questionnaire used in this survey tend to also correspond with the responses to the questionnaire used among Bhumij people during Varenkamp’s investigation.
3.2.1 Attitudes toward the mother tongue
While other indicators of vitality may not have seemed favourable total language shift in much of West Bengal and partial shift in Orissa, the Bhumij generally responded positively when asked about the
value of their mother tongue. The true assessment of what value they place on its maintenance can only be measured through observations of language use. This can be seen in the responses to questionnaires
probing such issues as language purity and desirability of using Bhumij in the home. Responses to all of these questions were favourable with respect to the vitality of Bhumij speech. In none of the Bhumij-
speaking places the team visited were negative attitudes toward their mother tongue found.
Three additional attitudinal factors seem to be positive indicators of mother tongue vitality: 1 all subjects from the seven sites said they would not allow their children to marry someone who spoke
another language, 2 all of the Bhumij-speaking people responded that they felt Bhumij was better than either Hindi or Oriya, and 3 most subjects commented that if found in conversation with fellow Bhumij-
speakers, and an Oriya or other LWC speaker joins the group, they would not necessarily change to speaking the LWC for them.
3.2.2 Attitudes toward Mundari
Many people were asked whether they felt that Bhumij and Mundari were the same or different. Responses varied from place to place. For example, in Dighinuasahi people said Bhumij and Mundari are
the same language, whereas those in Munduy responded that Bhumij and Mundari are very different, mainly with regard to word use, style of speech, and pronunciation. What may seem clear is that Bhumij
and Mundari are not exactly the same and not exactly different.
The variations in people’s responses might have to do with the level of specificity with which each was addressing the question i.e., if respondents were thinking about intelligibility, they might respond
that two speech varieties are the same, whereas if they were thinking of accent or regional characteristics, they might respond that the speech varieties are different. Many times Bhumij
individuals responded that their mother tongue was Mundari, but, as is sometimes the case among non- standard languages throughout South Asia, people are accustomed to referring to their speech with the
same title they use to describe their particular social group, i.e., “Bhumij.”
Also, it is interesting that in response to the post-RTT questions, many people felt the stories were good but also mixed with Ho or Santali, usually depending on which group was more dominant in the
area. The stories that were chosen were from the “heart” of the Mundari-speaking area. The colloquial story came from villages where only Mundaris were living. The literary story also was based out of
Ranchi district. That the various respondents from all of the sites were not able to agree that it was “pure” Mundari they were not told what language was on the recording; some thought the speech was
Bhumij raises questions as to whether it is possible to actually find a Mundari speech sample which a group of Bhumij people could consider “pure.”
Also, there were several Bhumij RTT subjects who thought or knew the stories they had listened to were Mundari, so it is profitable to look at their responses to the post-RTT questions. The responses of
these individuals were generally similar to those subjects who could not identify the texts as Mundari, giving some indication of no negative attitudes toward Mundari simply because they knew it was the
language on the recording.
3.2.3 Receptivity toward language development
