BOOK REVIEWS | 215

Book Reviews
Selma K. Sonntag and Mark Turin, eds. 2019. The Politics of Language
Contact in the Himalaya. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.

A diverse range of state and sub-state language policies interacting withvarious community and market forces mean that the Himalayan regionis fertile land for language contact. However, there are few academic
publications that tackle the complex language politics of the region. The
Politics of Language Contact in the Himalaya, edited by Selma K. Sonntag
and Mark Turin, is a book on the interdisciplinary topic of language
politics—mainly in the sense of “politics of language” and also in the senseof “language of politics”—of some selected parts of the region. Politics oflanguage is the study of policy issues related to language in the fields oflanguage policy planning (LPP) and political science. Language of politics
refers to the use of words and structures of language to frame political (inthis context, linguistic) issues, studied in critical discourse analysis, corpus
linguistics, as well as political science. The book contains five articles basedon field studies and secondary sources on each language discussed, as wellas an introduction and a conclusion chapter. The chapters (some under singleauthorship and others under multiple authorship) have been written by eightscholars from varied scholarly backgrounds including political science,
anthropology, linguistics and geography.
The articles in this book present an analysis of language politics wheredifferent languages, different varieties and/or modes of languages meet.
Language contact leads to language shift and ultimately to language loss.
During the process, various factors interact and politics come to the forefront
in the form of language policies, language movements, formalization andstandardization processes, language choices, establishment of language
hierarchy and hegemony, spatial mobility of users of the language, influencesfrom modernity, etc. The articles present case studies on five Himalayan
languages—Kaike and Tharu from Nepal, rTa’u and Chone from the Tibetan
cultural region of China, and Ahom from Assam, India. The articles present
detailed historical and contextual backgrounds and look into the cases
Studies in Nepali History and Society 26(1): 215–228; June 2021
© Mandala Book Point216 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 26(1), 2021

following certain theoretical concepts. Thus, the editors of the volume claimthat these articles are “historically grounded and theoretically informed”(p. xi). The articles explore the dynamics of contact between the languages
at various levels of hierarchy which is built upon bases such as: a) numberof speakers—majority and minority languages; b) support from the state—
supported by central/provincial/local or all government or not supported byany of them; c) socio-cultural power—with more or less or no social/culturalpower; d) domains of use—administration, education, media, home, ritual
performance and written or oral domains; e) resources available—on various
genres and forms; f) speakers’ attitude—how the speakers of the language
think about their mother tongue in comparison to other languages; etc.
In the first chapter, Tunzhi (Sonam Lhundrop), Hiroyuki Suzuki andGerald Roche explore vertical language contact through the theoreticalconcept of “recognition,” mainly collective recognition, of rTa’u speaking
Horpa in their article “Language Contact and the Politics of Recognition
amongst Tibetans in China: The rTa’u-speaking ‘Horpa’ of Khams.” Theauthors present the case of rTa’u language spoken by Horpa people within theKhams cultural region of Tibet which comes under dKar mdzes prefecture inSichuan province of China. They conclude that the language is misrecognizedbecause of two reasons: (a) it is difficult to link the polysemous term “Horpa”
to a certain group of people residing in Tibet today because it referred todifferent groups of people at different points in history; and (b) it is supposed
to be a dialect of Tibetan though there is a weak voice for the distinct identityof the language.
The article explores the meanings of “Horpa” in different contexts—in
historical and contemporary literature, in different spaces, in different periodsof history, in different communities—as the misrecognition is supported byacademics through interpreting the term Horpa as a Tibetan subgroup ofpeople. It also explores the misrecognition that the authors argue has been
supported by two recent language movements—one, an informal pure father
tongue movement that has spread through social media, literary creations
and word of mouth that supports the use of pure standard Tibetan; and two,neologisms, a grassroots literacy movement run by monasteries for thepreservation of Buddhist culture and tradition.
In the second chapter titled “What Happened to the Ahom Language?
The politics of language contact in Assam,” Selma K. Sonntag presents areconstruction of the Ahom polity based on historical written documents.

