Many Tongues, One People

Many Tongues, One People PDF Author: Arjun Guneratne
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725300
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The Tharu of lowland Nepal are a group of culturally and linguistically diverse people who, only a few generations ago, would not have acknowledged each other as belonging to the same ethnic group. Today the Tharu are actively redefining themselves as a single ethnic group in Nepal's multiethnic polity. In Many Tongues, One People, Arjun Guneratne argues that shared cultural symbols—including religion, language, and common myths of descent—are not a necessary condition for the existence of a shared sense of peoplehood. The many diverse and distinct socio-cultural groups sharing the name "Tharu" have been brought together, Guneratne asserts, by a common relationship to the state and a shared experience of dispossession and exploitation that transcends their cultural differences. Tharu identity, the author shows, has developed in opposition to the activities of a modernizing, centralizing state and through interaction with other ethnic groups that have immigrated to the Tarai region where the Tharu live.This book"s claims have wide implications for the study of ethnic identity and are applicable far beyond Nepal. The emergence of the category of Native American, for example, may be considered an analogous case because that ethnic identity, like the Tharu, subsumes people of different cultural origin, and has been defined both through the state and against it.

Many Tongues, One People

Many Tongues, One People PDF Author: Arjun Guneratne
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725300
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
The Tharu of lowland Nepal are a group of culturally and linguistically diverse people who, only a few generations ago, would not have acknowledged each other as belonging to the same ethnic group. Today the Tharu are actively redefining themselves as a single ethnic group in Nepal's multiethnic polity. In Many Tongues, One People, Arjun Guneratne argues that shared cultural symbols—including religion, language, and common myths of descent—are not a necessary condition for the existence of a shared sense of peoplehood. The many diverse and distinct socio-cultural groups sharing the name "Tharu" have been brought together, Guneratne asserts, by a common relationship to the state and a shared experience of dispossession and exploitation that transcends their cultural differences. Tharu identity, the author shows, has developed in opposition to the activities of a modernizing, centralizing state and through interaction with other ethnic groups that have immigrated to the Tarai region where the Tharu live.This book"s claims have wide implications for the study of ethnic identity and are applicable far beyond Nepal. The emergence of the category of Native American, for example, may be considered an analogous case because that ethnic identity, like the Tharu, subsumes people of different cultural origin, and has been defined both through the state and against it.

Babel No More

Babel No More PDF Author: Michael Erard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451628277
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A “fascinating” (The Economist) dive into the world of linguistics that is “part travelogue, part science lesson, part intellectual investigation…an entertaining, informative survey of some of the most fascinating polyglots of our time” (The New York Times Book Review). In Babel No More, Michael Erard, “a monolingual with benefits,” sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like the nineteenth-century Italian cardinal Joseph Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages, as well as those of living language-superlearners such as Alexander Arguelles, a modern-day polyglot who knows dozens of languages and shows Erard the tricks of the trade to give him a dark glimpse into the life of obsessive language acquisition. With his ambitious examination of what language is, where it lives in the brain, and the cultural implications of polyglots’ pursuits, Erard explores the upper limits of our ability to learn and use languages and illuminates the intellectual potential in everyone. How do some people escape the curse of Babel—and what might the gods have demanded of them in return?

Truth in Many Tongues

Truth in Many Tongues PDF Author: Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271086688
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Truth in Many Tongues examines how the Spanish monarchy managed an empire of unprecedented linguistic diversity. Considering policies and strategies exerted within the Iberian Peninsula and the New World during the sixteenth century, this book challenges the assumption that the pervasiveness of the Spanish language resulted from deliberate linguistic colonization. Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler investigates the subtle and surprising ways that Spanish monarchs and churchmen thought about language. Drawing from inquisition reports and letters; royal and ecclesiastical correspondence; records of church assemblies, councils, and synods; and printed books in a variety of genres and languages, he shows that Church and Crown officials had no single, unified policy either for Castilian or for other languages. They restricted Arabic in some contexts but not in others. They advocated using Amerindian languages, though not in all cases. And they thought about language in ways that modern categories cannot explain: they were neither liberal nor conservative, neither tolerant nor intolerant. In fact, Wasserman-Soler argues, they did not think predominantly in terms of accommodation or assimilation, categories that are common in contemporary scholarship on religious missions. Rather, their actions reveal a highly practical mentality, as they considered each context carefully before deciding what would bring more souls into the Catholic Church. Based upon original sources from more than thirty libraries and archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, England, and Mexico, Truth in Many Tongues will fascinate students and scholars who specialize in early modern Spain, colonial Latin America, Christian-Muslim relations, and early modern Catholicism.

