February 20

05

Volume 2

5,

Num

ber 1M

ounta

inR

esearch

and

Develo

pm

entISSN 0276-4741

Core funding for MRD is provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

ResearchDevelopment

Mountainand

Febr

uary

20

05

Volu

me

25

,N

umbe

r 1

DevelopmentCultural Diversity as an Asset

ResearchPerspectives on conservation in Mexico

Himalayan plant trade: typology of economic agents

Communities and enclosures in Ethiopia

Visitor preferences in park management, Spain

Ecological security evaluation in Mongolia

Vegetation succession on Tyndall Glacier, Kenya

Mountain Research and Development (MRD) is published by IMS and UNU, who are the joint copyright holders.

IIMMSS International Mountain Society

The following organizations generously support subscriptions for institutions in developing and transition countries:

Mountain Research and Development

Editorial PolicyMountain Research and Development (MRD)is devoted to mountains and their sur-rounding lowlands—ecoregions of partic-ular global importance. In its researchsection, MRD publishes peer-reviewed sci-entific papers that report on generic,strategic, and applied research relevant tosustainable mountain development, andthat present concepts and new method-ologies employing disciplinary, interdisci-plinary or transdisciplinary approaches.The development section contains reportson experiences with sustainable mountaindevelopment in programs, projects, andcommunity actions. Additional sectionsare devoted to institutions concerned withmountains and to communication relatedto mountain initiatives. MRD seeks topresent the best in recent research on theworld’s mountain systems. Editorial assis-tance is available to authors of scholarly,high-quality papers written in English whoare not completely fluent in the language.

Editorial correspondence, questions, andmanuscripts submitted for publicationshould be addressed to:

Mountain Research and Development (MRD)Centre for Development and EnvironmentInstitute of Geography, University of BerneSteigerhubelstrasse 33008 Berne, SwitzerlandE-mail: mrd-journal@giub.unibe.ch

Guidelines for ContributorsThe general guidelines apply to all articlesand reports submitted to MRD. These arefollowed by specific guidelines forresearch papers and development papers.

General guidelines: Authors are expected tosubmit articles in clear, concise English.

It will be assumed that papers submit-ted are original and have not been published elsewhere, including on theInternet. However, papers or abstracts ofpapers originally published in a languageother than English may be considered.

One typescript copy of the manuscriptand of all illustrations should be submitted.Text and tables and, if possible, illustrationsin .jpg (photos) or .cdr and .ai (other fig-ures) format can be sent either as E-mailattachments or on disks. Format for textfiles must be Microsoft Word for Windowsor .rtf. Please do not use footnotes in themanuscript. A separate list of captions,tables, and figures must be provided in elec-tronic format. Tables and figures must bereferred to in the text in numerical order.

Manuscripts should be printed withdouble spacing and wide margins on oneside only of standard-sized paper. Allpages should be numbered. The title of

the paper, authors’ names and affiliations,and complete addresses, including E-mailaddresses, should appear on the firstpage. Where there is more than oneauthor, correspondence and one set of.pdf proofs will be sent to the first-namedauthor unless otherwise requested.

If .jpg (photos) or .cdr and .ai (vector-ized) files of figures cannot be sent, pleasesupply duplicates of hard copies suitable forreproduction. Glossy prints of photographsshould be unmounted; maps, line drawings,and diagrams should be completely readyfor reproduction, bearing in mind the needfor moderate reduction to one columnwidth or full page. MRD reserves the rightto charge authors for extra editorial workon figures and references.

Figures should all carry the figurenumber and the author’s name on theback. Captions should not be addeddirectly to the illustration. No letter orsymbol should be smaller than 1 mm inheight after reduction.

The metric system should be used forall measurements, and numerical unitsshould conform as closely as possible tothe International System of Units (SI).

Place names should be spelled in theform officially used in the country underdiscussion; where this differs from thecommonly known name or the English-language name, the other name should bewritten in parentheses. Authors must sup-ply latitude and longitude coordinates forthe regions referred to in a paper.

All contributors to MRD must acceptfull responsibility for the contents andopinions expressed in their writings.Contributors must also ensure that writtenpermission is granted to publish or repro-duce photographs, illustrations, tables,quotations, or other material in publica-tions already copyrighted that can bereproduced only with written permissionfrom the copyright owner. Credits must beprovided for all photographs, etc.Contributors will not be asked to sign copy-right transfer agreements. Page chargesmay be applied under certain conditions.

