Bringing Preliterate Languages of Nepal into Written Tradition: Major Issues, Challenges and Strategies

This study examines some critical issues and challenges of transitioning the preliterate and unwritten mother tongues in Nepal into formal written traditions and suggests some practical strategies for addressing those issues and challenges. Guided by a transformative worldview, this paper employs qualitative research design for data collection, data analysis and discussion of major issues, challenges and strategies for bringing preliterate languages into written traditions. Analyzing both primary and secondary data, the paper reveals that a significant majority of languages are facing varying levels of endangerment due to the absence of a formal and inclusive multilingual policy. More importantly, only a few languages possess established written traditions; and the languages lacking written status have recently been recommended for official provincial use. Currently, a significant number of these languages rely on the Devanagari script; however, speech communities often experience tension between adopting widely used scripts and the desire for historically and linguistically distinct writing systems that accurately reflect their unique cultural genealogies. Furthermore, these communities are facing a tension to maintain a balance between preserving their native linguistic heritage and meeting the irresistible pressure to achieve proficiency in Nepali and English for academic and global communication. Ultimately, this paper suggests the government framing and implementing an inclusive multilingual policy focusing on localized orthography development, culturally responsive pedagogy against global communication demands and active collaboration between the government and the indigenous speech communities for effectively bringing unwritten languages into written tradition.