Abstract
Ethnographic research in the Kumaun region of North India highlights different perspectives on this multilingual context and on national‐level policies. Language policies that explicitly or implicitly minoritize certain linguistic varieties influence local discourses about language and education but are also interpreted through the lens of local language ideologies. Ecological metaphors and different scalar perspectives illustrate the complex relationship among languages as speakers of an unrecognized language reinterpret policy and express value for linguistic diversity.
Highlights
Ethnographic research in the Kumaun region of North India highlights different perspectives on this multilingual context and on national-level policies
Does the strengthening of one species necessitate the extinction of another? Can local conditions withstand the influence of external forces? The linguistic ecology of the Kumaun region of North India has been influenced by political changes throughout history, by national-level language and education policies, by state-level language and education decisions, and by the ideologies, discourses, and language use of Kumauni people as they ignore, embrace, or contest such policies at the local level
This paper explores the complex linguistic environment in the Kumaun as perceived by individuals whose home language, Kumauni, is marginalized in relation to the regional and school language, Hindi, and the languages learned as school subjects, English and Sanskrit
Summary
Ethnographic research in the Kumaun region of North India highlights different perspectives on this multilingual context and on national-level policies. The linguistic ecology of the Kumaun region of North India has been influenced by political changes throughout history, by national-level language and education policies, by state-level language and education decisions, and by the ideologies, discourses, and language use of Kumauni people as they ignore, embrace, or contest such policies at the local level. While national-level language and education policies do influence educational practices and local discourses surrounding language in the Kumauni context, the ways in which those policies are appropriated locally reflect a value for linguistic diversity in local language ideologies. A thorough description of the relationships among languages and their environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective (Haugen 1972; Hornberger 2002), involves attention to the agency of local actors and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them, as defined below. In interpreting an ecological metaphor, one young informant utilized a shift in scale, beautifully illustrating how changes in perspective alter the appearance of the relationship among the languages
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