Community Radio Pledge (pdf) - amarc

pronunciation in a nation where the pronunciation of the capital city is anarbitrary affair. Linguists claim that language changes with every 20 km.Nepali language has simply too many local forms and sub-forms. There is azonal and local influence on Nepali language. Just in the event we take thedistrict of Rupandehi, for example, there is no uniformity of accent there.One can come across people talking in five different accents. These accentsare different from the national parameters of Nepali language. A questionwhich arises here is what accent should be deemed as the right one. Thelocal radio stations do not need to go by the parameter followed in thecapital. Community radios must go by the zonal accent. One should look forbeauty of the language in its diversity. Attention must be paid to the needto evolve the language along pleasing line.Use of wordsPolitical terms : One should refrain from using terms like revisionist, centrist,extremist, illiberal, authoritarian, former Panchas, regressive and progressivewhen referring to political parties. Identifying the party suffices. One shouldnot literally translate the content when taking news from foreign newsagencies. The best thing to do is to take the facts and events cutting downall adjectives. While carrying news and analyses attributing the same to theforeign news agency it is good to make sure that it does not militate with theforeign policy. For example, the Associated Press is found to be identifyingthe Bharatiya Janata Party as the Hindu fundamentalist party. That is theirstyle. The BJP is not a Hindu fundamentalist party in Nepalese view. It is apowerful party of its neighbor. Similarly, how to go about when carryingnews about Kashmir? Should we say "Indian administered Kashmir", or"Indian occupied Kashmir" or "Indian ruled Kashmir? Again should we say"Chinese administered Tibet" or "Chinese ruled Tibet" when carrying newsabout Tibet ? These are the issues which are decided by the foreign policyof the country.Numbers and statistics : One should not be excited about using numbersor statistics. Big numbers are not followed by listeners. Generally one mustuse the numbers by rounding them off. For example, it is always good toround off Rs. 4,85,711 as about five hundred thousand. Similarly, 15.7 percentcan be rounded off to say about 16 percent. We tend to use words whilereferring to figures. It is always good to use words in such cases.Linguistic distinction: It is possible that a word can carry so many differentmeaning in different language regions. There could be more than onelanguage speakers in the broadcast area of our community radio stations.Any word which can be used comfortably in any one language could be ataboo for listeners of the other language programs. For example, Nepalilanguage term for one kind of stomach element can be a taboo for Newari68