Rongring Right Now: Digital Resources for the Lepcha Language

Lepcha is a Tibeto-Burman language with an estimated 52,909 speakers in Sikkim, West Bengal, Nepal, and Bhutan. Lepcha has its own script and literature, but its language situation is characterized by declining use, low levels of literacy, and international fragmentation. In 2008, the Lepcha script was added to the Unicode Standard, enabling its characters to be exchanged across digital platforms, programs, and devices, but takeup has been slow. In nearly all areas, the use of Nepali has replaced Lepcha. UNESCO's World Atlas of Languages categorizes Lepcha (also called "Rongring") as "definitely endangered." The project Rongring Right Now accelerates the urgent digitization of Lepcha through two strands of activity: lexicographic research leading to the publication of a new Lepcha dictionary; and computer-aided transcription of Lepcha manuscripts, resulting in a searchable text corpus. We publish an edited version of William Stölke's as yet unpublished Lepcha-English dictionary from the 1890s, the only known copy of which is currently held in the SOAS Special Collections Library. This precious resource has seen little use since being purchased by the Director of SOAS in 1956. Stölke's dictionary will be made available alongside two other dictionaries that have already been digitised, George Mainwaring's 1898 dictionary and K. P. Tamsang's 2009 dictionary. The project also creates a comprehensive corpus of Lepcha literature. We work with the Rongring Lepcha Culture and Welfare Society in Kalimpong, India to scan privately held Lepcha manuscripts in-situ, without requiring them to be transferred to Western institutions. We partner with Leiden University to expand access to the largest known collection of Lepcha manuscripts in the world, 182 manuscripts collected by the Dutch orientalist Johan Van Manen between 1920 and 1940. We add Lepcha-focused journals and books published in the past 20 years, covering topics such as community organising, festivals and celebrations, folk traditions, and thematic lexicography, to name a few. With limited print runs by small publishers, these valuable historical and cultural records are difficult to obtain. The entire corpus will be enriched by computer-aided transcription, enabling its contents to be searched and indexed using the Lepcha language. Project outputs are integrated into a single platform, where the dictionaries and text corpus can be consulted online or downloaded for offline use, becoming invaluable resources for Lepcha community members, linguists, activists, teachers and learners. Through a bold and high risk approach, the project has the potential to build lasting, reciprocal partnerships and to transform our knowledge of the Lepcha language and culture. The Lepcha language expert Heleen Plaisier estimates that there may be more than 500 Lepcha manuscripts in private hands. By developing local capacity on the ground in India, providing training in portable scanning technology and handwritten text recognition software, and returning enriched versions of previously lost texts to the Lepcha people, the project aims to re-build trust, forging a path forward that could lead to a massive growth in the Lepcha corpus, opening up new and promising research avenues for the project team and beyond.