Gyani Maiya
# No community can express the pain of losing an elder, especially when one was presumed to be the last fluent speaker of their language and the language is nearing endangerment.
📜 Overview:
“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.
🌏 Languages Available:
Nepali
📆 Date Released:
2019-12-10
⌚ Running Time:
25 mins
⭐ Vote Average:
10.0
Beloved Cast
Self
Gyani Maiya Sen Kusunda
Self
Uday Raj Aaley
Self
Sanjib Chaudhary
