Learning to read and write Yamphu

4.1 Informal interview results

4.1.1 Learning to read and write Yamphu

One question we asked was, “Suppose someone started a class for learning how to read and write Yamphu, would you yourself want to attend?” Of those who responded, 80 said they would want to attend, including nearly all male and younger respondents both male and female. The degree of literacy among respondents made a difference in their answers. Among literate respondents this was a self-reported ‘literacy’ which tends to correlate with education level, 37 out of 38 people said they would be interested in attending class. Among nonliterate respondents, 14 out of 26 said they would be interested. It is also interesting to look at how respondents in different villages answered this question. Figure 7 displays the percentage of respondents from each village who answered “Yes.” Figure 7. “Would you want to attend a class to learn to read and write Yamphu?” The overall percentage of people who said “Yes” to this question was 80. Compared to the cumulative percentage, Rajarani has a relatively high number of respondents who said they would be interested in attending a c lass 92. The Yamphu Kirat Samaj a cultural society for the Yamphu has a very strong presence in Rajarani VDC, contributing to strong ethnic identity and possibly to a strong desire to see language development. The two villages which fall below the overall average of 80 are Seduwa 71 and Khoktak 67. Intermarriage with other ethnic groups is more common in both of these villages, possibly reducing use of the Yamphu language, ethnic identity, and desire for language development. If respondents said “Yes,” a followup question of “Why?” was asked. Answers to this question were grouped into categories. The results are displayed in Figure 8. Figure 8. “Why would you want to attend a class to learn to read and write Yamphu?” The most notable response t o the question, “Why would you want to attend a class to learn to read and write Yamphu? ” was “Because it’s my own language” 39. The second most frequent response was “To learn or study my language” 31. Of those who gave this response, five were young people and nine were old. Three of the young people only speak some Yamphu so their responses indicated a desire to learn to speak Yamphu. The old people primarily meant they would like to learn to read and write Yamphu. Both of these responses relate to the strong ethnic and linguistic identity that Yamphu people have. Their motivations for learning tied most strongly to the fact that Yamphu is their language. The other two most given responses were “To preserve my language” 19 and “For language development” 8. Both of these responses indicate a motivation to learn based on language preservation and development.

4.1.2 Yamphu class for children