Hedangna Vitality in Yamphu speech communities

5.4.1 Hedangna

The Yamphu community which is externally most recognized is Hedangna. Anywhere we went, while talking about Yamphu, people said we should go to H edangna because that is where they are “most concentrated and pure”. There was also internal recognition in Hedangna that they are unique. We observed more traditional clothing and Rai nose-rings there than elsewhere. In Hedangna we also experienced a lot of pressure, even as outsiders visiting their village for a short time, to learn Yamphu. The language definitely holds prestige here as was evident that everyone wanted us to learn it and actively tried to help us learn it. A majority of respondents in Hedangna reported using Yamphu more than Nepali in six domains ranging from 54 to 100. In the domain of debate, an equal percent of respondents said they use Yamphu or Nepali 39. In village meetings, 46 of respondents reported that they use both Yamphu and Nepali. In the remaining five domains, a higher percentage of respondents reported using Nepali than Yamphu 47 to 100. The results from the Bilingualism Tool See Appendix E2-b were revealing in terms of language use and vitality in Hedangna. The data indicates that the Yamphu community in Hedangna feels that there are not many who are bilingual in Nepali. This is an indicator of healthy mother tongue language vitality. They reported that farmers, their family members, and even some mother tongue speakers of other languages speak Yamphu well. Because schooling is done in Nepali, the general thinking is that only school-age children know Nepali well, despite the fact that they can speak Yamphu. Residents of Hedangna travel to Num for shopping or health-care needs. It is the nearest sizable population center. Among Hedangna respondents, 85 of them said they use Nepali when shopping. Looking at the bio-data from the interviews we conducted, we can see that 100 of married people we interviewed in Hedangna are married to Yamphu spouses. Due to strong ethnic identity and strong language vitality, in Hedangna people reported that whenever there is marriage between a Yamphu person and a non-Yamphu person, the non-Yamphu person learns to speak Yamphu. The Yamphu speech community of Hedangna is the only one in our study that is at an EGIDS level of 6a “Vigorous”. All parents are transmitting it to their children and it is used almost exclusively in the home.

5.4.2 Devitar