#tibetic

This article looks at songs sung by Syuba speakers to understand how they see themselves, their community and their language. This work draws on the songs in the corpus of Syuba that I’ve been working on since 2014, and other collections of songs put together by Syuba speakers. 

One of the nice things about working with songs is that people make deliberate choices about the stories they want to tell in these songs. By looking at a combination of original compositions, folk songs and religious songs we see that people represent a complex identity that is Syuba and also Yolmo, Tibetan and Nepali. We look at how these identities intersect with people’s understanding of local and larger geographies, and the changes that occur with development.

This article is a collaboration with two colleagues: Gerald Roche, an anthropologist with interests in multilingualism and the relationship between language and identity in Tibetan communities, and Ruth Gamble, a historian with expertise in Tibetan poetry and the environment.

It was so nice to spend so much time listening to the songs performed by Syuba speakers, and thinking about the stories that they share. In many ways this paper is the local context to the larger political reality described in my recent paper about International Relations in the Himalaya with this team and Alex Davis.

Abstract

This paper draws on song texts from two corpora of Syuba, a Southern Tibetic language of Nepal. The songs have rich, interlinking themes relevant to language, identity and the situated context of Syuba people. We draw upon the texts to illustrate themes of identity, relationship, language, development and space. This analysis is grounded in an interdisciplinary approach bringing together linguistic, anthropological and historical perspectives. Through these themes, we come to a nuanced account of a minority language group, who see themselves as Syuba, Yolmo, Tibetan and Nepali, and how these multiple identities co-exist.

Citation

Gawne, L., G. Roche & R. Gamble. “The bus doesn’t stop for us”: Multilingualism, attitudes and identity in songs of a Tibetic community of Nepal. Multilingua. 1-31. doi: 10.1515/multi-2020-0026

Jackal and Pheasant picture book in Syuba, Nepali and English

This book is an illustration of a story we recorded in Syuba called “Jackal and Pheasant”, as part of the documentation of Syuba (Tibetic, Nepal). The illustrations were made by Jolene Tan as part of an ongoing project at NTU Singapore lead by Joan Kelly to connect students in the School of Art, Design and Media with people working on language documentation.

This small project demonstrates how digital resources can be useful for making a variety of outputs. The story was originally told in Syuba, and then translated into Nepali and English. We made versions that are only English or Syuba, and then bilingual versions in Syuba/English and Syuba/Nepali. English speakers can purchase the mono- or bi-lingual versions, while Nepali speakers can also access the story, and Syuba speakers can read a copy only in Syuba, or also in another language.

We used slightly different formatting styles for the bilingual (above) and monolingual (below) versions. Thanks to Emily Gref for formatting the final books from Jolene’s images.

Jackal and Pheasant original recording:

SUY1-140126-15

http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/140126

Book archived at: http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/SUY1/items/picturebooks

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba only) ISBN-13 978-1545587263

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2zgw88x

Digital version (free to read): https://issuu.com/ntulibraries/docs/jackal_and_pheasant

Jackal and Pheasant (English only) ISBN-13 978-1546511229

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2grx7Pr

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba/English) ISBN-13 978-1546511281

Purchase print book at: http://amzn.to/2yvHuYO

Jackal and Pheasant (Syuba/Nepali only) ISBN-13 978-1546511274

Paradisec is now host to a collection of recordings from Langtang in Nepal. These recordings include traditional stories and personal histories of speakers of the Langtangpa language. Researchers are often told to think about the long term importance of endangered language material that we work with, but Becky and Radka, who worked with the Langtangpa to build the collection, were confronted with this in ways they never expected after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, that flattened the Langtangpa villages, and killed many of the people in the recordings.

The collection is open access, and will continue to grow and be translated. Neither Becky or Radka are trained linguists, but they’ve done an amazing job of learning the workflows linguists use in language documentation to build a collection of recordings that are now an invaluable resource for both the Langtangpa community and researchers. I’ve been helping to archive the recordings, and wrote about the collection for the Paradisec blog (Endangered Languages and Cultures) when the collection went live:

While the Langtang region is well-known to as a trekking destination in Nepal, almost nothing is known about the people who live there, the language that they speak, and its relationship to other Tibeto-Burman languages. The ethnic Tibetan Langtangpa population have called the valley home for at least 4 centuries and speak a language that shares features with those of their Kyirong neighbours in the north, and Yolmo neighbours in the south.

On hearing that there has been no documentation made of the Langtang language, Radka Kvicalova and Becky Slade decided to start a project in the Basic Oral Language Documentation (BOLD) method. Neither are trained linguists, but learnt how to use audio recorders and build the metadata for their documentation project. Their aim was to build a project that could be a useful record of the Langtang language for both the community, and researchers interested in the language. They worked to ensure that all materials would be open access archived, with written or oral transcriptions and translations into either English or Nepali. When I heard about their work on a field trip to Nepal I helped them arrange an archiving plan with Paradisec. The collection is now available as Paradisec collection LAN1.

Becky and Radka began their documentation in Langtang in 2014. While the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal were devastating for many communities, the residents of Langtang were particularly hard hit. The earthquake on April 25, 2015 triggered a major avalanche that killed 187 of the 673 Langtangpa. Forty households disappeared, and many more were damaged. Almost the entire population were forced to relocate to Kathmandu to survive the winter. As a result of this tragedy and the ensuing displacement of the Lantangpa, the language, cultural heritage, and intergenerational knowledge of Langtang is increasingly at risk.

[Photograph of Langtangpa women in traditional clothing, sitting in a green valley. Taken by Lhakpa Tamang Jangba]