Preserving Yidgha Language as a Critical Cultural Heritage: Ethnographic Study of Pamir Region of Rural Chitral

Abstract

Languages literally do not die naturally themselves. People abandon their mother tongues because they are coerced to, often politically, culturally, and economically. Every two weeks, an indigenous language dies. Yidgha was once a dominant language but has now come down to a point where it‘s critically endangered, the number of speakers has dwindled, and the language has withdrawn from many villages where once it was the dominant monolingual language. In practical terms, unless something is done within the next few years, the language Yidgha will be gone forever, much to our regret. This research presents a sociolinguistics assessment of Yidgha preservation in the Pamir region of rural Chitral. The purpose of this paper is to find out key linguistic, socio-cultural, economic, and political factors that influence the Yidgha endangerment and shift in the Pamir region of Rural Chitral. Moreover, it also presents and discusses the approaches which support actions in approbation of endangered language continuation, revitalization and maintenance. The linguistic ability has been narrowed and homogenized by worldly affairs, and the rapid loss of native language has been seen as a widespread global phenomena and an issue that requires immediate and sustained action. By encouraging community-led initiatives, integrating them into education and leveraging technology, such imperative methods ensure sustainability and continue to thrive for coming generations. This research embarked on an in-depth comparative analysis of the language to unveil the linguistic relationship and explored the cultural significance within the respective communities. The research would also have employed multi-faceted approaches, including data collection from the native speakers, fieldwork within the community setting and collaboration with linguistic experts. Linguistics statistics, including morphology, syntactic, phonology, and semantic features, are meticulously examined. Consequently, each effort should be made to guarantee the protection of marginal languages, with the utmost intention to promote linguistic, human rights and cultural diversity. Over the course of this study, the researcher collected local folklore, culture-relevant stories, idioms, and poems embedded in meaningful Yidgha language, later compiled to develop a narrative pedagogy with rich vocabulary and contextual setting to distribute community schools and Jammat-Khanas in an effort to revitalize Yidgha among the preadolescents. The preservation of language contributes to the preservation of the specific culture. A language survives if you have an option to learn it. The revitalization and reclamation of Yidgha is the foremost concern of this research and the dying language must be brought to life again. With their language once again intact and revitalized, the peoples of the community will reassure recognition as a sovereign culture.