Some photos of Kusunda people of Nepal

Some latest photos of the Kusunda people of Nepal

Gyanimaya Sen, Dhan Bahadur Kusunda and Kamala Khatri

Kusunda Brother from Shikta, Dang

Key Person of Kusunda Tribe 5 (Lila Bahadur Kusunda)

Lila Bahadur Kusunda

Date of birth: 1994 B.S.

Birth place: Balkot,  Arghakhachi

Now: Budhi Chaur, Pyuthan

Lila Bahadur Kusunda is another key informant for Kusunda research who was born in 1994 B.S.  He has been living since the settlement period in Tiram Ward 6. Budhi Chaur, of Pyuthan district. He has been living on Budhi Chaur since 2033 B.S.He has four sons and three daughters. He spent 28 years in the jungle with his father and uncle. He is well known about his culture and traditional cultural practices. He has been participating in different socio-political as well as cultural activities of his village.

He has been invited in the NFID national convention which was organized in Kathmandu. The convention organizers had also invited Lila Bahadur Kusunda and his middle son Setu Lal Kusunda. Lila Bahadur Kusunda had arrived Kathmandu with his particular traditional Kusunda weapons: bow and arrow. He has forgotten most of the Kusunda words as well as his mother tongue. Lila Bahadur Kusunda has married a non-Kusunda woman and has 18 members in his family. 

Lila Bahadur With his family member

He can sing different songs in the Kusunda language but he doesn't know the exact meaning of that song. Since he had inter-caste marriage and his children and grand-children are therefore also unknown about the Kusunda language. He has two settlements as well as a large amount of land in comparison to other Kusundas of Nepal.

Today, Lila Bahadur feels elated like never before as his family is likely to move into a newly-built brick house. And Lila Bahadur´s family is one of those in line for a brick house under the program. “I always thought that concrete houses were meant only for well-to-do people,” Lila Bahadur said. “But, in the near future, my children will also live in a fine house. They will no longer have to sleep on the cold and wet floor.” Lila Bahadur, who is now living in a thatched hut at Pyuthan has been managing two square meals a day for his family, working for daily wages. He has the skill to did hunting by using a bow and arrow.  

Key Person of Kusunda Tribe 4 (Prem Bahadur Shahi, Kusunda)

Prem Bahadur Shahi

Date of birth: 1990 B.S.

                                                      Birth place: Hapur, Rolpa                                                   

Father: Puna Ram Kusunda

Mother: Seti Malla

Now: Ambapur, Ghorai, Dang

Prem Bahadur Shahi is the oldest person among the Kusunda community and also known as Moti Lal Shahi. He has been living at Ambapur near Ghorai Municipality Dang. He has one son and five daughters. He lives on land owned by the teacher named Narayan Adhikari but later he bought it. He married with Magar women. He was born in the jungle near Hapur in Pyuthan and only came out of the jungle to live in a village at the age of fifteen. He knows most of the Kusunda culture as well as language. 

In 2004, three Kusundas, Gyani Maiya Sen, Prem Bahadur Shahi and Kamala Khatri (Singh), were brought to Kathmandu for the detailed study of Kusunda language by Tribhuvan University-Central Department of Linguistics. Although he is not a fluent speaker of the Kusunda language, he has a lot of knowledge about the traditional rituals, words of Kusunda language and other aspects of the Kusundas. Kamala Khatri and Gyani Maiya Sen are his relatives who are fluent speakers of Kusunda language. There are now known to be at least eight fluent speakers of the language, the youngest is Kamala Khatri who is in the thirties. However, the language is moribund, with no children learning it, as all Kusunda speakers have married outside their ethnicity. Among the Kusunda, Prem Bahadur Shahi is the leading figure on his community who can speak his mother tongue as well as knowledge of the traditional Kusunda culture. But due to old age, he forgot most of the Kusunda words and his relatives.

Prem Bahadur Shahi, Kusunda with his family members

He has the knowledge of hunting with bow and arrow. He worshipped his ancestors with their traditional rituals as well as shamanism. He is also a good shaman and knows the mantras of shamanism. He has a lot of experiences and bad feelings to be a Kusunda tribe. 

Key Person of Kusunda Tribe 3 (Rajamama Kusunda)

Rajamama Kusunda

Date of birth: 2000 B.S.

