Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers, Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada (Eds.

)
Language Documentation and Revitalization in Latin American Contexts


Trends in Linguistics
Studies and Monographs

Editor
Volker Gast

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Jan Terje Faarlund
Hans Henrich Hock
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Amir Zeldes
Niina Ning Zhang

Editor responsible for this volume

Volker Gast

Volume 295


Language
Documentation and
Revitalization in Latin
American Contexts
Edited by
Gabriela Pérez Báez
Chris Rogers
Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada


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Table of contents
Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada
1 Introduction   1

Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

2 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in
Brazil   29

Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

3 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous
languages of Mexico   59

Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro
4 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of
Mexico   81

Rosa Yáñez Rosales, Dana Kristine Nelson, Melissa Niño Santana,

Rodrigo Parra Gutiérrez, Paulina Lamas Oliva, Agustín Vega Torres and
Rocío Rojas Arias
5 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities: The case of two Nahua
communities in the south of Jalisco State, Mexico   109

Rosa Vallejos
6 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization: Documenting
variation among the Kukama-Kukamirias   143

Gabriela Pérez Báez

7 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities and
researchers’ language maintenance interests   165

Liliana Sánchez
8 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations: Sharing cultural
and linguistic knowledge in South America   195

Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull,

Ditte Boeg Thomsen
9 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation: Navigating
the micro-politics of language revitalization in an Otomí community in
Mexico   215
vi   Table of contents

Chris Rogers
10 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and
revitalization: Addressing the motivations in the Xinkan community   247

Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

11 Language documentation in two communities with high migration
rates   273

Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and

Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna
12 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization: A look at
the Mayangna languages of Nicaragua   305

Index   345
Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and
Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

1 Introduction

1 Overview
There has been a significant increase in the concern for and awareness about
endangered languages within the field of linguistics. The responses to this social
and linguistic issue fall into one of three categories: (1) language documentation
in order to preserve these languages for scientific study and linguistic analysis;
(2) language revitalization in order to expand the domains of use of a language
through language planning programs, projects, and activities; and (3) the inves-
tigation of the causes and consequences of endangerment and the typological
classification of endangered languages. An overarching theme common to these
responses has been the development and use of ethical and methodological best
practices for collaborating with language communities. All of these responses
are significant and meaningful to language communities and scholars. However,
the discussion and outcomes, including recommendations for best practices,
are focused on widely-known language communities and sociolinguistic con-
texts in North America, Australia, Europe, or New Zealand (see Austin and Sal-
labank 2011; Brenzinger 2007; Crippen and Robinson 2013; Crystal 2000; Erring-
ton 2003; Fishman 1991; Gippert, Himmelmann, and Mosel 2006; Grenoble and
Furbee 2010; Grenoble and Whaley 1998, 2006; Harrison, Rood, and Dwyer 2008;
Hinton and Hale 2001; Krauss 1992; Moseley 2010; Nettle and Romaine 2000; Pen-
field et al. 2008; Rice 2006, 2012; and Whaley 2011; inter alia). Literature that
focuses on Latin American issues is scant. In particular, before the publication
of this volume, there have been no book-length works examining – through case
studies – the practicalities and methodologies of language documentation and
language maintenance/revitalization with an exclusive focus on Latin American
contexts. Other case-study book-length volumes on language documentation and
language maintenance/revitalization examine the topics dealt with in this volume
but the number of chapters that focus on projects carried out in Latin America is
limited or non-existent. For instance, only two out of 21 contributions in Greno-

