Linguistic Anthropology Commons^™

Person, Place, And Pronoun: An Examination Of The Idiosyncratic Pronoun Use And Language Ideologies In Dabhung Thanti, Nepal, Martha Schwarz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Language, the content and form of what people choose to say, has the ability to both describe facts about the world and change aspects of the world. Thus, what people utter is a critical instrument for measuring current social situations as well as social change. The honorific hierarchy of Nepali’s pronouns provides one particularly interesting tool for such measurement. This research examines the use and ideologies about second person pronouns in the village of Dabhung Thanti, Nepal in relation to their prescribed uses and ideologies in Kathmandu. Ultimately, this paper identifies the presence of two styles of Nepali spoken in …