Rural to urban migration and discourses of linguistic authenticity in multilingual Nagaland

Abstract

This paper looks at how the process of rural-urban migration to multilingual cities has led to diverging language ideologies and new markers of indigenous identity. We discuss two contrasting discourses of authenticity that structure multilingualism based on generational position. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in Dimapur, a city in Nagaland, northeast India, a site of high in-migration from the rural hinterlands. Most residents speak various indigenous Tibeto-Burman Naga languages, which are mutually unintelligible. The city, therefore, is characterised by a high degree of multilingualism, where indigenous Naga languages and English, the state's official language, co-exist with Nagamese, an Assamese-based, Indo-Aryan pidgin used in various domains of urban daily life. We find that for many first-generation migrants, for whom language is one of the primary markers of their indigenous identity and tribal homeland, the increasing relevance of Nagamese threatens the dominant discourse of ‘authentic’ indigenous identity that is held up by community elders and institutions such as the church. On the other hand, urban indigenous youth, particularly those raised in Dimapur and more accustomed to the everyday multilingualism of the city, are more ambivalent to Nagamese in relation to their identity.