Language Shift in Kathmandu

Abstract

The title of this research work is “Language Shift in Kathmandu”. The main purpose of this study was to find out the situation of language shift in Kathmandu valley and the attitudes of different groups of people towards their mother tongue, Nepali language and English language. To accomplish this study, a set of questionnaire was formulated and distributed to one hundred inhabitant of Kathmandu valley. The informants were sampled from five different strata viz. teachers, students, politicians, business persons and representative members of ethnic groups. Twenty respondents from each stratum were purposively selected. The data collected from the informants were analyzed and interpreted to find out the situation of language shift and the attitude of different groups of people towards their mother tongue, Nepali language and English language. It was found that there is a case of language shift. Language shift is occurring towards Nepali language and English language. Ethnic languages are moribund. English language is the most preferred language to speak. Most of them prefer English medium school as well. Nevertheless, they have positive attitudes towards their mother tongue, Nepali and English language i.e. positive towards multilingualism. They have felt the necessity of mother tongue education and think that English language is necessary for higher studies as well. They think that mother tongue is suitable for literacy level, Nepali for secondary level and English for tertiary level of education. The study consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces the study in terms of general background, review of the related literature, objectives of the study, significance of the study and definitions of the specific terms. Likewise, chapter two deals with the methodology applied to conduct the study. It encompasses the sources of data, population of the study, sampling procedure, research tools for data collection, process of data collection and limitations of the study. Similarly, chapter three deals with the analysis and interpretation of the raw data obtained from the informants. The data were analyzed and interpreted by using simple statistical tools and presented with the help of tables, charts and diagrams. Finally, chapter four deals with the findings, recommendations and pedagogical implications of this study.