Specific guidelines for research papers: Themanuscript (including title, abstract, key-words, references, and authors’ addresses)must not exceed 25,000 characters, includ-ing spaces. Papers should not contain morethan 5 figures and few tables. One copyshould contain all figures, tables, and cap-tions, but no personal data. A second copymust have personal data, but figures, tablesand captions must be delivered in separatefiles. Include tables only if they summarizeimportant and innovative research results.The editors reserve the right to publishlarge tables on the web site.

References should be listed at the endof the paper without numbering, alpha-betically by author, giving the completeunabbreviated source citation. Format,style, and manner of referencing shouldfollow the “MRD Style Sheet” available onthe web site (www.mrd-journal.org).Additional work in the MRD EditorialOffice will be charged.

In the text, references should be citedin chronological order with author’s nameand year of publication in parentheses;where there are two or more papers bythe same author in one year, distinguish-ing letters (a, b, c...) should be added tothe year. All references should be careful-ly cross-checked; it is the author’s respon-sibility to ensure that references are cor-rect. Only references cited in the textshould be listed as such.

Research papers are normally publishedentirely in black and white. Authors mustexpect to pay a charge for color photos ormaps. The editors reserve the right to makefinal judgments about the use of color.

One set of proofs in .pdf format willbe sent to the author; page proofs will notbe sent. Authors must accept responsibili-ty for checking the accuracy of all numeri-cal material and references as well as non-English quotations and names.

Specific guidelines for development papers:The development section aims to create andraise awareness among policy-makers proj-ect planners, decision-makers, and peoplein educational and research institutions.Contributors are encouraged to report onaspects of local and regional mountaindevelopment of interest to the general read-er, in accordance with themes planned forfuture issues as listed on the web site(www.mrd-journal.org). Articles should illus-trate how applied research can help solvedevelopment problems in mountain regions(using specific examples). Contributingauthors thus include a wide range of schol-ars, development personnel, policy-makers,and others who have knowledge and experi-ence of development in mountain regions.

Contributions should be written in anengaging, nontechnical style. Direct quo-tations from local people are particularlyvaluable to illustrate local issues, experi-ence, etc. Good quality color photos are amust. Simple, clear colored maps, graphs,and tables are also welcome.

Manuscripts may range from 8,000 to15,000 characters, including spaces.Footnotes must be avoided. The editorsreserve the right to do language editingand make other changes. Extensive alter-ations will be discussed with authors.

Papers that do not conform to theseguidelines will be returned to authors.

Cover photograph: Students from Sidama-Leku, a village inthe Ethiopian highlands, explaining their cultural treasures ata “Village of Cultural Biodiversity” event in Wolisso, July 2002.This event took place as part of an initiative to involveEthiopian students in a program aiming to raise awareness ofthe country’s cultural diversity and reconnect young peoplewith elders in their communities to acknowledge the value oftraditional practices and skills. Mountain communities world-wide are increasingly aware of the value of the cultural diver-sity they represent, and of the need to preserve traditionalknowledge, values, skills, and cultural products, while alsoadapting to the challenges of globalization. (Photo bySolomon Hailemariam)

Volume 25 Number 1 Feb 2005

Development

Research

MountainPlatform

MountainNotes

MountainMedia

Mountain Researchand Development

4 – 9 Mark Turin

Language Endangerment and Linguistic Rights in the Himalayas: A Case Study from Nepal 10 – 14 Million Belay, Sue Edwards, and Fassil Gebeyehu

Culture as an Expression of Ecological Diversity: Integrating Awareness of Cultural Heritage inEthiopian Schools

15 – 19 William Semple

Traditional Architecture in Tibet: Linking Issues of Environmental and Cultural Sustainability

20 – 24 Andreas Neef, Peter Elstner, Chapika Sangkapitux, Liane Chamsai, Anne Bollen, and Jirawan

Kitchaicharoen

Diversity of Water Management Systems: Examples from Hmong and ThaiCommunities in Mae Sa Watershed, Northern Thailand

25 – 29 Tu Jian-jun, Chen Yong, Ye Yan-qiong, and Chen Guo-jie

The Upper Min River Basin: A Key Ethno-cultural Corridor in China

30 – 36 Peter Gerritsen and Freerk Wiersum

Farmer and Conventional Perspectives on Conservation in Western Mexico37 – 43 Carsten Smith Olsen and Nirmal Bhattarai

A Typology of Economic Agents in the Himalayan Plant Trade 44 – 50 Tefera Mengistu, Demel Teketay, Håkan Hultén, and Yonas Yemshaw

The Role of Communities in Closed Area Management in Ethiopia 51 – 59 Estela I. Farías Torbidoni, H. Ricardo Grau, and Andreu Camps

