Hindko and Gujari. c - SIL International

26
Calvin R. Rensch
visited Abbottabad; 82 percent have visited both. It is surprising
that only 26 percent have visited Mansehra, a Hindko-speaking
community just north of Abbottabad. Nevertheless, more than
two-thirds of those who have visited Mansehra have done so
more than twenty times. Judging from this information we may
expect to find in Jammun a small group that has become well
acquainted with the Hindko dialects of Mansehra District and a
larger group that has not. As a matter of fact, the Jammun
subjects scored an average of 83 percent on the Hindko test from
Balakot, a town in Mansehra District, but with the high standard
deviation of 16. This gives evidence that indeed some of the
subjects understood the Balakot text considerably better than
others. (See §4.2.)
A majority of the Jammun respondents (68 percent) have
visited Peshawar more than once and nearly half of these have
been there more than twenty times. These visits have presumably
promoted facility in Pashto, although for some they may also
have provided familiarity with Peshawari Hindko. Travel to
Peshawar may have been occasioned by business relating to the
provincial capital or it may have been purely for visiting.
A slight majority of the Jammun respondents also report
having visited Lahore and Karachi. These visits were on the
whole less frequent than those to Rawalpindi, Peshawar and
nearer communities. Visits to Lahore were also short, but nearly
half of those who have traveled to Karachi remained there for
more than six months. Thus, travel to Karachi, although not
common, probably has had a significant effect on secondlanguage
learning for those who traveled because of its
duration. 16 (Since the collection of data on travel outside Jammun
was not carried out at the same time as the bilingualism testing
and since the sources of the two kinds of information are not
necessarily the same individuals, it is not possible at this point to
demonstrate whether there is a relationship between frequent
travel and higher levels of second language proficiency.)
16 It appears that Karachi is a city where many go for employment; hence,
the long stays reported by respondents from Jammun and the other communities
of this study.