Last of Nepal's Kusunda speakers mourns dying language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Last of Nepal's Kusunda speakers mourns dying language

By Deepak Adhikari (AFP) – 4 hours ago

KATHMANDU — As Gyani Maiya Sen nears the end of her life she worries that
her final words may be the last ever spoken in her mysterious mother tongue.

The 76-year-old, part of a vanishing tribe in remote western Nepal, is the
only surviving speaker of Kusunda, a language of unknown origins and unique
sentence structures that has long baffled experts.

"There's no one else with whom I can speak in my language. I used to speak
with my mother but since her death in 1985, I am left alone," she told AFP
by telephone.

Yet the frail, gnarled tribeswoman is the focus of renewed interest among
linguists across the world who are trying to ensure her language survives
in some form after she has gone.

Access full article below:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gFBmr9THN1RO4sxLUvH_Uxt0kNvw?docId=CNG.8e2278b1b59c3f4139dd3762f3d8ff89.6b1
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20121111/fc2f887f/attachment.htm>