Structure, ideology, distribution: the dual as honorific in Santali

Abstract

This article draws on Judith T. Irvine's over two decades of work on ideologies of honorification to investigate and analyze the historical transformation of the use of the dual pronominal form in Santali, an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern India. In Santali, the dual form is employed for single referents (both for the speaker and the addressee) during interactions restricted to affines of adjacent generations. However, in recent years the dual has also started to be used as a deferential honorific in a generalized sense, regardless of the kinship relation between interactants. The new usage has been driven by several factors, including the increasing exposure to education in the dominant Indo-Aryan vernaculars such as Bengali and Hindi, which use generalized honorifics, as well as movements that have aligned the use of such honorifics with projects for Santal autonomy centered around the spread of a distinct script for the language. The article argues that debates in the community around the notions of tradition and modernity, cultural and ethnic affiliation, and changing ideas of respect have shaped the ideological field conditioning the use and distribution of the honorific dual in Santali.