Trail Preferences and Visitor Characteristics in Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park, Spain

60 – 67 Kang Mu-yi, Liu Shuo, Huang Xiao-xia, Dong Shi-kui, and Shi Pei-jun

Evaluation of an Ecological Security Model in Zhalute Banner, Inner Mongolia 68 – 75 Kazuharu Mizuno

Glacial Fluctuation and Vegetation Succession on Tyndall Glacier, Mt Kenya

76 – 79 WWF International’s Regional Approach to Conserving High-Altitude Wetlands and Lakes in theHimalaya

80 – 81 MRI Newsletter 4: Climate Science in the American West

88 – 93 Review of web sites, CD-ROMs and books

3 Editorial

82 – 84 Policy Options to Support Transhumance and Biodiversity in Euro-pean Mountains: A Report on the TRANSHUMOUNT StakeholderWorkshop, Landquart/Zurich, Switzerland, 26–28 May 2004

84 – 85 Integrated Development of Epirus: Fourth NTUA and NTUAMetsovion Interdisciplinary Research CenterInterdisciplinary–Interuniversity Conference, 23–26 September2004, Metsovo, Greece

85 – 87 Mountain Studies Institute “State of the San Juans” Conference, Silverton, Colorado,24–26 September 2004

87 Mountains at the World Conservation Congress, Bangkok, November 2004

MountainViews

94 – 96 Reflections of an Indigenous Student on the Realities of His Peopleinside back cover Guidelines for Contributors

Mountain Research and Development Vol 25 No 1 Feb 2005

PublishersMountain Research and Development(ISSN 0276-4741) is published by theUnited Nations University (UNU) 53–70,Jingumae 5-chome, Sh¥buya-ku, Tokyo150–8 925, Japan, and the InternationalMountain Society (IMS), c/o Centre forDevelopment and Environment, Instituteof Geography, University of Berne, Steiger-hubelstrasse 3, 3008 Berne, Switzerland.

Institutional Members of the International Mountain Society (IMS)SDC, Swiss Agency for Development and

Cooperation, Berne UNU, The United Nations University,

Tokyo ICIMOD, International Centre for

Integrated Mountain Development,Kathmandu

FAO, Food and Agriculture Organizationof the United Nations, Rome

CIP–CONDESAN, Consortium for theSustainable Development of the AndeanEcoregion, Lima

CDE, Centre for Development andEnvironment, Berne

MRI, Mountain Research InitiativeWWF International

MRD collaborates with Mountain Forum(MF) and other institutions to further thecause of mountains on the internationaldevelopment and research agendas.

Editorial BoardHans Hurni, Editor-in-ChiefTheodore Wachs, Managing EditorJack D. Ives, Founding EditorMartin Price, Editor, MountainMedia

and Regional Editor, EuropeEklabya Sharma, Regional Editor, AsiaFausto Sarmiento, Regional Editor,

Latin AmericaSalomé Misana, Regional Editor, AfricaAlton Byers, Regional Editor,

North America

International Editorial Advisory BoardBina Agarwal (India), Yuri P. Badenkov (Russia), Roger G. Barry (USA), GerardoBudowski (Costa Rica), J. Gabriel Campbell(Nepal), Jose M. Garcia-Ruiz (Spain), Gregory B. Greenwood (Switzerland), Biksham Gujja (Switzerland), Lawrence S.Hamilton (USA), Thomas Hofer (Italy),Libor Jansky (Japan), Kebede Tato (Zambia),Thomas Kohler (Switzerland), HermannKreutzmann (Germany), Ulrich Lutz(Switzerland), Mesfin Wolde-Mariam(Ethiopia), Bruno Messerli (Switzerland),

Elias Mujica (Peru), Marcus Nüsser (Ger-many), D. Jane Pratt (USA), Robert E.Rhoades (USA), Hans Schreier (Canada),Christoph Stadel (Austria), Michael Stocking(UK), Teiji Watanabe (Japan).

Editorial StaffSusanne Wymann von Dach, Assistant EditorAnne Zimmermann, Assistant EditorMonika Iseli-Felder, Editorial AssistantMarlène Thibault, Editorial Assistant

Publication PolicyMountain Research and Development (MRD)publishes articles by authors from manydisciplines associated with mountain envi-ronments, resource development, andhuman welfare. MRD is published quarter-ly. Articles must be previously unpublished(including Internet).

