prem Bahadur, Gyani Maiya and her three brothers were born in the jungle near Hapur in Pyuthan district of Midwestern Nepal and subsisted on wild roots and hunted animals during their childhood. Prem Bahadur and Gyani Maiya married Nepali speaking Magars and Gyani Maiya's three younger brothers married Kham-speaking Magar women. Therefore, this language has lost functional value in their family. After their death, it is sure to extinct due to lack of intergenerational transformation.
More than 150 years ago, Brian Hodgson had predicted its total extinction after the lapse of a few generations and Ethnologue in 1990 reported that Kusunda had gone extinct with the death of its last speaker Chudamani Ban Raja in 1985. It has saddened linguists and language lovers who had regarded a language as the invaluable treasure of distinct culture, knowledge and wisdom but thanks to the effort of linguists at home and abroad as well as of the National Foundation for the Development of Indigenous Nationalities, the Kusunda speakers were traced, the language was recorded and the
language community has been blessed with Kusunda grammar. The government should acknowledge their invaluable contribution, take immediate steps to promote the language by developing orthography, writing text books and by running literacy programmes and save this most seriously endangered language from extinction. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is only one explanation. The trend towards retroflexion started in the Indic languages at a later time.