Gabriela Pérez Báez, Smithsonian Institution

Chris Rogers, Brigham Young University
Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada, University of British Columbia
2   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

ble and Furbee (2010) are devoted to Latin American languages. In comparison,
there are five contributions on US Native American languages, and the bulk of
the contributions is from researchers whose research is based in the US, Canada
or Australia. There are no Latin American case studies in early publications such
as Hinton and Hale (2001) nor are there any in more recent publications such as
Haig et al. (2011). Thus, there is a need to make broadly available a wider set of
case studies on language documentation and revitalization experiences in other
parts of the world as do, for example, Franchetto and Rice (2014), Cruz and Wood-
bury (2014) and Stenzel (2014), among others. It is to this end that the 11 case
studies presented in this volume describe, compare, and contrast language docu-
mentation and/or revitalization experiences throughout Latin America in light of
the previously published information.
Language documentation and revitalization in communities in Latin America
is characterized by a number of unique factors (see below) that must be consid-
ered in order for the responses to language endangerment in the region to be
appropriate, meaningful, or effective. These characteristics are the result of a
high level of linguistic diversity, varying levels of social and political develop-
ment, and a diverse set of cultural practices. For example, Latin America is home
to over 100 distinct language families whose languages are spoken in commu-
nities of all sizes (ranging from millions of speakers on the one hand to a single
speaker on the other). Some of these languages are official languages in the coun-
tries where they are spoken (e.g., Guaraní, Quechua, Aymara) while most others
are scarcely recognized by their national governments. In conjunction with this,
many language communities, despite desiring to document and revitalize their
languages, do not have the social, political, or economic infrastructure in place
to support language planning projects. In other cases, communities may not per-
ceive their languages as endangered because social and cultural practices mask
the signs of ongoing language shift. When considered altogether, this means that
expectations and best practices for language documentation and revitalization
in Latin America are different from the ones outlined in sources such as those
cited above. It is consequently clear that addressing these differences can help in
developing better responses to the global concern for language endangerment.
In order to show how these differences affect the practice of language docu-
mentation and revitalization, each chapter in this volume presents a case study
highlighting one or more of the factors representative of the situation. These case
studies were originally presented and discussed in a special panel at the 2013
Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of the Languages of the Americas
in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America. This special panel high-
lighted a number of issues and challenges for community members, scholars,
and researchers working with communities in Latin America, which present a
Introduction   3

unique context for responding to language endangerment. These can be summa-

rized into the following list of factors:
– High levels of linguistic and dialectal diversity
– Lack of social, political, and/or economic resources
– Lack of infrastructure to support language planning projects, programs, and
activities
– Community perception of documentation and/or revitalization projects and
engagement in them
– Community expectations as to the outcomes for language documentation
and revitalization
– Response to and acceptance of ethical behavior prescribed by the field of lin-
guistics
– Geographic distance and terrain, and geopolitical borders

Each of these factors was present in two or more situations discussed in the
special panel and are thus discussed here in the different chapters. However, we
certainly do not claim that this list is exhaustive, as we expect further research
and discussions to refine this list both for Latin America and elsewhere. This is
especially true because we acknowledge that this list represents macro-factors
that, upon close examination, encompass a number of smaller issues that need to
be evaluated and understood in light of a broader discussion on language endan-
germent, documentation, and revitalization. For example, infrastructure encom-
passes local and national support as well as a correlation to individual motiva-
tion. Nevertheless, as a whole, the set of case studies presented here support our
claim that the response to language endangerment in communities throughout
Latin America is different from that suggested or expected in more widely known
discussions and publications. It is hoped that the broad geographic, linguistic
and cultural representation of the cases discussed in this volume make it as rel-
evant as possible to a broad audience of those interested in language documen-
tation and revitalization in Latin American contexts and to those interested in
improving language documentation and revitalization approaches at a global
level.
To achieve our purpose this book is organized as follows. The remainder
of this chapter is devoted to characterizing the factors mentioned above and
to showing how they represent a unique context for Latin American language
communities. First, the linguistic background and geographical delimitations
of Latin America are discussed in Section 2; the purpose being to provide the
necessary background for evaluating the information presented throughout this
volume. Then, in Section 3, a detailed comparison of the relevant factors in and
outside of Latin America is presented, with cross-references to each individual
4   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

chapter providing specific evidence. The remaining eleven chapters of this book
represent case studies that discuss specific language scenarios in many individ-
ual political and geographical settings. Collectively these case studies represent
the complexity of the issues for language endangerment in Latin America and the
implications for methodologies and best practices for responding to this global
issue in the region.

