LANGUAGE SPEAKING IN RKA GSAR VILLAGE

ཚེ་རིང་སྐྱིད། （རེབ་གོང་།）

MOUNGUOR(TU)VILLAHE IN RED GONG(TONGREN);COMMUNAL RITUALS AND ENERYDAY LIFE

In the recent past,most villagers were monolingual in a language they call Ma ni skad ci(D),meaning “our Language”.In this essay, I refer to this language by the name used by local Tibetans:Dor skad. This language is also spoken in the nearby villages of Gnyan thog,Sgo dmar,and Bod skor.

In 2013, most Rka gsar residents spoke both Dor skad and Tibetan,for example,my family members speak bothA mdo Tibetan and Dor skad. In the 1950s, nearly all villagers spoke only Dor skad. At that time, monks from the village could read and communicate in spoken Tibetan,and some local traders could understand and speak some Tibetan, but could not read or write.A few women who married into Tibetan households in other villages could also speak Tibetan.

In the 1970s,villagers began using Tibetan to make purchases in recently established township centers. My mother is a Tibetan from neighboring Ri stag Village, and she did not understand Dor skad when she married and moved into my father's home in Rka gsar Village. Therefore,my grandparents and father learned some Tibetan in order to better communicate with her. This is one reason that they now speak Tibetan well. However,they speak only a little Tibetan at home,and when they shop in nearby township centers. They speak Dor skad during their daily life in the community. My mother now speaks Dor skad fluently. I learned Tibetan from my mother and I could speak it well by the time I began primary school. I speak Dor skad to my grandparents,parents,and brothers,and speak Tibetan to my sisters-in-law, nieces, and nephews,because my sisters-in-law are all Tibetan and their children prefer to speak Tibetan rather than Dor skad. Otherwise, I speak Dor skad inside the village,outside the home.

Generally, Tibetan women who marry and move into a husband's home in Rka gsar speak Tbetan to their children. Conversely if a woman from Rka gsar marries in to Tibetan-speaking village, she typically speaks Dor skad to her children, who then frequently acquire only passive competence in the language, in that they understand but do not speak Dor skad. Often,this is because their Tibetan family members do not want them to learn Dor skad, as they worry it will negatively influence the children's ability to learn,read,and speak Tibetan, which they consider a practical and prestigious language. Therefore,if a Tibetan-speaking woman marries a Dor skad-speaking man, then she and her children speak Dor skad. If a Dor skad-speaking woman marries into a Tibetan-speaking village, she speaks Dor skad and her children speak Tibetan.

Adults, but not most elders,can now understand and speak Tibetan. There are several reasons for this. First,when Rka gsar villagers travel locally, most people speak Tibetan. Consequently,Tibetan is a local lingua franca, especially for commerce. Another significant factor leading Dor skad speakers to learn Tibetan is the official education system. Local schooling is done primarily in Tibetan. Even teachers who speak Dor skad as their first language use Tibetan in the classroom. Village children thus begin learning to read,write,speak,and understand Tibetan from the age of around seven. They also learn Tibetan from TV and other broadcast media.T here is no local media in Dor skad. Five Tibetan TV stations are available locally:the Qinghai,Huangnan,and Reb gong stations broadcast in A mdo Tibetan,whereas the Sichuan Tibetan station broadcasts in Khams dialect,and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR)station uses the Central Tibetan dialect. Most adult villagers prefer to watch the Qinghai Tibetan station because they do not understand the Tibetan spoken on the Sichuan and TAR stations.

Meanwhile, young people typically prefer to watch TV in Chinese, as they consider it more entertaining.Another factor promoting the use of Tibetan in Rka gsar is that its association with Tibetan Buddhism gives it prestige.

Rka gsar villagers typically speak Tibetan in a way that indicates they are not native speakers.

For example,verb tenses are often confused:Tibetan terms for'go'gro(present)and song(past)are often used incorrectly,as in"Khyod gang la song rgyu*Where will you went?*"Local Monguor also often speak Tibetan with an accent,for example,they pronounce both sa and tsha as sa,and often do not distinguish these two sounds when listening to native Tibetan speakers.Local Tibetans often ridicule Dor skad speakers'accents and grammatical errors.

Some local Han and Tibetans speak Dor skad,for example,in nearby Ri stag Village,which has around sixteen households.Administratively,Ri stag is considered part of Rka gsar and children attend Rka gsar Primary School and learn Dor skad from other children in the school.Tibetan children from Ri stag quickly learn to speak Dor skad to their classmates from Rka gsar,and speak Tibetan in their own home and village.However,their competency remains limited and typically does not improve into adulthood.Also,if a Han man marries and moves into Rka gsar Village,he generally learns to speak Dor skadwithin four or five years.Tibetan men who marry into the village sometimes learn Dor skad,but sometimes do not.The difference between Han and Tibetan men's language learning decisions is mostly due to the prestige associated with Tibetan in the local context.

Rka gsar residents use Dor skad to communicate with other villagers,and people from nearby villages where Dor skad is also spoken:Gnyan thog,Sgo dmar,and Bod skor.Though there are slight differences between the language spoken in these villages,villagers communicate easily.My personal perception is that the dialects cluster in two groups:one is spoken in Sgo dmar and Rka gsar,the other in Gnyan thog and Bod skor.

Presently,about fifty percent of villagers can understand Chinese.Students speak Modem Standard Chinese,which they learn in school,while other villagers speak the local Chinese dialect when they interact with Han and Hui.

Local oral traditions are largely performed in Tibetan.Folksongs,including lullabies,courtship songs,and so on,are all sung in Tibetan.There are no songs in Dor skad.Though folktales are told in Dor skad,the content is translated from Tibetan.There appear to be no folktales unique to the village. Wedding speeches are given in Tibetan and, though speeches given to summon fortune(g.yang bod)during the lunar New Year period are delivered in Dor skad, they also appear to be translated from Tibetan.Chanting and invocations to local mountain deities(bsang mchod,)are done in Tibetan.Villagers pepper their speech with elements of Tibetan oral tradition,for example,gtam dpe proverbs'.There are no riddles or other oral games in Dor skad,though some students learn Tibetan riddles and other oral games in primary school.

Young people increasingly use Tibetan and Chinese loanwords when they speak Dor skad,for example,dkar yol(Tibetan for 'bowl')and lanhua(Chinese for 'washbasin')