A Sociolinguistic Study of The Limbu Language (As Spoken in West Sikkim)

Abstract

This thesis presents a Sociolinguistics study of Limbu spoken in West Sikkim under Soreng subdivision Block Development Office (BDO), Dentam and Geyzing circle. The purpose of this study is to assess the sociolinguistics situation of the Limbu language. The instruments utilized in this study were sociolinguistic questionnaires, interviews and 210 Swedesh wordlist. The findings of the research include Limbu language spoken by as estimated roughly- 19000 people i.e. 60 percent of the population of West Sikkim. The Limbu people are bilingual in most and lesser are multilingual. Young people often avoid the use of their language. It is because of the fact that Nepali is the lingua-franca in Sikkim. The Limbu people have their own ethnicity, culture, festivals, rites and rituals food habit and life style. It makes them distinct from their ethnic groups. Like other Hindu people, they observe the festivals such as Dasain, Tihar, Saune and Mage Sakranti. However, their special festivals are Dasain and Ballihang Tongnam (Tihar) and Sirijunga Sawan Tangnam which they celebrate in Aswin/Kartik and Mangsir every year. Limbu people are both bilingual and mulitilingual. They speak Limbu as well as Nepali, Hindi, Enlish, Lepcha, Bhutia, Rai and others. Besides their mother tongue, they also use the Nepali language as the second most frequently used language. The participants also tend to think that when the young children first enter school are able to understand their Nepali speaking teacher’s teaching. The language resources available in the Limbu language are written literature, like poems, plays, fictions, other genres, telefilms magazines, journals, and newspapers. The Limbu speakers have positive attitudes towards their mother tongue since 90% of them said that they love the Limbu language most. They also said that their children should speak their mother tongue first. Most of the Limbu speakers said that medium of instruction for their children in primary level of education should be mother tongue. The Limbu language is most frequently used in many domains of the language. They use their mother tongue in counting, story telling, singing, joking, shopping, playing, and in public meeting. Most of the Limbu speakers use their mother tongue at home while talking about educational matters, social events and family matters.