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NAHUIZALCO, El Salvador, Could 06 (IPS) – A bunch of youngsters collaborating in an immersion program in Náhuat, the language of the Pipil individuals and the one remaining pre-Hispanic language in El Salvador, are the final hope that the language is not going to die out.
“This effort goals to maintain Náhuat alive and that’s the reason we concentrate on the youngsters, for them to proceed and protect this vital a part of our tradition,” Elena López instructed IPS throughout a brief snack break for the preschoolers she teaches.
López is a part of the Náhuat Cuna undertaking, which since 2010 has sought to protect and revive the endangered indigenous language by early immersion. She is considered one of two lecturers who educate it to kids between the ages of three and 5 at a preschool middle in Nahuizalco, a municipality within the division of Sonsonate in western El Salvador.
Liable to disappearing
“When a language dies, the idea of indigenous cultures and territories turns into extinct with it,” says the report Revitalization of Indigenous Languages, in line with which the five hundred Amerindian languages nonetheless spoken in Latin America are all in a state of affairs of better or lesser risk or danger.
In Mesoamerica, which incorporates Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, 75 indigenous languages are spoken, says the research by the Fund for the Growth of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC).
Excluding Mexico, Guatemala is essentially the most linguistically numerous on this group of nations, with 24 native languages. Essentially the most broadly spoken is Okay’iche’, of Mayan origin, and the least is Xinca, of unknown origin.
Brazil is essentially the most ethnically and linguistically numerous nation in Latin America, with between 241 and 256 indigenous peoples and between 150 and 186 languages.
Round 25 p.c of those languages are liable to extinction except one thing is urgently carried out, the report warns. It’s estimated that Latin America is house to greater than 50 million individuals who self-identify as indigenous.
“These languages are dropping their utilization worth…households are more and more interrupting the pure intergenerational transmission of the languages of their elders, and a sluggish however certain means of transferring in direction of the hegemonic language is noticed, with audio system making Spanish or Portuguese their predominant language of use,” the report states.
The causes of the hazard of the disappearance of those Amerindian languages are diversified, the report factors out, such because the interruption of intergenerational transmission, when the language is not handed on from era to era.
And that’s precisely what the Náhuat Cuna undertaking goals to revert by specializing in younger kids, who can study from Náhuat audio system who did obtain the language from their mother and father and grandparents and communicate it fluently.
López is considered one of these individuals. She belongs to the final era of audio system who acquired it naturally, as a mom tongue, talking it from a really younger age together with her mother and father and grandparents, in her native Santo Domingo de Guzmán, additionally within the division of Sonsonate.
“That is how I used to be born and grew up, talking it at house. And we by no means stopped talking it, amongst my sisters and brothers, however not with individuals outdoors the home, as a result of they discriminated towards us, they handled us as Indians however in a derogatory manner, however we by no means stopped talking it,” mentioned Lopez, 65.
Certainly, for causes of racism and classism, indigenous populations have been marked by rejection and contempt not solely from the political and financial elites, but in addition by the remainder of the mestizo or mixed-race inhabitants, which resulted from the combination of indigenous individuals with the Spaniards who began arriving in Latin America within the sixteenth century.
“They’ve at all times appeared down on us, they’ve discriminated towards us,” Elsa Cortez, 43, the opposite trainer on the Nahuizalco Náhuat Cuna, instructed IPS.
And she or he added: “I really feel glad and proud, at my age it’s a luxurious to show our little ones.”
Each López and Cortez mentioned they had been grateful that the undertaking employed them as lecturers, since that they had no prior educating expertise, and in a context by which discrimination and social rejection, along with ageism, make it harder to search out formal employment.
Earlier than becoming a member of the undertaking, Cortez labored full time making comales, that are round clay griddles which can be positioned over a wooden fireplace to cook dinner corn tortillas. She additionally bought baked items, and continues to bake bread on weekends.
López additionally labored making comales and making ready native dishes, which she bought in her neighborhood. Now she prefers to relaxation on the weekends.
