1 Assessing and uplifting sustainable orality languages in Nepal 1 Prof. Dr. Dan Raj Regmi danrajregmi8@gmail.com Abstract: This paper briefly assesses the sustainable orality languages in Nepal and suggests some strategies for uplifting those languages to the sustainable literacy (basically incipient literacy) from the perspective of Sustainable Use Model (SUM) proposed by Lewis and Simons (2011). In terms of levels of sustainable use, the languages of Nepal ranging from national to dormant (Regmi, 2018:43-44) may be broadly categorized into four levels: sustainable history (i.e., lowest level), sustainable identity, sustainable orality and sustainable literacy (i.e., highest level). A language with a lower level requires being uplifted to a next upper level by framing a language development program equipped with effective strategies. Undoubtedly, languages with sustainable history and identity may as well be uplifted. However, uplifting such languages is not as crucial as uplifting languages with sustainable orality. Around one-fourth of the total languages roughly belong to the sustainable orality level. They are all preliterate; nevertheless, they are spoken somewhat vigorously by all generations in the family or local community. Such languages, mostly Tibeto-Burman, have to be uplifted to sustainable literacy for quality basic education and proper transmission of life crucial knowledge to the younger generations. Such task is not, indeed, straightforward. First and foremost, the level of orality has to be evaluated within the FAMED conditions. Secondly, strategies have to be framed in compatible with socio-cultural and economic situation of the speech communities. Such strategies may include developing orthography and primers with the consent of the community, socialization of languages, language empowerment, book signing/public reading, community consultation and theater anthropology. Such strategies have to be integrated into other development programs in the speech communities in Nepal. 1. Background There is a lack of an independent and scientific census of the languages spoken as mother tongues in Nepal. Till the date, enumeration of such languages and their speakers made in national censuses has been considered as the main source of data. The 2011 Census records more than 125 caste and ethnic groups with different social and cultural background and around 123 mother tongues of four language families, namely, Indo-Aryan, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic and Dravidian. In Nepal, Kusunda is a language isolate (CBS, 2012 ). 2 Ethnologue, another prominent source, provides 124 languages and dialects in Nepal (Eppele et al., 2012). Only around 44 % of the languages in Nepal are safe or vigorous. They are used orally by all generations and are being learnt by children as their first languages. Around 42% of the languages are threatened. Such languages are not being transmitted to the younger 1 This is a revised version of the paper presented at the International Seminar entitled Mother Languages: Promotion and Preservation organized by the International Mother Language Institute (IMLI), Dhaka, for the celebration of International Mother Language Day, 2019, 22 February 2019. 2 There are a number of discrepancies as to the number and name of the languages enumerated in the 2011 Census of Nepal.