Manuscripts submitted for publication inthe research section are peer-reviewed by atleast two referees. MRD is indexed in theScience Citation Index, Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology and EnvironmentalSciences, Geo Abstracts, C.A.B. Internation-al Series Checklist, AGRICOLA databases,Meteorological and GeoastrophysicalAbstracts (MGA), CABS (Current Aware-ness in Biological Sciences), and others.

Please address correspondence to:

MRD Editorial OfficeCentre for Development and EnvironmentInstitute of Geography, University of BerneSteigerhubelstrasse 33008 Berne, SwitzerlandE-mail: mrd-journal@giub.unibe.chInternet: www.mrd-journal.org

Please send material for “MountainMedia” to:

Martin PriceDirector, Centre for Mountain StudiesPerth College, Univ. of the Highlands and IslandsCrieff Road, Perth PH1 2NX, UK.Fax +44(0)1738-631 364E-mail: martin.price@uhi.ac.uk

Subscriptions and Back IssuesAnnual subscription rates, which includeassociate membership in IMS, are as follows:

USA and CanadaInstitutions and libraries US$ 150Individuals US$ 70Students US$ 40

All others (includes international airlift)Institutions and libraries US$ 170Individuals US$ 90Students US$ 60Students are asked to provide a copy oftheir official student registration.

Subsidized subscriptions are available toinstitutions and libraries in developingcountries. Please apply to MRD at theMRD Editorial Office address above.Donors are especially invited to subsidizeinstitutional subscriptions in developingcountries. Please contact the MRD Editori-al Office for details. Current donorsinclude the Swiss Agency for Developmentand Cooperation (SDC), the UnitedNations University (UNU), and the Inter-national Center for Integrated MountainDevelopment (ICIMOD).

Subscription inquiries relating to new sub-scriptions, payment, claims, and addresschanges should be addressed to:

Mountain Research and DevelopmentBusiness Office810 East 10th StreetP.O. Box 1897Lawrence, Kansas 66044-8897/USATel: +1 785 843-1235Fax: +1 785 843-1274 E-mail: mrd@allenpress.com

MRD is available online through theBioOne program. See www.bioone.org

Back issues: Some abstracts of issues previ-ous to Volume 20 are available in electron-ic form in Mountain Forum’s OnlineLibrary: www.mtnforum.org/resources/library/mrd_metadata.htm Recent abstracts (as of Volume 15) areavailable on MRD’s web site: www.mrd-journal.org

For single issue sales of Volume 20 andlater, please contact the business officeaddress above, or E-mail:orders@allenpress.com

Copyright RulesAuthorization to photocopy is granted bythe International Mountain Society andUnited Nations University for librariesand other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC)Transactional Reporting Service, provid-ed that the base fee of $1 per copy is paiddirectly to CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive,Danvers, MA 01923/ USA. For permissionto photocopy materials for classroom use,call CCC at +1 978 750-8400, or fax themat +1 978 750-4470.

© Copyright (2005) International Moun-tain Society and United Nations UniversityISSN 0276-4741

Printed in USA

Editorial

3

Dear Readers,

The last Human Development Report (HDR), entitled Cultural Liberty inToday’s Diverse World (http://hdr.undp.org/2004/), asserts that “states mustactively devise multicultural policies to prevent discrimination on culturalgrounds—religious, ethnic and linguistic,” and that “expansion of cultural free-doms, not suppression, is the only sustainable option to promote stability, democracyand human development within and across societies.” This is a strong statement, butthe HDR offers sufficient examples and analyses showing that diversity is not athreat to national unity, nor the cause of strife or “backwardness,” and certainly notan obstacle to development—on the contrary.

Without falling into natural and/or cultural determinism, the articles in the Devel-opment section of this issue of MRD demonstrate how important diversity is inmountainous environments, often arguing that there is a direct link between culturaldiversity and biodiversity—a feature of the biophysical world that has arguablybecome one of the major pillars of sustainable development. Thus, linguist MarkTurin discusses the relevance of language diversity for equitable development in ahighly diverse mountain state, Nepal. Tourism specialist Million Belay, botanist SueEdwards, and marketing specialist Fassil Gebeyehu present a national program toenable young students in Ethiopia to understand and bank on their rich culturalheritage. Architect William Semple also shows the value of preserving traditions andhow this can benefit the environment in an area that has experienced a muffling ofcultural diversity and overuse of timber resources. Agronomist Andreas Neef and co-authors show how diversity of irrigation systems can be the result of communal cul-tures adapting very fluidly to pressures of all kinds on the micro-scale. Finally, geog-rapher Tu Jian-jun and co-authors present a brief overview of the multiplicity andflexibility of cultures in the “corridor” of the upper Min River basin, thus debunkingthe myth of backward highland cultural isolation. In MountainViews, MRD pres-ents an essay on cultural identity written from an indigenous perspective.

