of the
children of the pidgin speaking communities result in a change in
role of a pidgin from a second language to the first language. At
least in two of the known instances in India, this assumption is
invalid. For instance, the Kacharis in Nagaland, a Hindu sect
belonging to the Bodo-Naga group who spoke Assamese, the source
language of the Naga pidgin, gave up Assamese, their first language,
in favour of the Naga Pidgin and creolized it. The exact period when
this shift took place and the processes involved in it are not
known. It cannot however be stated that the Kacharis in Nagaland
gave up Assamese in favour of a Naga Pidgin for the communicational
needs of their children. When the Naga Hills were separated from
Assam, the Kacharis in Naga Hills and Tuensang area, probably felt
in expedient to have a new identity which they could have obtained
only by disowning Assamese and in the process creolized the pidgin.
A similar situation is found in the heartland of Hindi where, in
search of a new tribal identity a number of tribal groups
have collectively shifted their linguistic identity from their
ancestral language by creolizing Sadari. Sadari has since become an
identity token for a number of heterogenous ethnic groups speaking
languages of three families viz., Austric (Munda), Dravidian and
Indo-Aryan (cf Sreedhar 1983a). This is quite evident from the
census figures, i.e., Sadari had 17 speakers in 1911, 56 in 1951 and
3,65,772 in 1961. Nothing short of a mass movement would have
resulted in this type of shift in liguistic identity from the
ancestral languages to a creole.
In the course of the last two to three decades, the functional
load of Naga Pidgin has increased to such a high level that it
became an extended pidgin (Sreedar 1979), yet it had been creolized
only by a small non-Naga ethnic minority, viz., Kacharis. The
Southern variety of Naga Pidgin and the creole of the Kacharis who
reside within the geographical area of the Southern variety show
hardly any difference at structural level (Detailed data on Kachari
creole grammar is yet to be collected). The absence of any major
difference in the structure of a pidgin used as a second language
and as the first language (i.e., the corresonding creole) is more
evident in the case of Sadari and Halbi, the two pidgin-creoles
spoken in the hearland of Hindi belt. Studies in Sadari and Habli1,
clearly indicate that, as far as the structure of these pidgin-creoles
is concerned, neither education nor their role as the first or as a
second language has any relevance. The structural differnce found in
Sadari is based on areal difference which was categorized as
belonging to core vs peripheral areas.
1Report of the pilot survey of parts of
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal on Sadari by Miss. Rekha and
Dr. Sam Mohanlal, on Sadari of Orissa by Dr. (Mrs.) Rajyashree
Subbayya and on Halbi by Dr. K.P. Acharya in Languages of Wider
Communication: studies in pidgins and creoles (ed.) M.V. Sreedhar
(forthcoming).
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From
time immemorial a number of linguistic minorities have given up
their ancestral language in favour of the dominant regional
languages, for instance, the Norwegian immigrants in U.S.A. (Haugen
1966). The recorded evidence in India (Dalton 1868 : 124-278) shows
that a number of tribal languages like Korawa, Kisan, Bhuihar,
Boyer, Bhuya, Bihor, etc., gave up their ancestral languges in
favour of different varieties of Hindi as early as the 18th century.
In some instances, conversion to Hinduism and in some instances
adopting permanent rice clutivation were cited by Dalton as the
cause of this shift in language. The Plains Kacharis in Assam gave
up their ancestral language in favour of Assamese, after conversion
to Vaisnavism-a Hindu sect in the mid 18th century. In a similar
conversion, the Meithis (Manipuris) only changed their script by
adopting Bengali-Assamese script but retained their language.
Presently there is a move by the Meithis for the revival of their
earlier script. In different official language of the region,
for instrumental purpose, for instance, the Iyengar Tamil Brhamins
in Banglore1, Karnataka and the Hindu Panjabis
in Delhi2 etc. A change in the role of a
Pidgin from a second language to the first language (creole)
basically involves the ancestral language in that it is the latter
that is lost partially or completely with or without any change in
the structure of the pidgin concerned. For, instance, in the case of
Naga Pidgin and Sadari, a change in the role has not affected the
structure of the pidgin-creole. If the shifts in favour of the
dominant languages by the speakers of ‘natural languages’ are
not treated as part of the life cycle of the language concerned the
reason for treating the loss of the ancestral language of the pidgin
speaking communities as part of the life cycle can only be
attributed to the fact that we know the history of the pidgins/
creoles of recent origin but not of some natural languages belonging
to the Romance family or Marathi (Southworth 1971 : 255-274). Let us
now have a look at another aspect of this life cycle, viz., the
gradual merger of a creole with the external source language. Though
a number of Nagas had been to the capital city of Assam and to the
other towns in Assam for higher education and had formal education
in Assamese language, Assamese was never an official language of
educatin in Nagaland. Hence the condition for classical
decreolization process did not exist in Nagaland. But such a
condition did and does exist in the case of Sadari and Halbi. Both
these pidgin-creoles are spoken in the heartland of the Hindi belt
where Hindi is both the official language and the language of
education.
1Language maintenance: a case study of
Tamils in Bangalore (in progress).2A bilingual grammar of Punjabi-Hindi
spoken in Delhi by Dr.Rajesh Sachdeva (Forthcoming) ed M.V.Sreedhar.
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