“We left our language and started speaking others’. The girls have got married and have left for the villages. Boys are getting married in villages. It should be taught to children”. — Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda The Gi Mihaq (also known as Kusunda) was a semi-nomadic hunter and gatherer community that settled in villages around the mid-western Nepalese district of Dang. They have long lost their native language Mihaq (Kusunda), to acculturation and other barriers to active use. The community also lost their 83-year-old elder Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda in 2020, the most and the only known fluent Kusunda speaker then. Filmed in Kulmor in the Dang District in 2018, this openly-licensed documentary is a memoir of Sen-Kusunda in her own words and a biography of her people who were forced to leave their language and cultural identity. Kusunda is being revived by Kamala Sen Khatri, Sen-Kusunda’s younger sister, and Uday Raj Aaley, a local researcher who is the key interviewer for this film.
Gyani Maiya explores themes of nepal, language, kusunda. It is available to stream for free in HD on Ernax — no account required.
Genre: Documentary
Runtime: 25 min
Director: Subhashish Panigrahi
Writers: Subhashish Panigrahi
Cast: Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda, Uday Raj Aaley, Sanjib Chaudhary
Country: Nepal
Language: Nepali
Themes: nepal, language, kusunda, endangered language
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