NHAJALCO, El Salvador, May 6 (IPS) – A group of children participating in an immersion program in Náhuat, the language of the Pipil people and the only remaining pre-Hispanic language in El Salvador, is the last hope for the language to disappear. become extinct
“These efforts aim to keep Náhuat alive, and that’s why we focus on children so they can continue and preserve this important part of our culture,” Elena López told IPS during a quick snack break for the preschoolers she teaches. “It is,” he said.
López is part of the Náhuat Cuna Project, which has worked since 2010 to preserve and revive endangered indigenous languages through early immersion. She is one of two teachers who teach English to children ages 3 to 5 at a preschool center in Nahuizalco, a municipality in El Salvador’s western Sonsonate state.
is in danger of disappearing
“When a language dies, so does the foundation of indigenous culture and territory,” says the Revitalization of Indigenous Languages report. According to this, all 500 Native American languages still spoken in Latin America are either threatened or threatened, to a greater or lesser extent. danger.
According to a study by the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC), 75 indigenous languages are spoken in Mesoamerica, which includes Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
Outside of Mexico, Guatemala is the most linguistically diverse of this group of countries, with 24 native languages. The most widely used is K’iche’, of Mayan origin, and the least used is Xinca, of unknown origin.
Brazil is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse country in Latin America, with 241 to 256 indigenous peoples and 150 to 186 languages.
The report warned that around 25% of these languages are at risk of extinction unless urgent action is taken. It is estimated that there are more than 50 million people in Latin America who identify themselves as indigenous people.
“These languages are losing their use value. Families are increasingly interfering with the natural intergenerational transmission of their elders’ languages, and there is a slow but certain process of moving towards a hegemonic language, with speakers primarily speaking Spanish or Portuguese. observed,” the report states.
The causes of the risk of losing these Native American languages are varied, the report notes, including disruption of intergenerational transmission when a language is no longer passed from generation to generation.
And this is exactly what the Náhuat Cuna Project aims to reverse by focusing on young children who receive the language from their parents and grandparents and can learn from fluent Náhuat speakers.
López is one of these people. She belongs to the last generation of speakers in her hometown of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, in the Sonsonate department, who naturally acquired the native language with her parents and grandparents from a very young age.
“I was born and raised that way, and we said it at home. And we didn’t stop saying it among our brothers and sisters, but not to people outside the home. Because they discriminated against us, they treated us like Indians. Derogatory. “It was said in a way, but we didn’t stop saying it,” Lopez, 65, said.
Indeed, racism and classism made the indigenous population an object of rejection and contempt not only from the political and economic elite, but also from the rest of the mestizo or mixed-race population. Spaniards began arriving in Latin America in the 16th century.
“They always ignored us and discriminated against us,” Elsa Cortez, 43, another teacher from Nahuizalco Náhuat Cuna, told IPS.
And she added: “I am satisfied and proud. Teaching my young children at my age is a luxury.”
Both López and Cortez said they had no previous teaching experience and were grateful that the project had hired them as teachers at a time when discrimination and social rejection, in addition to age discrimination, make it more difficult to find formal employment.
Before joining the project, Cortez worked full time making comales, circular clay griddles placed over a wood fire to cook corn tortillas. She also sells baked goods and continues to bake on weekends.
López also worked in making comales and preparing local dishes, which he sold around the neighborhood. Now she prefers to relax on weekends.
All is not lost
When IPS visited Náhuat Cuna kindergarten in Nahuizalco, 3-year-olds were playing sports. They stood in front of the remaining 10 kids and introduced themselves, giving their first name, last name, and other basic greetings. In Nawat.
Later they identified drawings of animals and natural elements such as “mistun” (cat), “qawit” (tree) and “xutxit” (flower) in Náhuat. The students began their first year at the center in February and will remain there for two years.
Five-year-olds made the most progress. The two groups combined had about 20 children.
At the end of their time in Cuna, they will go to regular schools in Spanish, with the risk of forgetting what they have learned. But to keep students connected to the language, the project offers Saturday classes where they begin learning grammar and how to write the language.
Starting at the very beginning of the project, we have a group of 15 young people (mainly girls) who speak the language fluently, some of whom we also teach online.
The initiative is promoted by Don Bosco University of El Salvador and supported by the municipalities of Nahuizalco and Santo Domingo de Guzmán, where they operate. The Santa Catarina Massaoua branch is also scheduled to reopen soon.
Jorge Lemus, director of El Salvador’s Nahuat/Pipil language revitalization program and a key promoter of the Nahuat Cuna project, told IPS that Santo Domingo de Guzman is home to 99 percent of the country’s small number of Nahuat speakers.
“For 30 years, I have seen how Nahuat has declined and how the people who speak it have died out.” emphasized Lemus, who is also a professor and researcher in linguistics at the Faculty of Language Education at Don Bosco University. , run by the Salesian Catholic organization.
According to academics, the last three indigenous languages of El Salvador in the 20th century were Lenca, Cacaopera, and Náhuat, but by the mid-20th century, the first two had disappeared and only the last language survived.
“The only thing that has survived is Náhuat, but barely, there are only about 60 people who speak this language. When I started working on this, there were about 200 and that number continues to decline,” Lemus said. .
He said the only way to keep a language alive is for new generations to learn it. However, someone who could learn Spanish as a second language and still use it would not be an adult. It should be a group of children who can learn as native speakers.
The expert said that although derived from the same language stem, the Nahuatl language spoken in El Salvador is not the same as the Nahuatl language spoken in Mexico and is actually spelled differently.
Mexico’s Nahuatl language has more than 1 million speakers in the Central Valley, he said.
In 1932 in El Salvador, the Pipil people stopped speaking their language in public for fear of being killed by General Maximiliano Hernández’s government forces, which brutally suppressed an indigenous and peasant uprising demanding better living conditions.
At the time, society was dominated by aristocratic families dedicated to coffee cultivation, and their production system plunged large parts of El Salvador into poverty, especially the peasants and indigenous people.
Remus argued that for a language to make a decisive comeback and become a means of everyday communication would require a massive effort by the state, similar to the revival of Basque in Spain, Maori in New Zealand, or even Hebrew in Israel. It was already a dead language.
But that won’t happen in El Salvador, he said.
“The most realistic thing we want to achieve is to prevent the language from disappearing and allow new generations of Nahuat speakers to grow and thrive. If there are 60 speakers today, in a few years there will be 50 or so. “We expect 60 speakers from this new generation to continue talking about this in the community,” he said.
López wants to continue working toward this goal to leave his legacy in this country.
The kindergarten teacher said this in Nahuat: “I really love teaching this language because I don’t want it to die. I want my children to be able to learn and speak it even after I die.”
© Interpress Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Interpress Service
