Date of Award
Master of Arts
This study examined the attitudes of young educated Hazaras towards Hazaragi, a politically low-prestigious language spoken in Afghanistan. The instrument included a questionnaire made of Attitude questions and Descriptive questions. The respondents expressed their beliefs about the linguistic entity of Hazaragi, desire to maintain Hazaragi, value of Hazaragi, and domains of use of Hazaragi. The results showed that half of the Hazaras who participated in the study considered Hazaragi to be a language whereas the other half did not. The majority of the participants demonstrated a commitment to maintain Hazaragi and to speak Hazaragi. With regards to domains of use, Hazaragi was considered most suitable for casual settings and use with friends. For formal contexts, such as university lectures or a government office, Dari was considered more appropriate. Gender differences were examined through independent t-tests which showed that the attitudes and perceptions of male and female Hazaras did not differ significantly. Although significant gender differences were not found, the male participants had an overall more positive attitude towards Hazaragi than the female participants.
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