Language Loss in Second-Generation Bhutanese Americans

For the Lhotshampa diaspora, language has never been merely a means of communication. It was the marker of identity that the Bhutanese state sought to suppress through the Driglam Namzha cultural policies of the late 1980s, the medium through which the community's literature, religion, and oral history are transmitted, and the thread connecting a globally dispersed community that has no shared territory. The prospect of losing Nepali-language fluency among children raised in English-speaking resettlement countries is, in this context, experienced not as an ordinary immigrant language-shift phenomenon but as an extension of the cultural erasure that began in Bhutan.

Research conducted with the diaspora in the United States, Australia, and other resettlement countries consistently documents a pattern of accelerated language shift. Children who arrive as young children or who are born in resettlement countries typically develop English as their dominant language within a few years of starting school. By adolescence, many are most comfortable speaking English, even with Nepali-speaking parents, and their Nepali is characterised by code-switching — the mixing of Nepali and English in ways that reflect bilingual competence in transition rather than stable bilingualism.

Patterns of Language Shift

Several consistent patterns have been documented across the diaspora:

• Comprehension without production: The most common scenario among second-generation young adults is passive competence — understanding spoken Nepali reasonably well but struggling to produce grammatically correct or fluent Nepali, particularly in formal or literary registers. This pattern is consistent with what linguists term "receptive bilingualism" and reflects exposure to Nepali in the home without sustained institutional support.
• Literacy gaps: Reading and writing in Nepali script (Devanagari) requires sustained instruction that most second-generation Bhutanese Americans have not received. While some parents teach Devanagari at home, the majority of second-generation community members cannot read or write Nepali with the facility they have in English.
• Domain-specific retention: Nepali tends to be retained for specific communicative domains — food, family relationships, religious vocabulary, emotional expression — while English dominates in academic, professional, and peer social contexts.
• Dzongkha virtual absence: Dzongkha, Bhutan's national language, is rarely spoken even among families who maintained some Dzongkha competence in Bhutan or the camps. The Lhotshampa community's linguistic identity is centred on Nepali, not Dzongkha, and there is virtually no Dzongkha-language maintenance effort within the Bhutanese refugee diaspora.

Community Responses

Community responses to language loss operate at multiple levels. Nepali-language weekend schools — typically held in community centres, temples, or churches on Saturday or Sunday mornings — have been established in cities with significant Bhutanese populations, including Columbus, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and several Texas cities. These schools teach reading, writing, and conversational Nepali to children whose school week is conducted entirely in English. Their effectiveness varies; attendance is voluntary, homework is rarely enforced, and competing activities draw children away. Nevertheless, they represent the community's most systematic organised effort at language maintenance.

Digital platforms have emerged as a supplementary language environment. YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, and WhatsApp groups operating in Nepali give young community members access to Nepali-language content produced by both diaspora creators and creators in Nepal and India. Second-generation community members who identify strongly with their heritage often engage with this content, and some use it explicitly as a language maintenance strategy.

Some community members — particularly younger intellectuals and activists — have articulated a politics of language maintenance that frames Nepali fluency not merely as a family preference but as an act of cultural resistance. As one community member quoted in a SAPIENS article put it: "We faced discrimination and expulsion from our country due to our linguistic identity. Continuity of our language and culture means continuity of our Bhutanese identity." This framing transforms language maintenance from a private family matter into a collective political commitment.

Long-Term Outlook

Linguists and community observers are largely in agreement that without sustained institutional support — formal Nepali-language instruction within the public school system, funding for heritage language schools, and bilingual programming in cultural institutions — full Nepali-language fluency will not be maintained in the third generation. The trajectory is consistent with well-documented patterns of immigrant language shift: one language is spoken at home in the first generation, maintained at varying levels in the second, and largely replaced by English by the third. Whether this trajectory can be altered depends on choices the community and its institutional partners make in the near future.

References

1. "Nepali-Speaking Bhutanese." EthnoMed, University of Washington. https://ethnomed.org/culture/nepali-speaking-bhutanese/
2. "How Names Tell Stories of Loss and Resilience." SAPIENS. https://www.sapiens.org/language/bhutanese-nepali-refugees/
3. Khanal, Bhawana, et al. "Aligned and shifting identities in distant diasporas: a multigenerational examination." Asian Ethnicity, Taylor & Francis, 2024. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19438192.2024.2394372
4. "Bhutanese Refugee Health Profile." Minnesota Department of Health. https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/rih/coe/profiles/bhutanese.html