Birthplace: Jungle, near Tanahau and Gorkha

Now: Damauli, Tanahau

Rajamama Kusunda, one of the few survivors of the Kusunda community in the country, living at Dihigaun of Byas Municipality in Tanahun district along with his wife and a daughter. He is 72 years and married at the age of 60. Rajamama married Indra Maya Tamang, who is half his age. Now, he has settled down with his family in Tanahu district in western Nepal.

Rajamama Kusunda used to roam the jungle with a bow and arrow and survived mostly on forest fowl and squirrels they hunted. He lived with his father and mother in very simple huts designed in a primitive way using no ropes and nails. He considers themselves the rulers of the jungle or king of the forest.

Rajamama has a nine-year-old daughter Simanta who studies in an English boarding school in the district. This is indeed a great leap forward from the tribal lifestyle of her forefathers in jungle huts. Government and non-governmental organizations have been providing 20 thousand rupees to the sole Kusunda family to arrange food and clothing. Funds have also been arranged for the education of the girl. Rajamama still carries his bow and arrow and likes to go hunting. His skills in archery distinguish him from other people. He is also a great lover of folk songs and an avid Madal player. As government officials are working to make Tanahu district is fully literate under an official campaign, they are giving extra attention to the Rajamama family. Enabling a man used to a bow and arrow in the jungle to read and write is naturally a challenge. Despite initial reluctance and refusal, the tribal couple was persuaded to hold a pen for the first time to prepare them to express their thoughts in writing.

Only Rajamama is believed to have the pure gene pool of the nomadic tribe that once used to dwell in the forests of the western hills and which had its own language but it is rejected by the Kusundas of Pyuthan, Dang and Surkhet. Kusundas lost their language and culture after living in the villages and marrying outside their tribe. He said to me he was born in the jungle. He doesn’t remember anything about his father. He was a lonely fellow. He told me he used to hunt jungle fowl, forage yam, tuber, and fruits. Nowadays, he doesn’t go for a hunt. He helps others in agriculture. He forgot his language and just gave me some  Kusunda words. Rajamama does not remember stories or even phrases or sentences. Among the words Rajamama remembers, it is only nouns that form the bulk of his memory, with some adjectives like "gigtan" ‘tasty’. Verbs are also missing. Nouns remembered by Rajmama include mainly names for animals, plants, and other words related to the jungle environment where he was born. He has one Ropini land and a house, both are bought by the help of NFID.

According to him, the Kusundas should not be neglected considering their minority status. He also said it is the State´s responsibility to protect the Kusunda people who are on the verge of disappearance. The Adibasi Janajati Utthan Rastriya Pratisthan (AJURP) said that Rajamama is the only one born to a Kusunda father and mother. So, he claimed the pure gene of Kusunda. Still, he is active and all the villagers called him Mama, and he called them Bhanja - Bhanji. He has one ropani land and a house provided by AJURP. He died at 2018.

Key person of Kusunda Tribe 2 ( Dhan Bahadur Kusunda)

Dhan Bahadur Kusunda

                                                                          

                                                     Date of birth: 2022/05/22 BS                                                      

Place of birth: Ghorahi -6, Supalakhutti, Dang

Father: Bhim Bahadur Kusunda

Mother: Tulasi Kusunda

Dhan Bahadur Kusunda is the founding chairperson of Kusunda Bikash Samaj. He established Kusunda Bikash Samaj on February 5, 2009. It is located at Ghorai, Dang. He has four daughters and married with Magar woman. He stayed and worked more than 10 years in Kathmandu and different parts of India for the fulfillment of his economic needs. Now he is a member of Ghorahi municipality representing indigenous people.

He is very active in the establishment of the rights of indigenous people, especially Kusunda. He introduced the Kusunda people of Nepal at the national and local levels. According to him,  “We Kusundas are known as kings of the jungle. Not only are we dependent on forest products like roots and bulbs but we also live in it. Hunting is a mainstay of our traditional economy. We hunt down wild animals, mostly pheasants, and other birds. We ensnare pheasants alive and exchange them with money and food grains. As the kings of the jungle, we still live in and depend on the forest. But Nepal's forest was our actual kingdom. Our ancestors were the kings and the nomad Rautes were our subjects. Legend has it that some outside force once finished off our king, forcing us to flee the jungle. When the royal Kusundas fled, their subjects, the Rautes, came along. After being attacked and forced out of the jungle, our ancestors living a reclusive life. They would avoid contact with the outside world, and they would hide in case any outsider passed by them. Later the name Kusunda became synonymous with reclusiveness. After we fled the jungle, we faced threats to our culture. We gradually started assimilating ourselves into other communities. Depletion in forest products also drove us out of the jungle”.

