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Bhartesh Singh Thakur
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 8
Lahauli, a tribal language of Himachal, is fast vanishing, as it has registered a dip of 45.6 per cent from 2001 to 2011.
The decline has been registered in the data on languages and mother tongue (district and sub-district wise) released recently. The Census defines mother tongue as the language spoken in childhood by a person’s mother to him or her. If the mother died in infancy, the language used in the person’s home in childhood will be considered as his/her mother tongue.
In 2011, only 11,073 persons registered Lahauli as their mother tongue in Himachal, whereas in 2001, the figure was 20,339. Lahauli, which falls in the Tibeto-Burmese family as per the classification, has also registered an overall decline of 48.9 per cent in the country, with the number falling from 22,646 to 11,574. However, from 1991 to 2001, it had witnessed a growth rate of 2.81 per cent in the country.
“A majority of the Lahaulis have shifted to Kullu and married the local women. The casualty is Lahauli language,” said Prof VS Negi, Chairperson, Centre for Buddhist Studies, Himachal Pradesh University (HPU). He added: “The new generation is snapping ties with tribal languages. People have become status conscious and are speaking Hindi or English.”
Hindi, which is considered as mother tongue by the maximum number of people in the state, has registered a growth of nine per cent in 10 years. Punjabi, which comes on the second place in numbers, has witnessed a growth of 68.9 per cent —from 3.64 lakh people in 2001 to 6.15 lakh in 2011.
Nepali is on the third place in the state, with a growth rate of 27.4 per cent — 89,508 persons in 2011 compared to 70,272 in 2001. It is owing to the migration from Nepal.
Another tribal language, Kinnauri, which comes onthe fourth place, has registered a growth rate of 28.6 per cent.
Maithali has witnessed a rise of 134.4 per cent and Marathi has seen an increase of 104.8 per cent in Himachal.
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