LANGUAGE ATTITUDES AMONG THE APATANI YOUTH OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Abstract

Apatani is a language spoken in Arunachal Pradesh with approximately 44,000 speakers. The Apatani language belongs to the Tani group of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family (Sun, 1993). Referred to as Tanii Agun by its native speakers, Apatani is an oral language and does not have any orthography, script or writing system. It was included among the 196 vulnerable languages of India in UNESCO “Atlas of the World Languages in Danger” (Moseley, 2010, Map 20, p.45). Concerns have been raised regarding the sustenance of Apatani because of their absence in formal and educational domains and their gradual decline in other domains. Further, due to its contact with more dominant languages such as English and Hindi, which have gained greater social prestige and political as well as economic prominence, the language is naturally threatened. To a large extent, the severity of such endangerment depends on the attitude and perceptions of the native speakers, particularly of the community’s youth towards their language, as the maintenance of the language and its transmission to the future generation is mainly dependent on the youth. Therefore, the present study attempts to understand the attitudes of the Apatani youth towards their native language. It aims at documenting the use of languages (Apatani, English, and Hindi) in different domains (family, friendship, neighbourhood, transactions). The research proposes to predict the possibility of sustenance and development of the Apatani language.