All is just not misplaced
When IPS visited the Náhuat Cuna preschool in Nahuizalco, the three-year-olds had been performing an train: they stood in entrance of the remainder of the category of about ten kids and launched themselves by saying their first title, final title and different primary greetings in Náhuat.
Later they recognized, in Náhuat, footage of animals and parts of nature, equivalent to “mistun” (cat), “qawit” (tree) and “xutxit” (flower). The scholars began their first yr within the middle in February, and can spend two years there.
The five-year-olds are essentially the most superior. Collectively, the 2 teams totaled about twenty kids.
On the finish of their time on the Cuna, they’ll go to common faculty in Spanish, with the danger that they’ll neglect what they’ve discovered. Nevertheless, to maintain them linked to the language, the undertaking gives Saturday programs the place they start to study grammar and the right way to write the language.
There’s a group of 15 youngsters, largely women, who began originally of the undertaking and communicate the language fluently, and a few even educate it on-line.
The initiative is promoted by the Don Bosco University of El Salvador, and supported by the municipalities the place they function, in Nahuizalco and Santo Domingo de Guzmán. The Santa Catarina Masahuat department can even be reopened quickly.
Santo Domingo de Guzmán is house to 99 p.c of the nation’s few Náhuat audio system, who quantity round 60 individuals, Jorge Lemus, director of El Salvador’s Náhuat/Pipil Language Revitalization Program and important promoter of the Náhuat Cuna undertaking, instructed IPS.
“In three a long time I’ve seen how Náhuat has been in decline, and the way the individuals who communicate it have been dying out,” harassed Lemus, who can also be a professor and researcher of linguistics on the College of Languages and Schooling at Don Bosco College, run by the Salesian Catholic order.
In accordance with the tutorial, the final three indigenous languages in El Salvador within the twentieth century had been Lenca, Cacaopera and Náhuat, however the first two disappeared by the center of that century, and solely the final one survives.
“The one one which has survived is Náhuat, however barely, as there are maybe simply 60 audio system of the language. After I began engaged on this there have been about 200 and the quantity continues to shrink,” mentioned Lemus.
The one technique to preserve the language alive, he mentioned, is for a brand new era to choose it up. Nevertheless it is not going to be adults, who might study it as a second language however will proceed talking Spanish; it have to be a gaggle of youngsters who can study it as native audio system.
The skilled clarified that, though they arrive from the identical linguistic trunk, the Náhuat spoken in El Salvador is just not the identical because the Nahuatl spoken in Mexico, and in reality the spelling is totally different.
In Mexico, Nahuatl has a couple of million audio system within the Central Valley, he mentioned.
In El Salvador, in 1932, the Pipil individuals stopped talking their language in public for worry of being killed by the federal government forces of Common Maximiliano Hernández, who that yr brutally cracked down on an indigenous and peasant rebellion demanding higher dwelling circumstances.
At the moment, society was dominated by aristocratic households devoted to espresso cultivation, whose manufacturing system plunged a big a part of Salvadorans, particularly peasants and indigenous individuals, into poverty.
Lemus argued that for a language to make a decisive comeback and develop into a automobile for on a regular basis communication would require a titanic effort by the State, much like the revival of the Basque language in Spain, Maori in New Zealand and even Israel’s resuscitation of Hebrew, which was already a useless language.
However that’s not going to occur in El Salvador, he mentioned.
“Essentially the most reasonable factor we need to obtain is to maintain the language from disappearing, and for the brand new era of Náhuat-speaking individuals to develop and multiply. If we’ve got 60 audio system now, in a couple of years we’ll hopefully nonetheless have 50 or 60 audio system, from this new era, and they’ll preserve it alive within the communities and proceed talking it,” he mentioned.
For her half, López needs to proceed working in direction of this purpose with a purpose to depart the nation her legacy.
Talking in Náhuat, the preschool trainer mentioned: “I actually like educating this language as a result of I do not need it to die, I would like the youngsters to study and communicate it when I’m useless.”
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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