Baglung, Aug 8: Magar Kham, the native language of the Magar community here, is at risk of extinction. Older generation people from the community are worried about seeing their mother tongue facing extinction.
The language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family and it is spoken in wards number 5 and 6 of the Nisikhola rural municipality of the district under the then ’18 Magarat’ region.
The understanding of the senior citizens here is that rural-urban migration, increasing culture of going abroad among the youths, and modernization are among the causes for the rapid decline in the number of speakers of the language.
Bhakta Bahadur Budha Magar of Nisikhola-6 recalls that a decade ago, the language was also spoken in wards 7, 8 and 9. “Now, it is almost a thing of the past”.
He said people like him are worried about seeing their mother language ‘dying’, leading to the extinction of its related indigenous art and culture simultaneously.
Not only members of the Magar community but also the people from the Dalit community in Nisikhola speak the Kham language.
Bhakta Bahadur said the younger generation, especially grandchildren, is not familiar with the language. “Our grandparents and parents would speak Kham in daily life, and we followed them. Gradually, we began speaking Nepali. The younger generation finds it odd and inconvenient to use our mother tongue,” he said.
Nisikhola rural municipality Chair Surya Bahadur Gharti Magar sees the need to introduce a textbook in the Kham language right from the school level to promote the language. He said the local government is working towards that end. “It will be implemented soon.”
He believes it is also the State’s responsibility to promote the language along with the community and family. “Family is the first place where children learn their mother tongue.”
Although the local government had planned to develop and implement the school textbook on Kham last year, technical issues delayed the process. This year, the plan includes hiring a teacher through private sources, it is said.
According to available data, as many as 788,580 people (almost 3 percent of the total population of the country) speak the Magar language namely Kham, Tarali or Kaike.
