After several years of wondering I finally found my way to the village of Jhiri, Madhya Pradesh. Jhiri is one of the better known 'Sanskrit villages'. It was during the deadly heatwave last April/May that I found myself in the village with no running water or electricity sleeping on the oven-like roof and bathing amongst the buffaloes. In this village I recorded some footage and made a short film about non-śāstric spoken Sanskrit and code-switching. Here is the link. I intend to make more films about Jhiri. Stay tuned.
I was inspired by this rather ambiguous media report that says
‘almost all the people always converse in Sanskrit’. However, I can tell you that out of ~600 villagers I found only about 15-20 people who could hold a conversation in Sanskrit in various domains. Many more were able to recite a memorised Sanskrit sentence / salutation but were unable to hold a conversation without prompting and/or translation. Regardless, this community of predominantly Sondhiya Rajputs has intentions of transitioning to Sanskrit. However, there are very interesting reasons as to why this project is essentially failing/has failed.
The current superordinate language is Umawadi Malvi. Hindi is also spoken. There are no first language speakers of Sanskrit in this village. We can consider that Sanskrit in Jhiri is in a moribund state as there has been no teaching of Sanskrit by the Samskrita Bharati teachers who were sent to the village 10 years ago from the Bhopal office but they have not taught in the past 5 years, even though they continue to live in the village.
The future of this language nest is in doubt. The community's elders are slightly bemused at why the media has misrepresented them as a homogenous group of fluent speakers. They are the first to admit this is not yet the case. Still there was one particular individual who emphatically repeated on several occasions that 'asmākaṃ grāme sarve janāḥ saṃskṛtaṃ vadanti'. This attitude in itself is fascinating.
Of the many things that fascinate me about spoken Sanskrit, one thing I am interested in concerns how Sanskrit is spoken from the perspective of 2nd language acquisition. I am especially interested in how it mixes with the substrate (1st/2nd) languages to create what we can consider a creoloid (like Hinglish or Singlish). From a sociological perspective the linguistic and cultural hegemony of Sanskrit fascinates me. The purifying puristic prism within which Sanskrit is imprisoned affects the attitudes of aspirational Sanskrit speakers. It is also the reason for its aesthetic charm. The people in Jhiri regularly told me 'asmākaṃ saṃskṛtam atiśuddhaṃ bhaviṣyati'. The main reason given for this attitude was that without speaking Sanskrit in a 'pure' form the metaphysical benefits and accumulation of puṇya would remain unobtainable. They also felt that to be a good deśabhaktaḥ one ought to speak the devabhāṣā, which incidentally Samskrita Bharati package as the janabhāṣā, while asserting its final incarnation will be the next global lingua-franca or viśvabhāṣā.
It is worthwhile mentioning that sociolinguists don't really think in terms of 'grammatical errors' or 'purity' but instead see instances of imperfect learning as signposts to understand the acquisition process itself. However,I can understand and appreciate the position of individuals more focused on their soteriological and patriotic aims.
While the 'pure' yet simplified register (dialect?) of Sanskrit promoted by Samskrita Bharati is embedded in a quest for national unity and pride, moral rectitude and a cultural renaissance with global aspirations for India to become the viśvaguru; how, why and where Sanskrit is spoken ought to be given more attention. Which is my intention.
###Shameless self promotion###
Having completed my PhD I'm now in the process of trying to find a post-doctoral position and funding so I can return to India and conduct extended multi-sited comparative ethnographic field work on non-shastric communities of Sanskrit speakers across North India. I have a list of 16 potential field sites. Please contact me off list if you have any interest in helping me with this fundamental part of the project. Here is a link to a draft research proposal. I would be grateful for any constructive feedback on how to make this project better.
Thank you ☺