ENDANGERMENT OF PALULA: CULTURAL CRINGE OR/AND LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM

Received: 19.09.2021; Revised: 28.10.2021, Accepted: 26.11.2021, Published Online: 20.12.2021

Dr Fauzia Janjua

Associate Professor, Department of English, International Islamic University, Islamabad

 

Dr Sadia Irshad

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Air University, Islamabad

Abstract

Cultural cringe, a prevalent attitude in any multilingual society of the world, is one of the substantial reasons for the death of the linguistic heritage. Sociolinguists view language’s plight in close relation with the political and utilitarian impact of linguistic imperialism too. Banking upon the mentioned factors, we studied the endangered language, Palula, spoken in Chitral of Pakistan. This paper presents the findings of the study on Palula from a project that studied three endangered languages of northern Pakistan:  Domaaki of Hunza, Palula of Chitral and Yadgha of Chitral. The previous research (Janjua, 2005) found Palula endangered and gradually getting replaced by Khowar. We found in this survey and interview based study that Palula speakers prefer Khowar in their everyday communication and majority of the Palula speakers can speak Khowar too. Moreover, natives of Palula prefer Urdu over Palula and Khowar in workplace, education and in almost all social interaction. Those who interact with tourists as guides, drivers or in food and shelter services like hotels have acquired Urdu and English words and phrases. Their multilingualism is pushing Palula to extinction as people prefer Khowar for not only out-group interaction but also in-group and the new preference is Urdu.

Keywords: Cultural Cringe, Palula, endangered language, glottophagy