Exploring The Relationship Between Language and Culture in Dhimal

The Dhimal are an ethnic minority group of some 20 000 people in the southeastern part of Nepal and adjacent parts of India. Their language is linguistically related to the family of Sino-Tibetan languages. They are one of the 59 recognized indigenous groups who lived on what is today Nepali soil long before the Indo-Aryans arrived with their Hindu culture and caste system constituting the ethnic majority group in Nepal today. In Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology, very little is known about the ethnic group of the Dhimals. The author descends from the Dhimal community himself and has presented a dissertation with a wealth of valuable linguistic and ethnographic data. This massive work is likely to become a standard work on the Dhimal community not only in linguistic terms but also with respect to Cultural Anthropology.

Autorentext

Dr. Schmidt is a sinologist, linguist and theologian with extensive experience in foreign language teaching. He has a number of widely sold textbooks on Chinese language and related subjects to his credit.

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Kapitel 4: DHIMAL CULTURE:
Outline:
This chapter deals with the cultural ideas and ideologies related to culture. Section 4.0 deals with tangible and intangible culture. In section 4.1 to 4.1.4, the Dhimal rituals, such as birth, bhendra, marriage, death have been explained. Section 4.2 deals with socialization and festivals. Section 4.3 deals the Bansaghaka culture, 4.4. the Majhi Warang System, 4.5 the khan practice and 4.6 the religious beliefs.
4.1.: Tangible and Intangible Culture:
As the Dhimal is one of the 59 recognized indigenous ethnic groups by the government of Nepal, it has ist own language and culture, beliefs and religion, custom, ritual, norms and values, symbols and myths, ideologies and artefacts, indigenous ways of living which distinct them unique than other not only in Nepal but also in the world. Edward B.Tylor was the first who specified that culture is learned and acquired, as opposed to being a biological trait.
This was revolutionary against the backdrop of colonialism, racism, and social evolution, the dominant ideologies of the 19th century. Tylor (1871) provides an all-inclusive definition which is one of his most widely recognition contribution to anthropology: "culture, or civilization, taken in ist broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society". As him, culture includes mental capabilities (thoughts), behavior (actions); culture is learned, shared, social (exists within groups) and an integrated whole culture is dialectical. It assumes that people are homogeneous and share all of these practices and values, and seems to be bound to an institution or something official, does not distinguish habits and capabilities as biological traits.
As UNESCO, there are two types of cultural heritages: tangible and intangible. As per in "Lokbarta tatha Lokjiwan (2015)", there are two types of Dhimal cultures: tangible and intangible. In world heritage convention (1972), part 45, cultural and natural heritage are defined in Article 1 and 2 as below: In article 1, "Cultural heritage" as monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art and science; groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and of man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological points of view. In article 2, "Natural heritage" as natural features consisting of physical and biological formations or groups of such formations, which are of outstanding universal value from the aesthetic or scientific point of view; geographical and physiographical formations and precisely delineated areas which constitute the habitat of threatened species of animals and plants of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation; and natural sites or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty. As ICH convention (2003), article 2, "Intangible Cultural Heritage" means the practices, representatives, expressions, knowledge, skills- as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith - that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. This ICH, transmitted from generation to generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their e