In the Research section, several authors also address the value of cultural multiplici-ty: Peter Gerritsen and Freerk Wiersum discuss the importance of Mexican farmers’perspectives on conservation for the preservation of biodiversity (vs the traditionalconservationist perspective). Carsten Smith Olsen and Nirmal Bhattarai offer atypology as a means to systematize the debate on economic and social aspects of animportant opportunity in the Himalaya—plant trade. Tefera Mengistu and co-authors present the results of a participatory study of the perceived costs and benefitsof area enclosure for environmental protection. And Estela Farías Torbidoni and co-authors discuss ways of integrating the diversity of visitor preferences to optimizepark management. The final two papers in this issue tackle other aspects of sustain-able development: Kang Mu-yi and co-authors present a model to evaluate “ecologi-cal security” in a farming and pastoral area that has suffered from overuse in Mon-golia, while Kazuharu Mizuno analyzes the influence of glacial fluctuation on vege-tation succession on Mt Kenya, whose glaciers face the threat of disappearance in thecoming decades.

Though this issue of MRD can hardly claim to represent even a fraction of the cul-tural diversity that exists in the world’s mountains, we hope our readers will enjoy itsplurality.

Hans Hurni, Editor-in-Chief

Anne Zimmermann, Assistant Editor

The Hindu Kush–Himalayan region:a language “mega center”

The Hindu Kush–Himalayan region(HKH), which extends for 3500 km fromAfghanistan in the west to Myanmar in theeast, sustains over 150 million people andis home to great linguistic diversity andmany of Asia’s most endangered lan-guages. Moving across the region,Afghanistan boasts 45 living languages,Bangladesh 38, Bhutan 24, China 202,

India 387, Myanmar 107, Nepal 121, andPakistan 69. The HKH is known as one ofthe 10 biodiversity “mega centers” of theworld. But this stretch of mountainousAsia is also home to one-sixth of allhuman languages, so the area should bethought of as a linguistic “mega center” aswell.

Preserving linguistic diversity

Why should development workers andscholars be concerned with the extinctionof endangered languages? After all, 96%of the world’s population speak 4% of theworld’s languages, and over 1500 lan-guages have fewer than 1000 speakers.Some monolingual English speakerswould have us believe that linguistic diver-sity is incompatible with the juggernaut ofinevitable progress that requires interop-erability and smooth international com-munications across national boundaries.This is simply not the case, particularly inareas such as the Himalaya, where manypeople are functionally tri- or quadri-lin-gual, speaking an ethnic or tribal mothertongue inside the home, a different lan-guage in the local market town, convers-ing in the national language at school orin dealings with the administration, andoften using an international language (ortwo) in dealings with the outside world.The monolingualism of much of the FirstWorld is as provincial as it is historicallyanomalous.

While the origin of the extraordinarydiversity of human languages is inter-twined with the evolution of cognitionand culture, the spread of modern lan-guage families is a direct result of histori-

Language Endangerment andLinguistic Rights in the HimalayasA Case Study from Nepal

Mark Turin

4

Mountain Research and Development Vol 25 No 1 Feb 2005: 4–9

According to even the most conservativeestimates, at least half of the world’s 6500languages are expected to become extinct inthe next century. While the documentation ofendangered languages has traditionally beenthe domain of academic linguists andanthropologists, international awareness ofthis impending linguistic catastrophe isgrowing, and development organizations arebecoming involved in the struggle to pre-serve spoken forms. The death of a lan-guage marks the loss of yet another piece

of cultural uniqueness from the mosaic ofour diverse planet, and is therefore atragedy for the heritage of all humanity. Lan-guage death is often compared to speciesextinction, and the same metaphors ofpreservation and diversity can be invoked tocanvas support for biodiversity and languagepreservation programs. The present articleaddresses language endangerment in theHimalayas, with a focus on Nepal, and pres-ents the options and challenges for linguis-tic development in this mountainous region.

FIGURE 1 This map shows the overlapping distribution of the ecoregionsand languages spoken in the HKH. The black dots indicate languages andred dots indicate endangered languages. Note that areas of highbiodiversity (plants, animal species, and their habitats) coincide with ahigh number of distinct ethnic groups speaking different languages. Mostof the regions’ languages are spoken in areas of rich biological andcultural diversity. (Source: close-up of map entitled The World’s BioculturalDiversity: People, Languages and Ecosystems, produced by UNESCO,Terralingua, and the World Wide Fund for Nature [WWF]; available at:http://www.terralingua.org/poster.pdf)

Development

5

cal population movements and migrationsacross continents and the colonization ofnew geographical and environmentalzones. Human languages are not evenlydistributed across the world: there are rel-atively few in Europe compared to anabundance in the Pacific. The Himalayanregion is home to great linguistic diversity,in part because the mountains have in thepast been a natural barrier to mobility andcommunication (Figure 1).