BOOK REVIEWS | 217

The article explores the language contact situation in pre-colonial Assam,discussing how the Ahom people entered present Assam as warriors andestablished their kingdom which became the power center of the mandalastates around it. It details how the language of the state—a Tai Kadailanguage, Ahom—was replaced by an Indo-Aryan language, Assamese.
This article is a window into a language contact situation in the pre-colonialera, a period when no single process of language shifts existed. The way
in which Ahom royalties shifted to the people’s language, Assamese, is an
uncommon process in the language contact studies of language shift. The
author’s argument is that the Western concept of the identity of a nation
through the geographically based unit of people and their language cannot
be applied to places where political forms of “mandala states” and inherent
multilingualism are in practice.
In the third chapter titled “Transforming Language to Script: Constructing
Linguistic Authority through Language Contact in Schools in Nepal,” Uma
Pradhan presents the case of the Tharu community’s effort to enhance thesociolinguistic status of Dangaura Tharu spoken in Kapilvastu district. She
describes the case of written language contact in which Tharu speakers
judge their own language in relation to another language, Nepali. Theirjudgement is based on authenticity, correction, acceptability and legitimacy.
The article argues that the written form of Tharu substantially deviates fromspoken Tharu and comes closer to the written form of Nepali in search ofauthenticity, correctness, acceptability and legitimacy during the process oftransforming a spoken language into a written language.
In the fourth chapter titled “The Significance of Place in Ethnolinguistic
Vitality: Spatial Variations across the Kaike-speaking Diaspora of Nepal,”
Maya Daurio studies the Kaike speaking community’s language vitality
within the language contact situation in three places: Tarang, the native place
to many Kaike-speakers, Dunai, the district headquarter, and Kathmandu.
The author finds that Kaikes in Tarang have power and thus they use theirlanguage even with Nepali speaking people that they come into contact
with. They do not fear language loss. Kaikes in Kathmandu belong to twogroups: born/brought up in Tarang and migrated to Kathmandu later, andborn/brought up in Kathmandu. Both groups have a strong sense of identity
through the Kaike language and fear of language loss. The first group still
has access to the ethnolinguistic sites at the mainland as described in cultural
texts but the second group does not have access to those sites. Kaikes in218 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 26(1), 2021

Dunai are in between. The article shows that the place of residence and thegeneration one belongs to play a crucial role in one’s sense of power andidentity.
Bendi Tso and Mark Turin explore the language contact situation of Chone
language spoken by the people living around Luchu river in Gansu provinceof China through the theoretical concept of hegemony achieved throughthe process of coercion and consent in the fifth chapter titled “Speaking
Chone, Speaking ‘Shallow’: Dual Linguistic Hegemonies in China’sTibetan Frontier.” The central theme of the article is the dual hegemony ofChinese and Tibetan over Chone, which the authors argue is supported bycoercive government policies on literacy and education implemented at thestate level for Chinese and the sub-state level for Tibetan. Claiming that
the Chone community is consenting to these policy implementations, thearticle concludes that the situation is leading to language shift from Chone
to Tibetan and Chinese.
In addition to their major themes, almost all the authors in the volume
touch on sub-themes such as language hierarchy, language hegemony,standard vs. non-standard, written vs. spoken, language policies at state andsub-state levels, mobility of the speakers of the languages or the varieties,
identity and recognition, purity and authenticity, language vitality andlanguage loss, etc. Thus these concepts are the central themes of the book.
There is an introductory chapter by Sonntag and a conclusion chapter
by Turin that help readers understand the context of the articles. Though
the authors and editors have made a significant contribution to the study ofpolitics of language contact in the Himalayan region through this volume, thebook has some major weaknesses. The title misrepresents the scope of thebook as the volume contains only six cases chosen from the vast geographicalarea that “the Himalaya” implies. Turin addresses this point by noting theurgency of study of the language situation of stateless Rohingya from
Manmyar and Lotshampa from Bhutan as well as many other communities.
This limitation of the book could have been reflected by adding a sub-title
that accurately described the region it is focused on.
Most of the articles agree that the philosophy of monolingual nationbuilding which was developed in the West and followed by the ruling eliteof the East is a challenge for multilingual communities in the Himalaya.
However, multiple linguistic identities of a person which is a crucial
phenomenon in multilingual communities—for example a person can

