Editorial 2 : Vanishing voices of the mountains: The struggle to preserve Pahari languages
Context
Spoken by millions in the regions of Western Himalayas, Pahari languages remain unrecognised in India’s official language policies.
Phonetically different
- While these languages and dialects, even those in geographic proximity, phonetically differ from each other due to the hardy terrain, linguists have traditionally lumped these vernaculars under the catch-all ‘Pahari’.
- Derived from pahar, meaning ‘mountain’, Pahari refers not to a single language, but to a wide array of tongues spoken across the Himalayan belt.
- Sir George Abraham Grierson, who conducted The Linguistic Survey of India between 1901 and 1928, identified the Pahari languages as a distinct subgroup within the Indo-Aryan family.
- Grierson classified Pahari into three principal divisions: Eastern, Central, and Western, corresponding roughly to the modern Indian states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu & Kashmir, and parts of Nepal and Pakistan.
A linguistic patchwork
- Western Pahari, spoken primarily in Himachal Pradesh and parts of Jammu, includes languages such as Kangri, Mandeali, Chambeali, Gaddi, and Bhalesi.
- Central Pahari covers Garhwali and Kumaoni, the principal languages of Uttarakhand.
- Eastern Pahari is represented almost entirely by Nepali, once known as Khas Kura or Gorkhali.
- While these tongues differ in grammar and vocabulary, they are united by their mountain origins and the cultural traditions they carry: folk tales, devotional songs, and seasonal idioms.
- The Pahari languages reveal deep linguistic kinships with neighbouring tongues such as Punjabi, Hindko, and Gojri, suggesting a history of migration from the plains to the peaks, along with interactions with diverse groups such as the Kolis, Dogras, Gujjars, Gurungs, and Tamangs, and Pahari Pathans and Dards in modern-day Pakistan.
Vanishing tongues
- The Linguistic Survey of India – Himachal Pradesh, carried out between 1995 and 2008 by the Office of the Registrar General, documents five major languages and 12 mother tongues, most of which belong to the Western Pahari group — locally referred to as Pahari or Himachali.
- Despite being spoken by nearly 90% of the state’s population, according to a 1996 survey, these languages remain unrecognised in India’s official language policies.
- Pahari dialects such as Kangri, Mandeali, Chambeali, and Sirmauri are often recorded as “Hindi” due to a lack of formal recognition.
- Moreover, there isn’t a single college in Himachal dedicated to the study or preservation of Pahari.
- According to the Census of 2011, Himachal Pradesh has a population of 6.86 million. However, only 18.1% of the population is recorded as bilingual, suggesting that the shift to Hindi has come at the expense of local dialects.
- The LSI identifies Bharmauri (Gaddi), Churahi, Chambeali, Kangri, Keonthali, Kulvi, Mandeali, Pangwali, Sanori, and Sirmauri as mother tongues under the Hindi group, while Bhateali and Bilaspuri fall under Punjabi, with Dogri, Nepali, Kinnauri, Lahauli, and Bhotia included as distinct.
- Studies have found that in most households, younger generations are drifting toward Hindi or English, using Pahari dialects only at home or during cultural events. In schools, the local dialect is nearly invisible.
- Hindi dominates official interaction, education, and digital communication.
- Tibeto-Burman languages show a slightly different trend. Kinnauri, spoken by about 82,000 people in Kinnaur district, and Lahauli, with roughly 89,500 speakers mainly in Lahaul and Kullu, retain stronger community roots.
- Their geographic isolation has helped preserve them, but the adoption of Hindi and English in schools and jobs is growing.
- Meanwhile, Nepali, a language of migration, has nearly 90,000 speakers in the state, particularly in Shimla, Solan, and Kullu.
- The Tankri (or Takri) script, once widely used to write Kangri, Chambeali, Mandeali, and Gaddi, has virtually disappeared.
- Evolving from the Sharada script around the 10th century, Tankri was used across northwestern India for administrative and cultural purposes.
- However, with the rise of Hindi and Devanagari, especially post-Independence, Tankri lost its status.
Smartphones and schools
- Despite community efforts, elder speakers often lament that their children can understand the language but do not speak it.
- The next generation, growing up with smartphones and English-medium education, often cannot understand it at all.
- According to researchers, psycho-sociological pressures within families and schools are central to the decline of the Pahari language in northern Punjab and Kashmir.
- Their findings reveal that middle- and upper-income families increasingly associate the use of indigenous languages with backwardness, discouraging their children from speaking Pahari even at home.
Politics of language and the fight for the 8th Schedule
- Despite decades of advocacy, the Pahari languages have yet to gain recognition under the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, a list that includes officially acknowledged languages.
- Inclusion would grant Pahari dialects benefits such as use in education, administration, and eligibility for representation in literary bodies like the Sahitya Akademi.
- However, not everyone is in favour of Pahari being added to the 8th Schedule.
Conclusion
Caught between the push for constitutional recognition and fears of linguistic fragmentation, the Pahari languages now sit at the heart of a larger national conversation about identity and inclusion.