Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0255/02554.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 15KB | 248 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02554}
$Pretitle{235D}
$Title{Nepal
Chapter 4A.   Languages}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{George L. Harris}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{languages
pahari
groups
language
tarai
nepal
ethnic
nepali
country
eastern}
$Date{1973}
$Log{Figure 7.*0255401.scf
Table 2.*0255401.tab
Table 3.*0255402.tab
}
Country:     Nepal
Book:        Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, An Area Study: Nepal
Author:      George L. Harris
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 4A.   Languages

     Settled in ancient times by peoples from India to the south and west and
Tibet to the north and east, Nepal has been more or less continuously subject
to cultural influences from these two centers of civilization. It has in turn
influenced them. Thus, Tibet received its script from Nepal in the Malla
period. From Nepal also the pagoda style of architecture spread throughout
the East. The country's population is ethnically complex, ranging in physical
type and culture from the Indian to the Tibetan. Except for the sizable
population of Indian birth or ancestry concentrated in the Tarai on the border
with India and a few thousand refugees from Chinese-Communist-dominated
Tibet, all of the varied ethnic groups into which the Nepalese are divided
have evolved distinctive patterns of their own.

     The north Indian antecedents of a number of caste groups which make up
nearly half of the total population are evident in their language, religion,
social organization and physical appearance, but all of these features have
been modified in the Nepalese environment. These groups-several castes of
Brahmans, the high-ranking Thakuri and Chetri castes and an untouchable
category-have been classified as Pahari (Parbate) from their historic north
Indian connections, although the term has only a limited use in Nepal and the
Pahari groups are known by their individual caste names. Nepali, the native
tongue of the Pahari (and the official language of the country), is closely
related to but by no means identical with Hindi. The Hinduism of the Pahari
has been influenced both by Buddhism and by indigenous folk belief. The caste
system of the Pahari is neither as elaborately graded nor as all embracing in
its sanctions as that of the Indians; and physically many of the Pahari show
the results of intermixture with the Mongoloid peoples of the region.
Similarly, the Bhote groups of the high Himalayas-among whom the
mountaineering Sherpa have attracted the attention of the outside
world-although clearly related physically and culturally to the Tibetans,
have developed regional distinctions among themselves. "Bhote" is also a
generic term, applied to persons of Tibetan culture and Mongoloid physical
type. As used by the Pahari and the Newar it has a pejorative connotation and
may be applied to any non-Hindu of Mongoloid appearance (see fig. 7).

     An extraordinarily complex terrain has contributed to the human
complexity. The deeply cut valleys and high ridges of the Himalayan massif, in
which the northern three-fourths of the country lies, have tended to divide
the various ethnic populations themselves into many small, isolated and
relatively self-sufficient communities. Travel is still largely over footpaths
following the generally north to south meanderings of the principal river
systems. East and west movement, except in the lowlands of the Tarai, is made
difficult by the prevailing direction of the mountain ridges. The
regionalizing effect of the terrain is apparent in the predominantly Indian
character of the Tarai, which is an extension of the Gangetic Plain; in the
clustering of Tibetan-related languages and local cultures in the northern and
eastern parts of the country and of Indian-derived patterns in the west and
south; and in the historic distinctiveness and relative isolation of the
central valley enclave of Katmandu. Finally, the nature of the landscape has
led to a vertical as well as a lateral sorting of the population, with most of
the ethnic groups characteristically being found at particular altitudes.
Subsistence pattern is evidently the determining factor, and the distribution
ranges from the Indians of the Tarai, who cultivate irrigated rice on the
Gangetic Plain, to the Sherpa, whose dry fields and pastures are often at
10,000 feet and above.

[See Figure 7.: Distribution of Ethnic Groups in Nepal.]

     Historical origin and continued linguistic and cultural connections
make it possible to classify most ethnic groups into two categories:
Indo-Nepalese and Tibeto-Nepalese. The Indo-Nepalese category, which includes
the Pahari, the Indians of the Tarai, the Newar and the Tharu, comprises
perhaps 7.8 million persons, or nearly 80 percent of the total population.
Of these four Indo-Nepalese groups, the Pahari was by far the largest,
numbering more than 4 million in 1954, according to the last ethnic census
data available. Although found throughout the country, the bulk of the
Indo-Nepalese population is located in the Tarai and the Katmandu Valley.
Most of the principal Tibeto-Nepalese groups-the Tamang, Rai, Limbu, Bhote
and Sunwar-live in the north and east, although the Magar and Gurung are
found in west-central Nepal. Only three, the Tamang, Magar and Rai, exceeded
200,000 persons in 1954, whereas the Sunwar numbered about 17,000. It seems
probable, however, that the peoples on the northern rim of the country-the
Bhote, in particular-were underestimated in the 1952-54 census, no actual
count having made in that area.

     It is the Tibeto-Nepalese groups-particularly the Magar, Gurung and
Rai-who have supplied the bulk of the famous Gurkha contingents to the
British and Indian armies, although their ranks have been augmented from
the Thakuri and Chetri castes of the Indo-Nepalese Pahari. Not an ethnic
designation, the term "Gurkha" derives from the name of the former Kingdom
of Gorkha, west of the Katmandu Valley (see ch. 2, Historical Setting; ch.
22, The Armed Forces).

     The royal house of Nepal is Thakuri, and the Chetri caste supplied the
Rana line of hereditary prime ministers who ruled the country for a hundred
years until 1951, when the royal authority was restored. Nearly half of the
estimated 480,000 inhabitants of the Katmandu Valley in 1963 were Pahari,
and a large proportion of the wealthiest, best educated and politically most
influential persons in the country came from the highest castes of this
group. Most of the other half of the population of the Katmandu Valley
consisted of the Newar. Known today for their business acumen and handicraft
skills, the Newar developed a high degree of civilization in the Valley long
before the Pahari conquest in the eighteenth century. They are interesting
as a people of Mongoloid-North Indian ancestry, Tibetan-related speech, and
mixed Buddhist-Hindu religious orientation, whose Hinduization over the
centuries places them with the Pahari in the Indo-Nepalese category (see
table 2.)

[See Table 2.: Principal Ethnic Groups of Nepal, 1952-54]

     Although many members of the Tibeto-Nepalese groups, especially among
the Gurung, Magar and Rai, have adopted Hindu religious beliefs and practices,
these peoples remain basically Buddhist. A sizable and growing percentage
of the Tibeto-Nepalese groups reportedly can speak Nepali, and probably a
majority of them have some knowledge of the language. Slowly and unevenly
these peoples are being drawn into a national framework of thought and
activity by the development of public education, the extension of trade
and the operation of the panchayat system. There are no signs, however, that
basic ethnic identities are disappearing, and all of these peoples preserve
their Tibeto-Burman languages and dialects and their traditional culture.
None, as a group at least, has adopted the Hindu caste system, although
the dominant Pahari and Newar tend to regard the Tibeto-Nepalese groups as
so many unitary castes and to rank them below themselves.

     Most of the languages spoken in the country belong e