Reflect on the history of your target language. To what language family does it belong? What sounds, words, and structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures? How do these considerations enhance your understanding of the target language and culture in terms of their associated historical origin, development, and contemporary realization? and pragmatic questions of usage? How do languages change over time? How do linguists track, predict, and extrapolate these changes?
Although my target language is ASL, I will be answering this discussion post from the perspective of my mother tongue Nepali, as the history of ASL itself is not linear or clear. Nepali language is a member of the Pahari sub-group of the Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-Iranian division of the Indo-European languages. Written forms of Nepali were first recognized in the 12th century A.D. Nepali is the mother tongue of two-thirds of the Nepalese population and is also widely spoken in Bhutan, parts of India, Burma, and Assam. There are three major regional dialect groups in Nepali—western, eastern, and central. There is also a distinct dialect for the members of the royal family and other affluent groups of society. Archeological investigations suggest that Nepali language arose from ancient “Khasha” people who ruled most of what is now modern-day Nepal. Phonological patterns also suggest that Nepali is related to the languages of Northwestern India such as Sindhi, Lahnda, and Punjabi with a lot of Nepali words being reconstructions of proto-Dardic, Pahari, Sindhi, Lahnda, and Punjabi words respectively. Some of these influences are apparent in words such as village: (graam) गाउँ from the Sanskrit word (grām) ग्राम or fire: (aago) आगो from the Sanskrit word (āgun) अग्नि. During the Muslim conquest, the Rajput and Brahman groups fled to the Himalayas where they were further split into smaller principalities. This is when Nepali became a bridge language for the region’s ethnically diverse groups. Modern day Nepali is a product of multiple iterations and influences on the languages over the course of history. I was also surprised to know that unlike Hindi, Urdu, or Bengali, Nepali has lesser Sanskrit influence and more Pahari which I believe explains why a Nepali speaker can understand significant chunks of Hindi, Urdu, and to a lesser extent Bengali however, a Bangladeshi, Indian, or Pakistani speaker cannot boast the same proficiency in Nepali. Languages change overtime as technology, culture, and demographics evolve. With the onset of globalization and rapid technological improvements as to how we communicate such as developments in social media, language apps like Duolingo, and online community forums to name a few, there is a greater intermingling of different languages and culture. While this does have many benefits in terms of helping to make the world a “smaller” place, it can also be detrimental to the preservation of unique cultures and languages. For example, today’s youth prefer to speak in and are better in English as compared to their own mother tongue of Nepali.
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