Speakers
Description
This paper explores the social dynamics of language maintenance and shift within the private sphere, focusing specifically on the endangered language of Mauritian Bhojpuri. Family Language Policy (FLP) has established the family as playing a crucial role in the transmission of multilingual practices, more so in contexts of language endangerment and language shift where, as Noori (2009: 13) argues “the language must be returned to the children and the home.” However, the field has also been criticised for its Western-centric reliance on the nuclear family model (Lomeu Gomes & Lanza, 2022). Drawing on the above perspectives, this ongoing study adopts an approach to FLP rooted in multigenerational Mauritian families to investigate how they negotiate ideologies, manage practices, and influence the linguistic trajectory of future generations.
Data from successive censuses indicate a gradual decline in the number of speakers using Mauritian Bhojpuri in the home domain, falling from 19.1% in 1990 to 5.1% in 2022 (Central Statistical Office, 1990; Statistics Mauritius, 2022). Despite Mauritian Bhojpuri folk songs being inscribed as Intangible Cultural Heritage (UNESCO) and a small number of local publications focusing on the traditions and customs of the Bhojpuri-speaking community (cf. Boodhoo, 1999), minimal attention has been paid to the language itself and documentation remains limited.
This project addresses the above-mentioned gap by shifting the methodological focus toward ethnographic observations and naturalistic conversations of family units, complemented by semi-structured interviews. We argue that to truly understand family linguistic practices in endangered language contexts, research must look beyond the nuclear unit to focus on both parents and grandparents, whose role as custodians is pivotal in the transmission of heritage languages (Said, 2024). In our pilot study of two multigenerational Mauritian families, we focus on the close connection between positive language ideology and successful transmission of the Bhojpuri language to the next generation. We pay specific attention to how participants consistently frame Bhojpuri as a “dharohar [legacy]”, and how this informs their choice to invest in the intergenerational transmission of the language.
In addition, we observe the maintenance of culture-specific practices, notably the use of kinship terms instead of or together with personal names when addressing elders, reflecting broader norms of respect and family hierarchy. Among the grandparents’ generation, this practice often involves combining the husband’s or eldest child’s name with a kinship term, as in the use of “Nirmal bhauji [Nirmal sister-in-law]”, where an older relative is addressed using the name of her first-born child. We also note the complex "multilingual bricolage" of daily life (Eckert, 2019), with our informants fluidly drawing upon linguistic resources in Creole, Bhojpuri, English and French to differing degrees and for varying reasons.
With Bhojpuri confined mainly to the home domain, the responsibility for the successful transmission of the language and its associated culturally-specific practices falls to family. While declining speaker numbers paint a bleak picture about the long-term survival of Bhojpuri, we argue that positive language ideology, particularly in multigenerational families, can still contribute to its maintenance by promoting its use across different generations.