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
The use of the Bhumij language appeared to be strong in Dighinuasahi. In this site, the main language assistant for the questionnaire stated he uses Bhumij with members of the family, with fellow villagers,
and for private prayer and religious discussions. The researchers believe that the language assistant’s viewpoint also extended to the rest of the village.
In the northern part of Mayurbhanj district, a different and somewhat surprising situation was encountered. In an area approximately 30 kilometres south of Rairangpur, the team talked briefly with a
Bhumij man who related that he speaks Oriya in his home and it is the language spoken within his village. He also mentioned that people in the village have changed their titles to Nayak, an Oriya caste
title.
The survey team then met Bhumij people at a brick-making factory. Most of the people working there were from Podadiha village, around four kilometres away. A young man of about 25 said he speaks
Oriya in the home with his parents as well as inside the village. He said they have always spoken Oriya, though it is a local version of Oriya – not a pure or standard variety. Another man remarked that he does
not know any area where Bhumij people are speaking their original language. Another individual commented that though they still consider themselves a tribe, they have adopted the Nayak caste title.
What is interesting is that information collected on the Mayurbhanj and Ho surveys Varenkamp 1989, 1990 found the presence of Bhumij speakers in this area. A Bhumij wordlist was collected from
Podadiha. Dumadie village, the origin of a Bhumij RTT story, appears from maps in Varenkamp’s reports to be only a short distance from Podadiha. Field notes about Dumadie record that the people claim to
speak a mixture of Ho, Bhumij, and Oriya and are losing their language. However, no one with whom the team spoke had heard of the village nor of a nearby town, so it was not possible to visit the site to
assess the actual situation.
3.1.3 Language use in West Bengal
In West Bengal, the situation appears to be a shift to Bengali as the mother tongue in nearly every section of the state. This phenomenon was documented over 100 years ago by Risley 1891, reprinted in
1981:117 who writes about the Bhumij living in what is now much of West Bengal. He states, “On the eastern side of the Ajodhya range, which forms a complete barrier to ordinary communication, all is
changed. Both the Mundari language and the title of Munda have dropped out of use, and they… talk Bengali.”
To confirm this occurrence, Bhumij villages in Purulia and Medinapur districts of the state were visited. In Purulia district, two villages declared they were speaking Bengali as their mother tongue, and
it was the language the children were learning and speaking in the home. The people in these sites mentioned they had made this language shift two or three generations previously. Recorded texts of the
Mundari Ghost story and Bhumij story from Dumadie were played for a few individuals. No one could understand any of the speech except for two older ladies who knew “Bhumij Thar.” However, they had
grown up in the BunduTamar area and had moved to Purulia district when they were married, and as a result learned Bengali.
In Medinapur district, the situation is much the same, though not quite as advanced as in Purulia district. Full language shift toward Bengali did not seem to occur as far in the past though certain areas
made the switch to Bengali a few generations previously. Rather, language shift is currently in progress, and there are pockets where the Bhumij community is retaining Bhumij as their mother tongue. There
are, however, census reports of Bhumij people in Bankura, North and South Twenty-four Parganas, Hooghly and Nadia districts. The survey team did not visit these areas, partly because of time constraints
and lack of contacts, and also because there did not appear to be convincing evidence that the Bhumij in those areas are speaking anything other than Bengali as their mother tongue. The numbers of Bhumij in
those districts are relatively small and the areas are generally more urbanised and developed than the districts of Medinapur and Purulia.
At a site near Keshiary, questionnaire language assistants called their language “diverted Bengali,” claiming their language is not Bengali, nor Oriya—at least the pure, standard varieties of those languages
Oriya was mentioned because their location is near the border of Orissa. Originally, their mother tongue was “Thar bhasha.” They still have marriage relationships with the Bhumij of BunduTamar area,
and will intermarry even if spouces don’t speak Bengali. When the Bhumij people of West Bengal travel to Bihar, they communicate in Hindi with the Bhumij people there.
An interesting conversation with a Bhumij school administrator working near Keshiary revealed that his mother tongue is Bengali, but that he is actually trying to learn his traditional mother tongue, which
he termed Mundari. He did not learn Mundari from his parents, and is now learning from older people, when he goes to their village and meets them in the market. He stated there are a couple of villages in
the area where people are still speaking BhumijMundari. He lamented that today children are becoming more modernised and are adopting new customs, “They are still speaking Bhumij in the home, but…the
Munda are losing their mother tongue.” The reason given for this was because their language does not have a script. This gentleman went on to comment that nowhere are there any Bhumij people trying to
preserve and hold on to their language like the Santalis, and that there has been no one to uplift and develop the Bhumij community.
Again near Keshiary, the group met a Bhumij school teacher who related that when he was a university student in Medinapur district, he and nine other Bhumij students decided they wanted to
preserve their language—just like the Santali people. So in 1989, they spent 2,500 rupees to produce a booklet in the Bhumij language in Bengali script, and held meetings in various Bhumij locations to
promote their language and literacy. These meetings failed, though, as the people said they could not understand the script. This teacher says he is speaking Mundari in the home, though his children are
growing up speaking Bengali, since his wife does not speak Mundari well. However, he does encourage people in his village to continue to speak their language, but most of them are reluctant to do so. And
when they do try to speak, they make mistakes and cannot speak at deep levels of conversation.
In summary, language use patterns among the Bhumij vary from region to region. In Bihar, except for a section near the West Bengal border that has shifted to Bengali, the Bhumij are speaking Bhumij in
the home and family domains. In Orissa, it appears that in the northern part of Mayurbhanj district, the Bhumij have either already shifted or are in the process of shifting to Oriya, while the Bhumij in the
southern part of the district are continuing to speak Bhumij as the vernacular. In West Bengal, there are several areas where Bengali is used as the mother tongue, other areas in the state where the shift to
Bengali is almost complete, and a few isolated spots where the people are retaining Bhumij as their mother tongue.
3.2 Language attitudes