The need to prevent language deathThere are 4 solid reasons for supporting,preserving, and documenting endangeredlanguages. First, each and every languageis a celebration of the rich cultural diversi-ty of our planet; second, each language isan expression of a unique ethnic, social,regional or cultural identity and worldview; third, language is the repository ofthe history and beliefs of a people; andfinally, every language encodes a particu-lar subset of fragile human knowledgeabout agriculture, botany, medicine, andecology.

Mother tongues are comprised of farmore than grammar and words. For exam-ple, Thangmi (known in Nepali as Thami),a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by anethnic community of around 30,000 peo-ple in eastern Nepal, is a mine of uniqueindigenous terms for local flora and faunathat have medical and ritual value. Muchof this local knowledge is falling into dis-use as fluency in Nepali, the national lan-guage, increases. When children cease tospeak their mother tongue, the oral trans-mission of specific ethnobotanical andmedical knowledge also comes to an end.

Language and ecology: an intimaterelationshipLinguistic diversity is an integral compo-nent in ecological stability and the fabricof cultural life, and we should rememberthat the evolution of a species or a lan-guage takes much longer than its extinc-tion. Languages, like species, adapt toand reflect their environment. TheThangmi language, spoken in a highlymountainous region where topography ischallenging, has 4 semantically distinctverbs that are translated into English as“to come:”

• yusa, “to come from above (down themountain),”

• wangsa, “to come from below (or upthe mountain),”

• kyelsa, “to come from level or around anatural obstacle,” and

• rasa, “to come from unspecified orunknown direction.”

Language thus mirrors ecology, and ecolo-gy reflects the linguistic and culturalforms of a people inhabiting a specificniche. The languages and cultures of mil-lions of indigenous peoples in theHimalaya are in part endangered becausetheir traditional habitats and ecologicalniches are now under threat.

Recent scholarship on languageendangerment points to an intriguing cor-relation: language diversity appears to beinversely related to latitude, and areas richin languages also tend to be rich in ecolo-gy and species. Both biodiversity and lin-guistic diversity are concentrated betweenthe tropics and in inaccessible environ-ments, such as the Himalaya, while diversi-ty of all forms tails off in deserts. Aroundthe world then, there is a high level of co-occurrence of flora, fauna, and languages,and humid tropical climates as well asforested areas are especially favorable tobiological and linguistic diversification.

Language and education in Nepal:the mother tongue debateDuring Panchayat rule in Nepal, whichended in 1990, the state promoted thedoctrine of “one nation, one culture, onelanguage,” and the national educationpolicy of that era was largely intolerant ofindigenous and minority languages. Since1990 though, Nepal has come a long wayin acknowledging diversity: Article 4 ofPart 1 of the Constitution of the Kingdomcontains important legislative guaranteeswhich state that Nepal is a “multi-ethnic,multi-lingual” nation. Article 18 evenstates that “each community shall have theright to operate schools up to the primarylevel in its own mother tongue for impart-ing education to its children,” eventhough this provision remains essentiallyinactive at present. This constitutionalguarantee is very much in line with con-

“It concerns me that ourancestral language is onthe wane and will likelynot be spoken by thenext generation, but itupsets me far more tothink that as our speechis dying, no one willthink to translate intoNepali the knowledgethat our forefathers col-lected in order that ourgrandchildren mayknow what we haveknown.” (RanaBahadur Thangmi, alocal shaman and vil-lage leader, in an inter-view with the author)

Mark Turin

Mountain Research and Development Vol 25 No 1 Feb 2005

6

temporary research and international bestpractices (see Box).

The National Foundation for theDevelopment of Indigenous Nationalities(NFDIN) in Nepal views the existence of aspecific and unique language as a primarybasis for the identification of an ethnicityor adibasi janajati. The Foundation isimplementing a range of policies to sup-port endangered and indigenous lan-guages. Dictionary projects are particular-ly popular, since the products have bothpractical benefits and symbolic capital: lin-guistic minorities can canvas central andlocal government more effectively formother tongue education when a lexicalcorpus has been prepared and the process

of standardizing an unwritten language isalready underway (Figure 3). There is anincreasing realization that successful lan-guage maintenance efforts ideally com-bine literacy and education with animprovement in the economic and politi-cal standing of the minority languagecommunity.