2 The linguistic background of Latin America

The scarcity of case studies on language documentation and revitalization in
Latin America is in stark contrast with the large number of languages and lan-
guage families of the region. It is important to understand this diversity, as it is a
motivating force behind the trend of increasing linguistic field research. It is also
often an important factor to consider as part of a language revitalization strategy.
Revitalization, in turn, is an important concern in Latin America given the high
degree of endangerment found in the area. We focus on these two points, diver-
sity and endangerment, in this section, prior to discussing linguistic diversity in
Section 3.1 as a factor worthy of consideration.
Linguistic diversity is high in Latin America with concentrations of numerous
dialectal varieties or even mutually unintelligible and/or genetically unrelated
languages in small geographic areas. South America in particular is the geo-
graphic region with the greatest genetic diversity in languages – defined as the
number of language families – in the world (see Campbell and Grondona 2012).
Overall, given the 420 language families (including isolates) in the world (Camp-
bell 2012; Hammarström 2010), Mexico, Central and South America combined
are home to about a third of the world’s language families. Similarly, many (if
not most) of the languages spoken in Latin American countries are endangered
to various degrees and despite best efforts there is no consistent, or accepted,
language vitality typology which represents the many social and political factors
involved. Both of these issues are discussed in the present section, in turn.

2.1 Number of languages

Quantification of the number of languages spoken in Mexico alone has chal-

lenged language documenters for centuries and debate continues over the status
of linguistic systems throughout Latin America as languages or dialects. Various
attempts at this have been undertaken throughout the post-colonial history of
Introduction   5

the country (cf. Longacre 1967; Kaufman 1974; Suárez 1983; and INALI 2008;
inter alia). Garza Cuarón and Lastra (1991) summarize some of these efforts
and provide an inventory of 65 languages from ten different language families
in addition to languages known to have disappeared since colonial times. The
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI, ‘National Institute of Indigenous
Languages’) produced an extensive Catalog of Indigenous National Languages
(INALI 2008) listing 364 language varieties belonging to 68 language groups from
the following 11 language families with at least one language spoken in Mexico:
Algic, Uto-Aztecan, Cochimí-Yuman, Seri, Otomanguean, Mayan, Totonac-Tepe-
hua, Tarascan, Mixe-Zoquean, Tequistlatec-Jicaque and Huave. The Ethnologue
(Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2014)1 lists 282 living languages for Mexico.
More broadly, Campbell (1998) lists ten language families (groupings of two
or more) and seven isolates for Middle America (i.e., Central America and the Car-
ibbean). In addition to these, Campbell indicates that there are over 100 unclas-
sified extinct “languages” (1998: 169) documented in historical sources. Some of
the latter may be alternate names for extant languages but it is likely that indeed a
large number of languages have disappeared since 1492. As in Mexico, the actual
number of individual languages in this region is hard to estimate because of the
unclear status of some speech varieties as either separate languages or dialects
of a common language and because of the number of languages that have lost
their speakers in the last five centuries. For example, McQuown (1955) lists 351
languages for Mexico and Central America. The Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons, and
Fennig 2014)2 lists 43 extant languages in Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicara-
gua, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Panama combined; an additional 23 are listed
for the Caribbean. Glottolog (Hammarstrőm et al. 2015)3 lists 723 languages for
Middle America, the US and Canada without distinguishing between them.
Linguistic diversity in South America is the greatest in the world given the
large number of distinct language families (not the absolute number of distinct
languages). Crevels (2012: 167) offers summarized estimates on indigenous pop-
ulations and number of indigenous languages for South America by country,
amounting to a total of 420 languages. Campbell (2012) mentions 108 language
families of which 53 have at least two member languages and 55 are isolates. Of
the 53 families, 43 are small and comprised of six or less languages. The number
of individual languages is again hard to determine but Campbell (2012) coincides