Babel

Babel PDF Author: Gaston Dorren
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: 0802146724
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
“Babel is an endlessly interesting book, and you don’t have to have any linguistic training to enjoy it . . . it’s just so much fun to read.” —NPR English is the world language, except that 80 percent of the world doesn’t speak it. Linguist Gaston Dorren calculates that to speak fluently with half of the world’s people in their mother tongues, you’d need to know no fewer than twenty languages. In Babel, he sets out to explore these top twenty world languages, which range from the familiar (French, Spanish) to the surprising (Malay, Javanese, Bengali). Whisking readers along on a delightful journey, he traces how these languages rose to greatness while others fell away, and shows how speakers today handle the foibles of their mother tongues. Whether showcasing tongue-tying phonetics, elegant but complicated writing scripts, or mind-bending quirks of grammar, Babel vividly illustrates that mother tongues are like nations: each has its own customs and beliefs that seem as self-evident to those born into it as they are surprising to outsiders. Babel reveals why modern Turks can’t read books that are a mere 75 years old, what it means in practice for Russian and English to be relatives, and how Japanese developed separate “dialects” for men and women. Dorren also shares his experiences studying Vietnamese in Hanoi, debunks ten myths about Chinese characters, and discovers the region where Swahili became the lingua franca. Witty and utterly fascinating, Babel will change how you look at and listen to the world. “Word nerds of every strain will enjoy this wildly entertaining linguistic study.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Paradise Lost?

Paradise Lost? PDF Author: Ali Riaz
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739158651
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Paradise Lost examines the state-society relationships in Nepal and demonstrates that the nature of the state, disjuncture between the state and the society, and the rupture of the ideological hegemony of the ruling class of Nepal have created a situation where existing institutional frameworks are disintegrating and the state is rapidly unraveling. Dr. Ali Riaz and Dr. Subho Basu analyze the roles of ethnicity, identity, and deprivation, in engendering discontent and the rise of the Maoists as a formidable political force. Mindful of the geo-strategic importance of the country, this book contextualizes these domestic developments within the post-9/11 global world. Jointly authored by a political scientist and a historian this book brings together structural and historical perspectives. Written in an engaging language, Paradise Lost? will appeal to political scientists, historians, sociologists, and those interested in current affairs.

Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal

Anthropological Perspectives on Education in Nepal PDF Author: Karen Valentin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192884751
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This volume illuminates educational transformations and avenues of learning in the context of wider social and political changes in Nepal.

Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal

Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal PDF Author: Mahendra Lawoti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415780977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Ethnic and nationalist movements surged forward in Nepal after restoration of democracy in 1990. This book analyses the rise in ethnic mobilization, the dynamics and trajectories of these movements and their consequences for Nepal.

The Sunuwar of Nepal and their Sense of Communication

The Sunuwar of Nepal and their Sense of Communication PDF Author: Werner M. Egli
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3643801890
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 540

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Book Description
This detailed study on the Sunuwar people, one of the many indigenous peoples of Nepal, is based on more than twenty years of ethnographic research. The book starts with an account of the Sunuwar's indigenous notion of culture (mukdum) as expressed in social practice. With reference to specific social fields, a model of the Sunuwar person, mainly used to grasp deviations from the ideal way of life, is analyzed from the perspective of cultural psychology and the anthropology of the senses. The study concludes with an analysis of healing rituals, showing that their effect simultaneously results from the ancestral atmosphere produced by the shaman and a kind of domination-free discussion among the ritual participants mainly taking place in the pauses of the ritual. Thus, the shamanic ritual is interpreted as a kind of mediation. (Series: LIT Studies on Asia / Asien: Forschung und Wissenschaft - Vol. 6) [Subject: Asian Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Psychology, Religious Studies]

Statemaking and Territory in South Asia

Statemaking and Territory in South Asia PDF Author: Bernardo A. Michael
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 0857285327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
“Statemaking and Territory in South Asia: Lessons from the Anglo–Gorkha War (1814–1816)” seeks to understand how European colonization transformed the organization of territory in South Asia through an examination of the territorial disputes that underlay the Anglo–Gorkha War of 1814–1816 and subsequent efforts of the colonial state to reorder its territories. The volume argues that these disputes arose out of older tribute, taxation and property relationships that left their territories perpetually intermixed and with ill-defined boundaries. It also seeks to describe the long-drawn-out process of territorial reordering undertaken by the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that set the stage for the creation of a clearly defined geographical template for the modern state in South Asia.

Planning Families in Nepal

Planning Families in Nepal PDF Author: Jan Brunson
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813578647
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Based on almost a decade of research in the Kathmandu Valley, Planning Families in Nepal offers a compelling account of Hindu Nepali women as they face conflicting global and local ideals regarding family planning. Promoting a two-child norm, global family planning programs have disseminated the slogan, “A small family is a happy family,” throughout the global South. Jan Brunson examines how two generations of Hindu Nepali women negotiate this global message of a two-child family and a more local need to produce a son. Brunson explains that while women did not prefer sons to daughters, they recognized that in the dominant patrilocal family system, their daughters would eventually marry and be lost to other households. As a result, despite recent increases in educational and career opportunities for daughters, mothers still hoped for a son who would bring a daughter-in-law into the family and care for his aging parents. Mothers worried about whether their modern, rebellious sons would fulfill their filial duties, but ultimately those sons demonstrated an enduring commitment to living with their aging parents. In the context of rapid social change related to national politics as well as globalization—a constant influx of new music, clothes, gadgets, and even governments—the sons viewed the multigenerational family as a refuge. Throughout Planning Families in Nepal, Brunson raises important questions about the notion of “planning” when applied to family formation, arguing that reproduction is better understood as a set of local and global ideals that involve actors with desires and actions with constraints, wrought with delays, stalling, and improvisation.