The Nimadi-speaking people of Madhya Pradesh: A sociolinguistic profile

The purpose of this sociolinguistic survey among the Nimadi-speaking people was to assess the need for mother tongue literature development and literacy work. Wordlist comparisons showed a relatively high degree of lexical similarity among the Nimadi varieties compared. Recorded Text Testing (RTT) revealed adequate comprehension of the selected Nimadi varieties in test points across the Nimad region. Responses of Nimadi speakers to sociolinguistic questionnaires indicated strong vitality of the language. Nimadi speakers have positive attitudes towards their language, but no central or prestige variety was identified. Attitudes towards Hindi are slightly positive; Hindi is seen as the language of education. Although questionnaire subjects felt they can handle basic tasks in Hindi, there are indications from Sentence Repetition Testing (SRT) that the Nimadi-speaking population as a whole is probably not adequately bilingual in Hindi to use available materials effectively.