1 Accessed online at http://www.ethnologue.com/country/MX on November 6, 2014.

2 Accessed online at http://www.ethnologue.com/region/CAM and http://www.ethnologue.
com/region/CAR on November 6, 2014.
3 Accessed online at http://glottolog.org/glottolog/language on September 3, 2015.
6   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

with Crevels and gives 420 as his estimate of currently-spoken languages. The
Ethnologue lists 458 languages for South America (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig
2014).4 Glottolog lists 645 for South America (Hammarstrőm et al. 2015).5 The
country with the highest number of languages in the region is by far Brazil; Moore
and Galucio (Chapter 2, this volume)6 expand on this matter through firsthand
experience in the challenge of developing an inventory of linguistic diversity in
Brazil.
Undoubtedly the figures for the entire region of Latin America will continue
to change as language shift continues and as new language groups are defined
and accepted. However, it is clear that in the context of language endangerment,
linguistic diversity must be considered as a factor for the reasons explained below
in Section 3.1.

2.2 Language endangerment in Latin America

Many of the languages spoken in Latin American countries are endangered to

various degrees. Although it is difficult to obtain language vitality data for the
entire region, there are online resources that provide some meaningful statistics.
The Catalog of Endangered Languages (ELCat) provides endangerment levels
for 731 endangered languages in Central and South America, including Mexico,
based on four criteria: Intergenerational Transmission, Absolute Number of
Speakers, Speaker Number Trends, and Domains of Use of the Language.7 Table 1
provides the counts of languages in each category. There are 34 languages that do
not have an endangerment status assigned.8

4 Accessed online at http://www.ethnologue.com/region/SAM on November 6, 2014.

5 Accessed online at http://glottolog.org/glottolog/language on September 3, 2015.
6 References to specific chapters in this volume are made by placing the authors’ last names in
italics. The chapter number accompanies the first mention but not subsequent ones.
7 Report generated from http://www.endangeredlanguages.com on November 12, 2014.
8 We are most grateful to Dr. Lyle Campbell and the staff of The Endangered Languages Project
for providing us with this report generated from the ELCat EMu system.
Introduction   7

Tab. 1: Vitality counts and characterizations according to ELCat

Vitality No. of
�languages

Dormant No known L1 speakers 30

Critically Endangered Under 10 elder speakers, rapid shift in few domains 70
Severely Endangered 10–99 adult speakers, rapid shift in limited domains 58
Endangered 100–999 adult speakers, few child speakers, rapid 146
shift in expanded domains
Threatened 1,000–9,999 adult speakers, few child speakers in 216
local domains
Vulnerable 10,000–99,999 adult and child speakers, limited 132
shift in many domains
At Risk Large numbers of speakers but domains of use are 45
unknown
Safe Large numbers of speakers in a wide range of domains 0
Unknown 34

In comparison, the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2014)9 classifies lan-
guages along the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS),
which includes classifications of languages on 13 different levels. This informa-
tion can be summarized using the classifications listed in Table 2. These classifi-
cations include national languages like English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Three
subregions of Latin America are distinguished according to these labels: Central
America (including Mexico), the Caribbean and South America.

9 Accessed online at http://www.ethnologue.com/region/SAM on November 6, 2014.

8   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

Tab. 2: Vitality counts and characterizations according to Ethnologue

No. of languages

Vitality Central Caribbean South

America America

Institutional Large speaker base in many domains 14 3 18

Developing Large speaker base in many domains 106 4 109
with growing literacy
Vigorous Large speaker base of adults and 77 10 57
�children, but in restricted domains
In Trouble Average speaker base with rapid shift 87 3 135
Dying Limited speaker base with extremely 41 3 139
rapid shift, including complete shift

The linguistic diversity and the various classifications of endangerment in Latin

