Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2000) - The University of ...

S. KULKARNI
showing an almost complete shift towards the standard variant (98.5%).
Children from the Scheduled group with a group score of 77.6% follow
behind the Backward group. Though the middle class Maratha girls show
reasonably high scores (79.2%), the boys of this group score the least
(64.4%) within the group of middle class children in the sample.
To summarize the findings from the foregoing analysis of the use of
the retroflex nasal among children in the Pune sample:
Statistical analysis revealed that caste membership has the most powerful
influence on the use of standard /)/. This finding has made it possible to
conclude that the (N) variable is a caste marker and that it marks off
Brahmin identity from non-Brahmin identity. There is, however, a strong
standardising tendency among the children from educated and middle class
Scheduled and Backward caste families.
Singh (1979) investigated caste influence on the categorical use of
retroflex and dental nasals in certain lexical items in the Punjabi dialect
spoken in the village of Desu Marja. He failed to find definite caste patterns.
He has not, however, considered differences in frequencies of use of the two
variants. Sastry (1993) found that the /)/ in standard Telugu co-varied with
caste, geographical region, and formality of the situation (pp: 80-1). The
feature occurred most frequently in the educated and uneducated speech of
all the prestigious upper caste groups (including the upper caste non-
Brahmins) of coastal Andhra Pradesh, the region from which the standard
dialect of Telugu originates.
The Pune data presents a contrasting case. While the Marathas (or the
high caste non-Brahmins) persist in the use of the non-standard [n], it is the
Backward caste (who traditionally had a low caste status) who are leading
the shift towards the standard [)]. Later in this paper I shall argue that these
are the linguistic ramifications of the complex social history of the Marathi
region.
4.2 Aspiration_Medial_Final
11,700 linguistic tokens transcribed for 114 children were used in the
statistical analysis. As in the case of (N), the effect of caste on the retention
of aspiration of stops in word medial and final positions was found to be
predominant (F-ratio 6.47 and p-value < 0.001). Once again the three non-
Brahmin groups scored lower than the Brahmins. Further, among the non-
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