The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan measures prosperity by gauging its citizens' levels of happiness, not GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
First proposed by a former king in 1972, Gross National Happiness is measured by Bhutan's sense of being well governed, its relationship with the environment, satisfaction with the pace of economic development, and the preservation and promotion of cultural values.
Linguistics student Karma Tshering, from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, takes the preservation of cultural values so seriously, he has set up a project aimed at documenting and archiving Bhutanese languages destined to become extinct.
One of these is Olekha, a dialect of 'Black Mountain Monpa' that is so rare, there is only one person left in Bhutan who speaks it fluently.
She is an 80-year-old local woman residing in the remote village of Rukha – a nine hour hike from the nearest road.
Tshering, a native of Bhutan, has visited the village over a three-year period with partner and linguist Dr Gwendolyn Hyslop – who is based in the College's School of Culture, History and Language.
During this time they have carefully and painstakingly noted and phonetically recorded basic nouns and verbs, phrases, means of asking questions and more.
“First, we start with word lists, like how you say hair, eye, nose, and other body parts,” Tshering explains.
“Then we compile lists containing animal names such as ox and chicken.”
Copies of the work, which consists of transcriptions based on the International Phonetic Alphabet, are passed onto Bhutan's Dzongkha Development Commission for safe keeping.
In 2010, Tshering and Hyslop set up the Bhutan Oral and Local Language Documentation Project (BOLLDP), with the aim of recruiting and training locals to transcribe languages they speak which are facing extinction.
Run in conjunction with Bhutan's Dzongkha Development Commission, the languages include Dakpa Monpa and Gongduk.
The project has been funded by the US based Firebird Foundation, started and run by Dr George Appell, who received his PhD in anthropology from the ANU several decades ago.
The work has also been supported by the Endangered Languages Documentation Project and ANU.
Because of the ethnic diversity of the Bhutanese people, as many as 19 languages exist in the South Asian nation. Dzongkha is the national language, English is also widely spoken.
“Most Bhutanese would speak at least five or six languages,” says Tshering.
He speaks nine languages himself, and has recently completed his Masters of Linguistics at ANU.
Tshering attributes the extinction of languages in Bhutan to people switching to major languages such as Chöke, Tshangla, Khengkha, Nepali, English and the national language, after moving to regions more populous than those they grew up in.
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