America have motivated many attempts to clarify the situation and to document
the individual languages. In the last 10 years, the three major funding agencies
for language documentation have awarded a number of projects. The Dokumen-
tation bedrohter Sprachen (DOBES) program has funded two projects in Mexico
(Chontal, Lacandón) and 14 projects in South America that included 24 languages.
Among these projects are the People of the Center project, which documented
five languages, the Aikanã/Kwaza project which documented two languages, and
the Chaco project which documented four languages. The Endangered Language
Documentation Programme (ELDP) funded 31 projects in Central America and 33
projects in South America between 2006 and 2013. The Endangered Languages
Archive (ELAR) website lists 23 documentation projects in Mexico alone.10 In
Brazil, Moore and Galucio report that DOBES funded nine documentation pro-
jects while ELDP supported 22 projects. According to Franchetto and Rice (2014:
253), the National Science Foundation Documenting Endangered Languages
Program (NSF-DEL) has funded projects on some 23 Central American languages
and 21 South American languages. Franchetto and Rice (2014: 254) also report
that the Endangered Language Fund (ELF) funded around 30 projects in Latin
America between 1996 and 2012. The need for linguistic research and attention
to the language endangerment problem in Latin America requires an improved
understanding of the factors affecting documentation and revitalization, espe-
cially given that these endeavors are often funded by entities based outside the

10 Endangered Languages Archive website accessed at http://elar.soas.ac.uk/

deposit-list-by-country on November 7, 2014.
Introduction   9

region. We thus turn to the factors that have been identified by the contributors
to this volume.

3 Language documentation and revitalization in

Latin America
The purpose of this section is to provide a detailed comparison of the relevant
factors for language documentation and revitalization in and out of Latin America.
This comparison is supported by cross-references to individual chapters in this
volume, which exemplify the differences between widely known responses to lan-
guage endangerment and those required in Latin American communities. Each
of the factors that have emerged from the ongoing discussions among all of the
authors and the editors (and introduced in Section 1 above) is discussed in turn.

3.1 Linguistic diversity and language endangerment in Latin

America

Linguistic diversity in the context of documentation and revitalization presents

special challenges. It has already been mentioned that the mere distinction
between dialects and languages is a matter of debate. Moore and Galucio present
a specific discussion about the difficulty of ascertaining the number of languages
spoken in Brazil. The authors explain how this problem plays out in the Brazilian
context and they question the liberal use of a figure of 180 languages spoken in
Brazil despite there being no tangible evidence to back this figure. The authors
cite Moore, Galucio, and Gabas (2008) as an attempt at arriving at a more reliable
count of 150 indigenous Brazilian languages. They go further to explain that the
assignment of language terms is problematic because the practice of language
documentation is relatively recent in Brazil and the classification practices are
still being developed. These complications are common in regions of high lin-
guistic diversity.
Beyond quantification, linguistic diversity presents challenges in revitali-
zation practices that can be quite specific. O’Meara and González Guadarrama
(Chapter 3, this volume) describe the case of the community of San Mateo Almo-
moloa in Central Mexico, where two attempts at teaching Nahuatl failed because
the teachers were not speakers of the local varieties of Nahuatl. In one case, the
strategies implemented by a teacher who was a speaker of a variety spoken in
the state of Guerrero in western Mexico were seen with suspicion. In a second
10   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

