Communication Minister calls on Gurung community to preserve their mother language

Kathmandu, Aug 20: 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 Gurung language magazine named 'Tamu Kaye' today, Minister Gurung expressed his concern over gradual disappearing of the Gurung language and cultures with rapid migration.     

He, thus, 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.     

Stating that language preservation truly begins within the families and communities, the Minister warned that if we do not underscore handing over the languages and cultures to younger generation, these cultural heritages passed over to us by our ancestor would extinct.     

He also praised the effort of the Academy to publish the magazine in Gurung language for the first time.     

Reminding that the federal democratic republican system was introduced to ensure equity and inclusivity, he grieved 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 among others highlighted the efforts to document indigenous languages and culture and called for better access to civil cervices for indigenous people.     

The magazine's editor Anita Gurung discussed about the challenges in writing the Guruing language although it is still spoken in villages,.     

The Academy have so far published magazines in four different indigenous leagues, it was shared.(RSS)