Language and gender: the central role ofwomenAcross the HKH, disaggregated censusdata demonstrate that mountain womenretain fluency in their ethnic mothertongue longer than men. While men fromdisadvantaged mountain areas commonlyengage in trade with other communitiesor seek wage labor in local centers andneighboring states, thereby learningregional lingua francas and foreign lan-guages, women are still in many cases thenatural resource managers of a communi-ty. Whether collecting firewood and forestproducts, fetching water, working thefields or raising children, women inremote Himalayan villages have cause touse their ethnic language in daily life.

In terms of educational and linguisticplanning, Nepal is now taking steps toensure that rural primary schools arestaffed by more local women teachers whocan explain words and concepts using themother tongue of the students as a medi-um to help them transition to functionalbilingualism. Part of this movementrequires a change of mindset: dispensingwith the prevailing belief that Nepal’sindigenous unwritten languages are back-ward, primitive and somehow shameful,and moving to embrace ethnic languagesas symbols of diversity and indigenousknowledge. NFDIN is leading by examplethrough training 200 local women to workin their own communities.

Language and conflict: Maoists, politicsand SanskritThe deployment of “language” in publicarenas, whether ethnic or national, canquickly become very politicized. The clam-oring of linguistic minorities in Nepal foreducation in their mother tongue is asmuch about basic linguistic rights as it is acall for national recognition and partici-pation in the governance of the modern

Education in local languages: a developmental priority

As John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education in UNESCO, writes:

Years of research have shown that children who begin their education in theirmother tongue make a better start, and continue to perform better, than those forwhom school starts with a new language. The same applies to adults seeking tobecome literate.

This is particularly important because about 476 million of the world’s illiterate peo-ple speak minority languages and live in countries where children are for the mostpart not taught in their mother tongue (Figure 2).

FIGURE 2 Educating Babel: the mother tongue dilemma. While studies show that students learnbetter through their mother tongue, the language has to be taught in school for the benefits to bereaped, which is rarely the case with minority languages. (Source: Education Today, The Newsletterof UNESCO’s Education Sector, Number 6, July–September 2003, pages 4–5, copyright Erik Staal;reproduced with kind permission of UNESCO)

Development

7

nation state. Ethnic and linguistic differ-ences are also quick to be invoked intimes of conflict.

In Nepal, the violent conflict betweenMaoist rebels and government forces,which has claimed over 10,000 lives since1996, has tapped into the pre-existing con-cerns of ethnic and linguistic minorities.Some analysts even argue that the margin-alization of Nepal’s disadvantaged andethnic groups is one of the root causes ofthe Maoist insurgency. The Maoists havebeen very adept at co-opting indigenouspeoples and their outstanding grievancesinto their overall political struggle for aconstituent assembly and radical commu-nist reforms. In their 40-point demands,the Maoist leadership address the basicrights of indigenous peoples and theirmother tongues, arguing for local autono-my for communities where ethnic peoplesare dominant and the provision of educa-tion in the mother tongue through sec-ondary school.

The Maoist ideologues and linguisticactivists are united against another com-mon cause: the teaching of Sanskrit inNepali schools. Sanskrit, the liturgical andclassical language of India, to which mod-ern spoken languages such as Hindi andNepali are related, is intimately associated

with issues such as caste, Hinduism, andhighly structured learning. It is also a lan-guage that has no mother tongue “speak-ers” in Nepal, and is perceived by almostall indigenous people as the linguisticembodiment of a hegemonic heritage thatthey do not share.

Sustainable futures: promotion ofdiversity at all levelsThe preservation of a language in itsfullest sense entails the maintenance ofthe speech community. Reversing lan-guage death therefore requires the preser-vation of the culture and habitat in whicha language is spoken. While many of thelanguages spoken as mother tongues inthe Himalaya today will likely only survive,if at all, as second languages in the com-ing years, that is in itself no small feat.Supporting minority languages and halt-ing linguistic decline must become anintegral element in securing the sustain-able livelihoods of diverse mountain peo-ples. Integrated development programsthat focus on the vulnerability of margin-alized peoples in the HKH should intro-duce a component of support for the lan-guages and livelihoods that are presentlyunder threat.