attempt, classes were not well attended because the teacher was not a speaker of
the local Nahuatl variety.
Yáñez Rosales et al. (Chapter 5, this volume) explain that the participation in
language reclamation activities by speakers of varieties of Nahuatl that are dif-
ferent from those historically spoken in the communities with which they work
has enabled advances towards meeting the goals of their language reclamation
project; this participation, however, initially faced rejection and criticism. In their
case study, the authors describe the process through which the communities of
Tuxpan and Ayotitlán in the western Mexican state of Jalisco have attempted to
reclaim Nahuatl varieties of the Western Periphery. These two communities no
longer have fluent speakers and the documentation of their respective varieties is
limited, as in the case of Tuxpan, or non-existent, as in the case of Ayotitlán. Both
communities have created bilingual school programs aimed at language recla-
mation. In both cases, the Nahuatl-speaking teachers were from the La Huasteca
region in the states of Hidalgo and Veracruz, rather than speakers of the local
Nahuatl variety. In both cases, there was initial criticism about the involvement of
teachers who were speakers of varieties other than the local ones. The lack of an
alternative made the criticism subside over time and the teachers continue to be
part of the reclamation process. Their involvement then lends special characteris-
tics to the reclamation process. In the case of Tuxpan, for instance, the drafting of
a dictionary involves the documentation of a lexicon from the different varieties
of Nahuatl spoken by the teachers.
Linguistic diversity is discussed in other papers in this volume in different
ways; yet all convey the importance of it for understanding the uniqueness of
language communities. Both the Otomí case in Pharao Hansen et al. (Chapter 9,
this volume) and the San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec case in Pérez Báez (Chapter 7,
this volume) are unique cases within the large and diverse families of Otomí lan-
guages and Zapotec languages, respectively. What applies to each of these two
communities cannot necessarily be taken as representative of the larger set of
Otomí and Zapotec speaking communities since sociocultural contexts, language
vitality and other characteristics will vary from one community to the next as
much as the languages may be distinct. Even in shallow and less diverse fam-
ilies such as the Chatino family, language communities can vary significantly.
Villard and Sullivant (Chapter 11, this volume) place the Tataltepec and Zacate-
pec Chatino case studies within the context of three recognized Chatino lan-
guages with significant structural differences and vitality situations, Tataltepec
and Zacatepec being two of the most highly endangered Chatino languages. The
Kukama-Kukamiria case in Vallejos (Chapter 6, this volume) addresses diversity
within a language community and shows that the level of fluency in a language
may change the structural characteristics of it, but not the value of revitalization
Introduction   11

and documentation projects. Given this diversity, much is required in the way
of resources and infrastructure in order to adequately document the myriad lan-
guages of Latin America and in order to carry out the work in a manner that is
appropriate for each language community.

3.2 Resources, infrastructure and language endangerment in

Latin America

Community-internal resources generally range from limited to non-existent in

Latin American societies, most of which are dependent on subsistence agricul-
ture, hunter-gathering, or small-scale trade and services. State and federal11
resources, if available, are generally very limited and not efficiently administered.
The chapters in this volume provide numerous case studies where the quest for
resources has been pivotal for documentation and revitalization endeavors.
Specifically, in contexts of high linguistic diversity as in the case of Mexico,
Guatemala, or Brazil, language documentation is paramount as part of the
process of quantifying the diversity of a country. As such, the funding required
to conduct adequate language documentation can be overwhelmingly high. In
cases where such funding is missing domestically, researchers may be required
to seek funding from foreign sources. This strategy is not without impact and can
be beneficial and at the same time be the cause of complications as described in
Moore and Galucio. In their chapter, the authors explain that the international
sources of funding for the extensive documentation needed for the languages in
Brazil has been a cause of tension among Brazilian researchers. At the same time,
however, the efforts to document Brazilian languages including the search for
funding outside the country has increased the visibility of the country’s indig-
enous languages and prompted national initiatives that gave way to the locally
developed and funded Projeto de Documentação de Línguas Indígenas (PRODOC-
LIN, ‘Indigenous Languages Documentation Project’) which began in 2006 under
the direction of Brazilian linguist Bruna Franchetto.
Resources needed for documentation and revitalization may include tele-
communications technology and infrastructure, the availability of which cannot
be taken for granted in a substantial number of Latin American communities.
O’Meara and González Guadarrama illustrate the complications related to the