He further added that “Our culture is similar to those of Nepal's other indigenous communities. We worship goddesses in the jungle and we celebrate Mangsire Purnima. While men worship cocks, women worship hens. We do not touch cow dung. We do not drink milk and curd. All family members and relatives gather to celebrate our festivals. But with the passage of time, our culture came under the influence of other cultures. We started celebrating Dashain festival as the Nepali state gave importance to it.  Our language also faced threats. Only two persons of Kusunda, can speak our Kusunda language. Our mother tongue is on the verge of extinction”.  

The Kusunda language has less than a handful of speakers. According to the Nepal Kusunda Bikash Samaj, an umbrella body of the Kusunda ethnic group, Kamala Khatri of Rolpa and Prem Bahadur Kusunda of Dang are the only competent speakers of the language in the entire country. Dhan Bahadur Kusunda, chairman of Nepal Kusunda Bikash Samaj, said the government’s apathy is primarily to blame for the imminent extinction of the Kusunda language. “We could not preserve our language because the state excluded us from mainstream development. This forced us to be subservient to other powerful communities and assimilate their culture and language while forgetting our own,” lamented Dhan Bahadur, who can only decipher a few words of his mother tongue.  The National Population Census of 2011 shows there are just 273 Kusunda in the country, though the community has questioned the authenticity of the data.  “The census has failed to include Kusundas residing in Surkhet, Gorkha, Arghakhanchi, Pyuthan, and Rolpa, while it shows the presence of 10 Kusundas in Kathmandu. We don’t believe this,” said Dhan Bahadur Kusunda. He has various plans for the upliftment of Kusundas of Nepal (Kusunda 2015). He actively participated in the national level of indigenous seminars, workshops, and meetings to the protection of their rights. 



Dhan Bahadur Kusunda and his wife with traditional dress

He has been organizing various activities for the preservation of Kusunda culture and their mother language. In his leadership, Kusunda Bikash Sammitte recognized as the national level ethnic organization in Nepal as well as out of Nepal. 

Key Person of Kusunda Tribes (Gyani Maya Sen)

Gyani Maiya Sen

Date of birth: 1994 B.S. 

Place of birth: Jungle, Rolpa

Father: Bal Bahadur Sen

Mother: Gokuli Pun

Gyani Maiya Sen was born somewhere in the jungle-covered hills of western Nepal in 1937 AD (1994 V.S.) to Bal Bahadur Sen and Gokuli Pun. She is the second of the three daughters. She spent the first fifteen years of her childhood in the jungle while her father was alive. After her father died she moved with her (Magar) mother and sisters to a maternal uncle’s home, which was not a Kusunda-speaking household (they spoke mainly Nepali in this home). The eldest sister was Ghani and married in Salyan. The youngest daughter died while she was still young. Gyani Maiya had two brothers, Dam Bahadur Sen and Bhim Bahadur Sen, but they, and her older sister, are dead now.

Gyani Maiya was married to a man of Magar ancestry in Jura of Masina Village Development Committee (VDC) in Rolpa district (the location of her maternal uncle’s home). Later, when her husband went to India for the job she also migrated to Lamahi in the south of Dang district, near the Indian border. After a while, she moved to Kulmore, an area close to Lamahi and ran a hotel there feeding people who came down from the high hills of Rukum, Rolpa, Salyan, Pyuthan, etc. to purchase things like salt and kerosene from the Koilabas transit village on the border with India. Later she left her hotel and went to India to work twice. She still lives in Kulmore, with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. Kulmohar is a tiny village in Dang district. It’s close to a small river with only a handful of houses there. Gyani Maiya Sen lives here. She knows the Kusunda language, cultural practices, and livelihood patterns of Kusunda when they were in the jungle. She explains that she works in the rice fields, takes care of her grandchildren, and spends time in the forest. But no one understands her. “There are few from the Kusunda tribe who live here. But nobody speaks the language. The new generation doesn’t want to speak the language. They are not interested. They make fun of the language, and that it doesn’t make sense!”