FIGURE 3 Cause for hope:after years of beingforgotten by scholars andlanguage activists, theendangered Thangmilanguage now boasts 3dictionaries, all of whichwere published in 2004.(Photo by Mark Turin)

Mark Turin

Mountain Research and Development Vol 25 No 1 Feb 2005

8

Signs of hope: projects underway inNepal and the Himalaya

To date, there are no active projects onlanguages and livelihoods in the HKHthat interweave biological and culturaldiversity with the aim of building sustain-able futures for disadvantaged mountaincommunities. The Culture, Equity, Gen-der and Governance Program (CEGG) atICIMOD, which promotes the equalityand empowerment of vulnerable moun-tain peoples for enhanced social securityand reduced conflict, is planning to intro-duce a layer of project support for linguis-tic and cultural diversity to areas previous-ly focused on biological and ecologicaldiversity. As one way of reaching out tothe grassroots and addressing the multilin-gual base of its constituents, ICIMOD pro-duced a brochure on the InternationalYear of Mountains (IYM) in 4 languages ofthe HKH: Chinese, English, Hindi and

Nepali. ICIMOD also has a welcome signin 8 regional languages (Figure 4).

The British Department for Interna-tional Development (DFID), through itsEnabling State Program (ESP), hasrecently provided a 3-year grant to theNepal Federation of Indigenous National-ities (NEFIN) to support the empower-ment of Nepal’s marginalized ethnicgroups. Entitled the Janajati (indigenousethnic group) Empowerment Program(JEP), the project has the explicit pur-pose of increasing the participation ofNepal’s disadvantaged ethnic peoples insocioeconomic and political processes atcentral and district levels. Focusing onlocal capacity building and strengtheningcivil society networks, JEP proposes topreserve and further develop Nepal’s eth-nic languages and help advocate for lin-guistic rights.

Language revitalization campaignsaim to increase the prestige, wealth and

“If during the next cen-tury we lose more thanhalf of our languages,we also seriously under-mine our chances forlife on Earth. From thisperspective, fosteringthe health and vigor ofecosystems is one andthe same goal as foster-ing the health and vigorof human societies,their cultures, and theirlanguages. We need anintegrated bioculturalapproach to the planet’senvironmental crisis.”(UNESCO 2003: 44)

FIGURE 4 “Welcome to ICIMOD” in 8 different languages. The sign at the entrance to the main offices gives an indication of the multilingualism andlinguistic diversity of the 140 staff. (Photo by Mark Turin)

Development

9

power of speakers of endangered mothertongues, to give the language a strongpresence in the education system and toprovide the language with a written formto encourage literacy and improve accessto electronic technology. Linguistic diver-sity is, after all, the human store of histori-

cally acquired knowledge about how touse and maintain some of the world’smost vulnerable and biologically diverseenvironments (Figure 5). Bioculturaldevelopment projects need to involve andmobilize communities to build positivevalues for indigenous languages.

FIGURE 5 The result of a major effort to map biocultural diversity: an online map of the “Indigenous and traditional peoples in the global 200 ecoregions.”(Source: WWF and Terralingua 2000; map available at: http://www.terralingua.org/Images/WWFmap.JPG; reproduced with kind permission of Terralingua)

AUTHOR

Mark TurinVisiting Scientist, Culture, Equity, Gender and Gover-nance Program (CEGG), International Centre for Integrat-ed Mountain Development (ICIMOD), GPO Box 3226,Kathmandu, Nepal.mt272@cornell.edu

Mark Turin teaches linguistic anthropology and visualanthropology at Cambridge, and is a research associate atCornell University. He is also Co-Director of DigitalHimalaya, a pilot project to develop digital collection, stor-age, and distribution strategies for multimedia anthropo-logical information from the Himalayan region, which canbe found online at www.digitalhimalaya.com.

FURTHER READING

Crystal D. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press.Grimes BF. 2000. Ethnologue: Languages of the World.Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Nettle D, Romaine S. 2000. Vanishing Voices: The Extinc-tion of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-tural Organization]. 2003. Education Today: The Newslet-ter of UNESCO’s Education Sector 6 (July–September).Paris: UNESCO Publishing.UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-tural Organization], World Wide Fund for Nature, Terralin-gua. 2003. Sharing a World of Difference: The Earth’s Lin-guistic, Cultural and Biological Diversity. Paris: UNESCOPublishing.WWF [World Wide Fund for Nature], Terralingua. 2000.Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World andEcoregion Conservation: An Integrated Approach to Con-serving the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity.Gland, Switzerland: WWF and Terralingua. Available at:http://www.terralingua.org/EGinG200rep.pdf, with com-panion map at: http://www.terralingua.org/Images/WWFmap.JPGWurm SA. 2001. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Dan-ger of Disappearing. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.