speech was only a little different than theirs, and everyone remarked that they understood everything of the story.
In Heseldipa, as with the Ghost story, a few subjects said that they were confused with the change in languages during the testing, saying in effect, “the story is in a different language and the questions
are in my language.” Three of nine
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subjects thought the story was Ho, while four subjects identified the speech in the story as Mundari, since they had heard the language before. Out of these four subjects,
three remarked that they understood everything in the story in addition to two others. The remainder of the subjects commented they could not fully understand the story.
3 Social aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
This chapter describes more social aspects of the Bhumij people and their speech, exploring the topics of language use, language attitudes and bilingualism. A sociolinguistic questionnaire SLQ composed
primarily of open-ended questions was used, along with observations of the researchers. The questionnaire was administered in only seven sites, usually to a small group. Needless to say, results and
conclusions must be taken lightly and tentatively. The questionnaire is shown in Appendix D.1, while subjects’ responses to the questionnaire are presented in Appendix D.2.
3.1 Language use
A study of language use patterns attempts to describe which languages or speech varieties members of a community use in different social situations, referred to as domains. Domains are social contexts in
which the choice to use a certain language variety is more apt to be appropriate than the use of another language variety Fasold 1984:183. A look into language use patterns can indicate the languages used
in certain domains and reveal the current status and strength of a language. Since language use patterns vary significantly among the Bhumij community in the three states where they reside, the discussion will
describe the situation state by state.
3.1.1 Language use in Bihar
In the state of Bihar, it appears that the Bhumij are usually continuing to speak Bhumij. The questionnaire was asked in the RTT sites of Munduy and Heseldipa, in addition to a village near
Heseldipa. Language assistants in all three sites responded that they speak Bhumij with family members in the home. Bhumij was reported by these respondents to be used with friends, children and leaders in
the village, as well as for private prayer and religious discussions. Children are growing up speaking Bhumij as their first language.
Respondents from Heseldipa, in particular, had quite strong feelings in continuing to speak Bhumij. The village headman stated, “We want to keep our language alive. That is why we are not mixing so
much with other groups, and why there is a cultural office nearby.” It was asked what would happen if a Bengali-speaking family moved nearby – would his children be influenced to learn Bengali? The response
was, “Our children will not do that.” Although this might appear to be more of a wish than reality, it does indicate strong attitudes in that village to maintain their language. During intelligibility testing in
Heseldipa, time was taken out to record a group of men singing several Bhumij songs.
The area around Nimdih, 20 kilometres north of Jamshedpur and near the West Bengal border, is an interesting area in terms of language use among the Bhumij. This location is near Ichagarh, site of
linguistic studies carried out by Nigam and Dasgupta as discussed earlier, who found a situation of both language conservatism and shift. Nimdih was visited by two members of the survey team, who
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One subject who did not pass the hometown test thus their score is not tabulated responded to the post-RTT questions.
interviewed an educational worker who is running more than 100 schools and literacy programmes among tribals in West Singhbhum and adjacent districts. He stated that the Bhumij people in the area
speak Bengali language as their mother tongue. Children who go to school are studying in Bengali medium, as the parents desired their children to learn in Bengali though this area is in Bihar, Bengali is
the LWC and medium of education. The team also talked with several Bhumij people from surrounding villages who were at his office for meetings. They all stated that their families and respective villages are
not speaking Bhumij, but Bengali, and that is the language being passed along to the children.
3.1.2 Language use in Orissa
