Kathmandu: Minister for Communications and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung emphasized the need for the Gurung community to initiate a campaign at home to preserve the Gurung language and pass it to the younger generations. Speaking at a programme organized by the Nepal Academy to launch a Gurung language magazine named ‘Tamu Kaye’ today, Minister Gurung expressed his concern over the gradual disappearance of the Gurung language and cultures due to rapid migration.
According to National News Agency Nepal, Minister Gurung called on the Gurung community to take special initiatives to preserve its language and pass it down to younger generations, besides preserving and promoting other unique cultural heritages of this community. He stressed that language preservation begins within families and communities and warned that failing to pass languages and cultures to younger generations could lead to the extinction of these cultural heritages.
He also commended the Nepal Academy’s effort to publish the magazine in the Gurung language for the first time. Minister Gurung reminded the audience that the federal democratic republican system was introduced to ensure equity and inclusivity and lamented that the Gurung community had not fully utilized opportunities like reservation and inclusive policies.
Other speakers, such as Resham Gurung, Vice-Chairperson of the National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities, and Nepal Academy Chancellor Bhupal Rai, highlighted efforts to document indigenous languages and cultures and called for better access to civil services for indigenous people. The magazine’s editor, Anita Gurung, discussed the challenges in writing the Gurung language, although it is still spoken in villages.
The Academy has so far published magazines in four different indigenous languages, it was shared.