Bringing Back Nepal’s Minority Languages
Indigenous Newa girls in Kathmandu, Nepal (Reuters/Gopal Chitrakar)
Linguist Mark Turin returns to Nepal, where he learned and documented the Thangmi language. Spoken by 30,000 people, Thangmi has many unique expressions but it is imperiled. The Nepalese government is trying to protect minority languages by introducing them into schools, but it may be too late: the children of many Thangmi speakers are choosing to speak more mainstream languages.
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