She was the first person to move to Kulmore, and originally had a lot of lands there, but subsequent arrivals have taken much of the land and planted mustard fields. On the remaining land, she raises a cow, two sheep, and too many chickens and ducks.  “When we lived in the forests, we would stay in a group, in the cave. I really liked that. When we first entered the village, I was sad to leave the forest behind. In the beginning, it was very difficult. We faced many troubles. We had problems adapting to the new life here.”Gyani Maiya and her family had to leave the forests because of the loss of their habitat due to deforestation. Gyani Maiya has two daughters and one son. All of them are married. Recently, the government of Nepal has built a house for her, her husband had died. Before we met her, she used to survive by earning money breaking rocks in the nearby river, Arjun Khola (Donohue 2013).

Gyani Maiya Sen is the language heritage because she is the only person still alive in Nepal who fluently speaks the Kusunda language. The unknown origins and mysterious sentence structures of Kusunda have long baffled linguists. As such, she has become a star attraction for campaigners eager to preserve her dying tongue. Ms Sen – despite her age – still ekes out a living as a stone-crusher. But outside of the workplace, she finds that she is increasingly in demand from linguistics students wanting to learn the Kusunda language with her help. The Kusunda tribe to which Ms. Sen belongs is nomadic. As hunters and gatherers, they live in huts in the jungle and carry bows and arrows to hunt wild animals. While the males of the tribe hunt, women and children stay at home and search for wild fruits.

According to her family, there isn`t any change in her lifestyle. Now, she has a son (Prem Bahadur Pun), six grandchildren and daughter in law. They told that she should love the forest for her living. She thought that jungle is a place where she would do whatever she liked, for example, eating food and moving in the forest. According to her son and daughter in law still, her behavior is like the past when she was in the forest. Gyani Maya spent her whole life in the forest. On that day her family lived Jurmasina forest of Rolpa. Later they migrated to the Balkot forest in Argakhachi now and then they came and went into human society as her mother was 9 years old when her father Ball Bahadur Kusunda died.

Gyanimaya with her family members

She lived with her mother Gokuli, near the Jungle of Rolpa. She said, they migrated in dang since 2024. On that day they lived together making group 10-15 and spent their life a week and 15 days in the same place. She memorialized that they didn`t have their own house, where they moved, and went that was her home. The home was covered by wood and dry leaves. They used to eat wild fruits, wild animals, birds, and wild roots and asking with villagers. They run their life very difficultly. 

Gyani Maiya doesn`t use to eat and drink milk, curd, and energetic food even she lives in a community nowadays said her son Prem Bahadur Pun. His mother`s behaviors is still wild. She doesn`t live comfortably if she doesn`t go to the forest now and again added his son. Prem Bahadur said that his mother believes in Dhamijhakri (shamanism) so, she doesn`t like to go to the hospital and take medicine also. According to him Gyani Maiya hadn`t gone hospital. When she sick we call "dhamijhakri". He checked her than she feels well. Gyani Maiya doesn`t like to stay in mass. She scolds her daughter in law so, her daughter in law feels surprised. She added that her mother in law doesn`t like to stay in the mass of people and she feels odd on her to behave and again added that she never scolds her but, they don`t have a close relationship.

As Gyani Maiya Sen nears the end of her life she worries that her final words may be the last ever spoken in her mysterious mother tongue. Until recently, there were two other native speakers of Kusunda, Puni Thakuri and her daughter Kamala Khatri, but Puni died two years ago and Kamala migrated to India for work, leaving Sen the sole surviving native speaker. 

She died on January 26, 2020.

Endangered languages of Nepal

Measurement of the Endangerment of Kusunda Language

A global record of the language, Nepal currently has as many as 126 living languages (Ethnologue 2005) and according to CBS (2011), there are 123 languages that existed in Nepal. That is a huge figure for a country with a total area of only 147,181 sq.km.-overs 22 times smaller than India (which has 415 living languages), over 65 times smaller than China (236 living languages) or the USA (162 living languages) (Ethnologue 2005). Compare that to the dead (extinct) languages in each of the above countries, at least 3 of Nepal’s languages are extinct- Dura, Kusunda, and Waling. Ethnologue also lists 13 extinct languages for India, 1 for China, and 73 for the USA. Clearly, the fear that other indigenous languages may become extinct is a legitimate fear. Although Nepali has spoken by almost half of the entire population of 20.6 million people, and other major languages such as Maithali (12.1%), Bhojpuri(7.4%), Tharu (5.8%), Tamang (5.1%), Newar (3.6%) may not be facing immediate extinction, and more than 100 other less Known languages are in the endangered situation. (Fyuba and Koirala 2006). Some other researchers believe that Nepal has more than 140 languages and more than 85% are in endangered situations.

