Attitude toward own mother tongue and other varieties of Bundeli

4.1 Language use

The main source of information regarding language use came from the Preliminary Questionnaire. Of the sixteen questionnaires administered, ten were elicited from points within Bundelkhand proper see explanation of Bundelkhand proper, section 1.1 and map 4, at sites where they call their speech variety Bundeli. Questionnaires were administered at five points that did not meet these criteria. At some points, geographically within Bundelkhand proper, subjects called their language something other than Bundeli. In other sites, which were outside of Bundelkhand proper, subjects did not have a name for their language. One questionnaire was elicited in the Braj speaking area. A second source of information was a Language Use and Attitudes questionnaire administered in three locations Chhatarpur, Sagar and Banda. For results see appendix H. Although very limited in sample size and scope, it does add to the overall picture. This sample consisted only of men, and mainly educated young men, so that must be kept in mind when interpreting the results. It is assumed that the educated young men will usually represent the part of the population most willing to change, most influenced by outside forces, and least attached to their mother tongue. For both the Preliminary Questionnaire and the Language Use and Attitudes Questionnaire, it seems that the local vernacular is strongly preferred in the domains of home and village locations both inside and outside Bundelkhand proper. In fact, the vernacular is spoken in many places in the marketplace as well. Hindi or Sanskrit is used as much as Bundeli, and in some cases more, for private prayer and sometimes for religious discussion. There were comments in several villages that the educated speak Hindi, but the uneducated speak the vernacular. When asked whether when the young people of the village grow up and have their own children they will speak the vernacular, there were mixed results. Most respondents said it would continue. Several qualified that by saying it depends on the education level: the uneducated will continue to speak the vernacular, the educated will speak Hindi. Two people one in Tikamgarh, one in Sagar thought Bundeli would die out relatively soon. 20 When asked on the LUA questionnaire if the young people were ashamed to speak Bundeli inside of the village, most said they were not. However, some said they would be ashamed to speak it outside of the village. It was a generally observed trend in almost all areas that a number of young, educated people, especially males, were not particularly proud of their mother tongue and preferred Hindi.

4.2 Language attitudes

With regard to language attitudes, three major areas of investigation were in view: 1 What are the attitudes of Bundeli speakers toward their own mother tongue as well as other varieties of Bundeli? 2 What is the attitude toward literature in the mother tongue? and 3 What is the attitude toward Hindi versus the mother tongue?

4.2.1 Attitude toward own mother tongue and other varieties of Bundeli

On the Preliminary Questionnaire, most subjects thought their own local variety was the best or most pure. If they did not choose their own, then Chhatarpur was mentioned the most frequently. Tikamgarh was also mentioned several times, and Banda was mentioned twice. On the LUA Questionnaire, most subjects from Sagar said Tikamgarh was the best Bundeli, and several mentioned Chhatarpur. All except one of the Chhatarpur subjects said Chhatarpur was the best Bundeli. Two out of three Banda subjects said Chhatarpur was the best. When asked about the quality of 20 This may have been more of a wish than a particularly insightful comment, since the subjects being interviewed were educated young men who did not have a good attitude about Bundeli. Bundeli spoken in specific districts Question 2a–e, Chhatarpur and Tikamgarh received the most favorable responses in Sagar, with Hamirpur and Damoh receiving somewhat negative responses. In Chhatarpur, Hamirpur again received somewhat negative reviews and Sagar and Damoh got a mixed response. In Banda, Hamirpur got somewhat negative reviews and Chhatarpur, Sagar and Damoh all got good remarks. When subjects chose Chhatarpur as the best or most pure, they said it was because it is the center of Bundelkhand and also because the speech there is not mixed with Hindi. The reasons given when Tikamgarh was chosen were that the people there are more uneducated and the speech is not mixed with Hindi. Two significant phenomena were observed with respect to language attitudes toward the mother tongue, one in Banda district, and the other in areas outside of Bundelkhand proper, but where the speech varieties were still closely related linguistically to Bundeli. The first observation applies to those Bundeli speakers who live in the eastern half of Banda district. The area where the recorded text testing was done in eastern Banda district is only twenty kilometers from Tulsi Dass’ birthplace. Their speech variety, a descendant of “Old Baiswari” described in section 1.3.1, is the language in which the Ramayana was written. Naturally, they seemed to be very proud of their language, although they were not antagonistic toward others. The second observation applies to all those areas outside of Bundelkhand proper, but still within the purview of Bundeli linguistically. These people sometimes had a local name for their mother tongue, but sometimes they just called their speech “dehati.” They did not see themselves connected to the Bundeli language or culture. In general, one might expect their speech variety to be more susceptible to shift, since they do not have a larger group identity as a culturallinguistic reference point, and therefore might more easily allow themselves to be absorbed into the prestige and identity of the national lingua franca, Hindi. However, they seemed to have fairly positive attitudes toward their own mother tongue. A second issue to still be investigated for this type of situation is whether the people from these “outside” areas would accept literature from the center of Bundelkhand and identified as Bundeli, even if it is understandable to them.

4.2.2 Attitude toward literature in the mother tongue