BOOK REVIEWS | 219

be a member of a Tharu, Awadhi, Nepali, Hindi and English language
communities at the same time with various degrees of affinity—is notdiscussed in this book. This phenomenon exists in the Himalaya as a positiveside of language politics.
In the book’s conclusion, Turin cites articles 6, 7a and 7b (merged in asingle paragraph) from the constitution of Nepal 2015 which are related to
the languages of Nepal. He criticizes this provision as giving Nepali special
status as an official language. However, he ignores the provision of article 7b
where there is a provision of an additional official language at the provinciallevel. He suggests that the “three language formula” practiced in India may be
a solution. The provision of article 7b (which Turin has ignored) is a copy ofIndia’s three language policy. The formula is not in favor of minority among
the minority languages as it supports only the majority among the minority
languages, i.e., the languages spoken by majority in the respective provinces.
Dahal and Subba (1986: 248) have already warned that this Indian practice
has the potential to shift the tension from center to the province (or such alarger territory, as at the time of their writing there was no provincial levelstructure in Nepal). Dahal and Subba argue that the three language formula
would not benefit the minority among minority languages if implemented
in Nepal, stating that this solution is “selective token recognition.”
Turin spends four pages on Nepal in his nine-page long conclusion
chapter. However, he does not cite a single Nepali scholar. Same applies tothe article by Pradhan. She excludes even the M.A. thesis of the chief editorof the textbooks and the textbooks themselves from the list of references
though she mentions those works in the main text of her article. This leaves
a big question for the readers: are works by Western scholars the only ones
that are useful? How is quality research possible without going throughworks by Nepali scholars? If works written in other languages may not be
accessible, how about those available in English? How can the core materialsof the research be not listed as references? This may be taken as a simple
mistake but it is a serious ethical question in academia.
Though the cases picked in this book are very few as the Himalaya is vastand diverse, the varying perspectives taken to look into the cases in thesearticles are likely to attract scholars working in anthropology, sociology,geography, linguistics, political science, law, policy studies, and manyother disciplines. Moreover, the concepts, methodologies and findings fromthese articles will be useful in the studies of similar contexts in the other220 | STUDIES IN NEPALI HISTORY AND SOCIETY 26(1), 2021

parts of the region. In Nepal, it can be an important resource in studying
pre-unification era language contact situations, triple hegemony following
the implementation of the constitutional provision of official language at
the province level, transformations of many spoken languages into writtenlanguages, and internal and external mobility of the speakers of variouslanguages.

Reference
Dahal, Ballav Mani and Subhadra Subba. 1986. Language Policies andIndigenous Languages of Nepal. In Language Planning: Proceedings ofan Institute. E. Annamalai, Björn H. Jernudd and Joan Rubin, eds., pp.
238–251. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.
Bhim Narayan Regmi
Tribhuvan University

Uma Pradhan. 2020. Simultaneous Identities: Language, Education andthe Nepali Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simultaneous Identities: Language, Education and the Nepali Nation is aninterdisciplinary study of ethnolinguistic negotiation in the context of Nepali
nationhood. To understand the complexity of the task at hand and to explore
the intricate connections between language, identity and education, Pradhan
examines “everyday language practices and discourses around language”
at two schools—JSB in Kathmandu and JKHSS in Kapilvastu—that use
mother tongue (p. 2). As part of her research, Pradhan visited these schools
between 2013 and 2017, conducted unstructured interviews and observed
daily routines inside and outside the classrooms.
The book is divided into seven chapters, in addition to an eloquent
introduction and an illuminating conclusion. The reading experience isenriched by Pradhan’s meticulous references to theories related not only tothe broader topics of linguistics, pedagogy and social identity but also tothe specific ways these ideas have overlapped and influenced Nepal’s recent
history of nation-building. To tease apart these influences, Pradhan relies onreports from the Ministry of Education as well as census data to establish
how the Nepali state mainstreamed Nepali language—and often suppressed