Most endangered languages of Nepal 

The data shows that most of the ethnic languages of Nepal continuously are in endangered situations. According to CBS (2011), out of 123, there are about 45 languages have less than a thousand speakers which are listed on the following table:

Table no.1: Most endangered languages of Nepal

S. N.	Name of languages	Linguistic population 2001	Linguistic population 2011
1	Kusunda	87	28
2	Jero/Jerung	271	1763
3	Tilung	310	1424
4	Churaute	408	1075
5	Kisan	489	1178
6	Sam	23	201
7	Koche	54	280
8	Oriya	159	584
9	Sanskrit	823	1669
10	Limkhim	97	129
11	Khamchi (Raute)	518	461
12	Kaike	794	50
13	Khariya	1575	238
14	Kagate	10	99
15	Lhomi	04	808
16	Sadhani	02	122
17	Assamese	03	476
18	Nagamese	06	10
19	Mizo	08	32
20	Kuki	09	29
21	Dzonkha	09	80
22	Kurmali	13	227
23	Hariyanwi	33	889
24	Sindhi	72	518
25	Baram	342	155

Source: CBS 2001 and 2011.

From this table, we can say that a large number of languages of Nepal are in an endangered position and have less than two thousand population. Some more languages which have less than a thousand populations are also included in the population census 2011, and these are Byansi (480), Surel (287), Bankariya (69), Gadhawali (38), Malpande (247), Dhuleli (347), Belhare (599), Phangduwali (290), Jumli (851), Sonaha (579), Dadeldhuri (488) and Manange (392). Hence, this data shows that more than 40% of languages have less than a thousand populations and are severely in endangered situations. Now the language commission of Nepal and the central department of linguistic, Tribhuvan University has been trying to document the minor language by making the documentary and publishing a report.

Measurement of the Endangerment of Kusunda Language 

Language shift is the process in which a group of speakers of a language or speech community comes to use another language which may result in the partial or total abandonment of the first or mother tongue. Taking active measures to counter language shift is referred to as fostering language maintenance and/or language revitalization. A language assessment is a prerequisite both to understanding language shift and to take measures to reverse it. The most influential have been Fishman’s (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS, updated by Simons and Lewis (2010) as EGIDS, and the UNESCO (2003) “nine factors.” These tools can be used for the assessment of any language and are mentioned on the following points:

 1. Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS; Fishman 1991)

 It is the tool first developed by Fishman in the period 1991 and noted that intergenerational transmission - whether parents passed on the language to their children - was critical in determining the continuity of a language. He developed a scale with eight levels, in which the first six levels (1–6) the language is being maintained. In the last two levels (7 & 8), however, adult speakers are not passing the language on to their children, who have shifted to another language. The table below illustrates this scale:

 Table no.2: GIDS Description

1.      The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government at the nationwide level.

2.      The language is used for local and regional mass media and governmental services.

3.      The language is used for local and regional work by both insiders and outsiders.

4.      Literacy in the language is transmitted through education.

5.      The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form throughout the community.

6.      The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language.

7.      The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it with their elders but is not transmitted it to their children.

8.      The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation.

Source: Fishman (1991).

 The GID Scale focuses on language domains (Levels 1-3), literacy (Level 4-5), and Inter-generational transmission (Levels 6-8). Levels 5 & 6 above illustrate the most common preconditions for language loss to occur, even though the speakers have not yet shifted to the other language. Kusunda language can be evaluated from Level 8, in which only remaining speakers are the members of grandparent’s generation and language is in the critically endangered situation.

2.  Extended GIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010)

The UNESCO language assessment tool was designed on a small scale and based on language use surveys.  Broad language survey sources on the internet list population figures, approximate numbers of speakers; the premier source in this genre, the Ethnologue ( 2009), often assigns a language vitality label (“vigorous,” “threatened,” “extinct”), and sometimes lists in house documentation. Lewis (2006) used the Ethnologue’s data on 100 languages, including four Tibeto-Burman languages, to test the UNESCO model.  Lewis and Simons (2010) propose to extend Fishman’s simpler GIDS model from eight to ten levels. Their model retains Fishman’s concise single-table format and his focus on language domains, literacy, and intergenerational transmission. It adds two levels that concern the relationship of ethnic identity to high-prestige linguistic remnants such as greetings, which Lewis and Simons aptly term symbolic proficiency (Levels 9 & 10). According to Lewis and Simons (2010) “A language can be evaluated in terms of the EGIDS by answering five key questions regarding the identity function, vehicular, state of intergenerational language transmission, literacy acquisition status, and a societal profile of generational language use”. The EGIDS is given in the following table

