Dehwari
Population in the Project Area :
19000
The People
Pakistan
The Dehwari people are part of the Persian people cluster within the Persian-Median affinity bloc. This people group is only found in Pakistan. The Dehwari people are known for their hospitality. Guests are held in high esteem and considered a blessing from God. Many people even slaughter sheep or goats for their guests. Sometimes, in areas with more houses, the guest is assumed to be the guest of the whole village. Open-heartedness is a characteristic of tribal people and may not be observed among urban dwellers of the community. The traditional occupation of Dehwari is agriculture. Earlier, they used primitive techniques to do farming. Now they are changing to some modern techniques to ease up their work. They mostly concentrated on food crops and fruits. They cultivate plums, peaches, pomegranates, apricots, apples, melons, cherries, pistachios, almonds, and saffron. Apart from farming, they are also involved in cattle rearing as well. Dehwari is primarily an Islamic group whose majority is Sunni. It is difficult to find the overt presence of other faith groups in the community. The community follows an endogamous pattern in establishing marital relationships. Life partners are commonly selected within the family (constituting all close relatives) or tribe. Marriages are solemnized in the presence of a Mullah (a religious teacher) and witnesses. The birth of a male child is considered a source of pride since he is believed to be the defender of the family and community.
The Project
Mother-Tongue literacy.
The Dehwari language is a member of the Indo-Iranian language family, and is closely related to other languages spoken in the region, including Balochi and Brahui. It is considered an endangered language, with a small number of speakers and limited documentation.
The literacy rate of Dehwari is 40%. They are one of the ethnic groups with a very low rate of literacy in the country.
Genetically, Dehwari is a southwestern Persian language in the Indo-European language family. The people believe the this language came to exist in the 17th century. And, now, the language has been basilectalized from the Brahui language. The study determined that the Dehwari language is used in all the possible intra-community communications between people in a contact situation and is, therefore, vigorous enough to survive for upcoming generations. The people switch to Brahui and Urdu for their external communications and their children are sent to Madras to learn the basics of Arabic for their religious purposes. It is reported by the community members that only educated people can communicate in Urdu fluently. Unfortunately, the literacy of rate of the ethnic group is very low. Even amid this complex multilingual background, people of the community maintain a strong positive attitude towards their mother tongue and promote their younger generation to learn and use their heart language in all the possible domains. In addition, Dehwari people are pleased that other ethnic groups are learning and communicating in their language in their area. However, their language has no writing system, and their language remains unwritten for centuries.
Since this is a very minor group of people, developing a life skill program using their own mother tongue is a bit challenging. Our team is currently in the initial stage of conducting surveys and research to identify the language abilities of the people in question. With the aid of the collected data and research, we aim to develop a structured and efficient method of teaching. As part of the surveys, we have selected competent staff members who have been given training for teaching purposes. Additionally, cultural materials have been collected and recorded digitally with the aim of preserving them for future generations. We have wider plans of creating more documentations for the language.
Progress
As of March 2023
Extensive research has been conducted to understand the language abilities people belonging to a language group. The research team, consisting of trained field Sociolinguist in the country and experts from Nepal assisted by mother tongue speakers, conducted a Sociolinguistic Survey to determine the vitality and stability of the mother tongue, identify different dialects and their mutual intelligibility, and identify ideal literacy staff from the respective communities. We used a questionnaire and word and sentence lists for the data collection. An orientation program was conducted for the literacy staff, enabling them to collect cultural materials such as folk stories, songs, lullabies, riddles, and proverbs from their communities. The literacy staff transcribed the materials using the script of the state language and recorded them using digital technologies. Currently, the literacy staff is undergoing training in Linguistics, including Phonetics, Phonology, and Orthography, and are working on developing a trail-orthography in their languages.