Japanese and Nepali belong to different
language families and it can be stated that there is a huge linguistic distance
between these two languages.
For instance, regarding the two cases of
responsive xenoglossy under hypnosis presented by Dr. Ian Stevenson, one of
them, ”the Case of Jensen” where the subject, whose native language was
English, made conversations in Swedish and the other one, ”the Case of Gretchen”
where the subject, who also had English as her native language, made
conversations in German. These languages belong to the same language family,
i.e. the Germanic group. They are, therefore, related closely linguistically and have
many similarities in vocabulary and grammar. That is to say that these are easy
to be learned for those who have any of these as their native language.
Also, there was another case of responsive
xenoglossy, “the Case of Sharada”, where a woman whose native language was
Marathi spoke in fluent Bengali when her personality suddenly became transformed to
another one in the awake state. These two languages belong to the same language
family, i.e. the Indic group.
In conclusion, these three cases discovered by
Dr. Ian Stevenson can be stated as being responsive xenoglossy occurred between
the languages relatively close to each other.
Nepali is a very rare foreign language not
familiar to Japanese people. There are extremely few Japanese people who know
Nepali words and furthermore, when it comes to conversational skills in Nepali,
common Japanese people do not normally have any opportunity of learning it except
for those very limited groups of people such as diplomats, trading company
employees and researchers on Nepal.
Besides, it can be stated that there is
hardly any conversational school in Nepali other than in big cities. In the local city with its population of
500,000 where Risa lives, there is no facility where Nepali can be learned.
If Risa
had learned Nepali, it can be assumed that there is no other means to learn it than
by a several-years´ acquaintanceship with a friend who speaks Nepali.
In
previous times, it is said that NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Educational
TV broadcasted a course in Nepali, but the suspicion of Risa having learned
Nepali through this program can be excluded by her family´s testimony.
Taking all these into consideration, the value
of this Rataraju Case can be highly recognized in the point that the subject Risa
could make a conversation in Nepali, which linguistically has a huge distance from
her native language Japanese and is a “highly difficult language to learn” for
the subject compared to the other cases of responsive xenoglossy.
It is, of course, clarified that Risa has
never been to Nepal, never met any Nepalese or most of all, never learned
Nepali in her life by her testimony.
<To be
continue>
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