 Table no.3: EGIDS description 

EGIDS LEVEL	EGIDS LABEL	EGIDS DESCRIPTION	UNESCO Descriptor
0	International	The language is used internationally for a broad range of functions.	Safe
1	National	The language is used in education, work, mass media, and government at the nationwide level.	Safe
2	Regional	The language is used for local and regional mass media and governmental services.	Safe
3	Trade	The language is used for local and regional work by both insiders and outsiders.	Safe
4	Educational	Literacy in the language is being transmitted through a system of public education.	Safe
5	Written	The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community.	Safe
6a	Vigorous	The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language.	Safe
6b	Threatened	The language is used orally by all generations but only some of the childbearing generation is transmitted it to their children.	Vulnerable
7	Shifting	The childbearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children.	Definitely Endangered
8a	Moribund	The only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation.	Severely Endangered
8b	Nearly Extinct	The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language.	Critically Endangered
9	Dormant	The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community. No one has more than symbolic proficiency.	Extinct
10	Extinct	No one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language, even for symbolic purposes.	Extinct

Source: Fishman 1991, UNESCO 2003, Lewis and Simons 2010.

As can be seen, the EGIDS proposal focuses heavily on existing language domains and intergenerational transmission. In a compact format, it provides more nuanced descriptors between levels. It identifies the transition from levels 6b to 7 (Threatened, with only some intergenerational transmission, to Shifting, with no transmission) as the critical point in language attrition. In adding Levels 9 & 10, this model specifies the likely “highly limited domain” of language use found in UNESCO’s Factor 4, Level 1. Kusunda language belongs to the criteria 8a and 8b i.e. severely endangered and critically endangered situation.

 Overall, however, the EGIDS proposal simplifies assessment, in that it does not take into account the absolute or relative speaker numbers, community language attitudes, government policies, and existing documentation. Nonetheless, its emphasis on intergenerational transmission (Levels 6–8) means that this assessment tool also requires in situ language use.

 3. UNESCO’s “Nine Factors” (2003)

 It is the most useful tool for endangered languages and developed by UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Unit (2003) and committed to focusing on language as part of cultural heritage, and convened an Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages.

In the document Language Vitality and Endangerment (UNESCO 2003), the group detailed a set of determining factors that allow a speaker community or outsiders to assess the vitality of a language. It has nine factors and most factors have grades (0 through 5), where zero represents the complete shift to another language (termed extinct in UNESCO parlance), and five represents the vitality of a language for that factor (termed safe). The following table indicates the position of the Kusunda language and its endangerment process.

Table no.4: Assessment of Kusunda Language

S.N.	Factors	Rating	Level of endangerment
1	Intergenerational language transmission	1(speakers of only great-grandparents generation)	Critically endangered
2	The absolute number of speakers	28 (CBS-2011) and six from the field study.	Critically endangered
3	The proportion of speakers within the total population	1	Critically endangered
4	Trends in existing language domains	0 (not used in any domain)	Extinct
5	Response to new domains and media	0 (not used in any new domain)	Inactive
6	Materials for language education and literacy	0 (no orthography)	-
7	Official status and use: governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies	1 (neither recognized nor protected)	Forced assimilated
8	Community members attitude towards their own language	0 (prefer to use dominant languages.)	-
9	Amount and quality of documentation	0 (no materials)	undocumented

 

From this table, we can say that the Kusunda language is critically endangered which has a limited number of speakers above 60 years and intergenerational transmission had already broken almost 30-40 years ago. Kusunda language is more vulnerable but technically it is a moribund language, which means that no children are currently learning it. Kusunda is unique not only because it is moribund but it is also endangered and isolate language.

 References

Central Bureau of Statistics (2001). Population census. National Planning Commission (NPC), Thapathali, Kathmandu.

 Central Bureau of Statistics (2011). Population census. National Planning Commission (NPC), Thapathali, Kathmandu.

Fishman, J. A. (1991).  Reversing language shift, Clevedon, UK, Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Lewis, M.P. & Simons, G.F. (2010). Assessing endangerment: expanding fishman's gids, Article  in  Revue Roumaine de Linguistique · April 2010 DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511783364.003

UNESCO. (2003). Language vitality and endangerment, Presented at the International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages, Paris: UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000183699

UNESCO (2009).  UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, UNESCO. Retrieved from  http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00139.