11 The words “federal” and “state” are used here as cover terms for “nation/country” and for
“largest political division inside a country”, respectively. Therefore, these words can refer to dif-
ferent entities in different countries.
12   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

implementation of the directive that primary data must be returned to the source
community, as advocated for in Austin (2006), Bowden and Hajek (2006), and
Dwyer (2006), among others. O’Meara and González Guadarrama contrast the
large established language archives with incipient archiving efforts in Mexican
indigenous communities. The authors first describe the planning and infrastruc-
ture behind the creation of the Northeastern North American Languages Archive
(NNAILA), the Ahtna Regional Linguistic and Ethnographic Archive (Berez, Fin-
nesand, and Linnell 2012), and archives of South American languages supported
by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (see Seifart et al. 2008). Subse-
quently, they describe the situation in their field sites: the Nahuatl community
of San Mateo Almomoloa in central Mexico and the Seri community of El Desem-
boque in northwest Mexico. In both cases, Internet connectivity is not available
in a manner that would enable community members to freely and easily consult
online archives of the type mentioned above. As such, the researchers sought to
develop jukebox-type archives so that the data physically resides in the commu-
nity. In San Mateo Almomoloa, the lack of a physical space to house an archive,
compounded with a lack of social trust and complex interactions with the local
government, made for a difficult delivery of research data to the community. A
compromise was reached to allow for a language archive to reside in a school, but
the arrangement was not optimal. In the Seri community of El Desemboque, the
school setting was deemed inadequate given that the school system is govern-
ment-run and that the teachers are not Seri speakers. As such, the only arrange-
ment to date is to make the data available one-on-one to community members
who express an interest in accessing it. Both of these cases highlight the frequent
situation encountered in Latin American contexts where infrastructure as basic
as a space to house a computer or adequate Internet connectivity is lacking,
making it very difficult, if not impossible, for the data to be returned effectively
to a community. Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna (Chapter
12, this volume) also indicate that certain resources such as Internet access are
available only in urban centers. As such, access to these resources by residents of
rural communities is dependent on their community’s proximity to those urban
centers.
An important issue to consider in Latin American contexts is that while
resources may exist, both domestically and internationally; access to them
might be contingent upon a working knowledge of a dominant language such as
Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese or English. This is especially the case for online lan-
guage archives whose interface might be in a dominant language, and sometimes
in a dominant language that is not the national language that a specific Latin
American community might speak. Consider the institutional archives described
in O’Meara and González Guadarrama, which are online and require language
Introduction   13

proficiency in Spanish and Internet connectivity as a condition for accessing any

materials of interest. Similarly, access to conferences, training and other educa-
tional opportunities might require knowledge of a dominant national or interna-
tional language. This is obviously quite problematic for monolingual speakers of
indigenous Latin American languages but even bilingual speakers do not have
access to resources and exchange opportunities such as most US-based confer-
ences and training opportunities delivered in other languages (such as English).
In cases of high endangerment levels where few speakers are left, or in cases
where only reclamation rather than revitalization is an option, a critical resource
is basic documentation of the language in question. This basic documentation
is oftentimes also lacking. Yáñez Rosales et al. describe the reclamation efforts
of Nahua communities in Jalisco where a lack of documentation has required
that those interested in language reclamation resort to resources on related lan-
guages rather than the local Nahuatl varieties which no longer have speakers. As
mentioned earlier, this has required community members to work with speakers
of other Nahuatl varieties as language contributors in language documentation
efforts aimed at creating language resources for the community engaged in the
reclamation process.
Another critical resource identified in various chapters in this volume relates
to the community-based social and intellectual resources needed to foster a sus-
tainable collaboration. These types of resources allow the community to benefit
from a research project and might enable the researcher to be involved in a col-
laborative language revitalization effort in a meaningful way. Villard and Sulli-
vant describe the impact of short cycles in the local administration which hamper
the sustainability of their work and explain that the involvement of community
members in the local sweat equity practices prevented the development of any
mid- to long-term collaborative endeavors. This included the sustained partici-
pation of individuals in research projects. Pérez Báez reports a similar problem
with the three-year rotating cycles of the teachers’ tenures in the San Lucas Quia-
viní preschool, which makes long-term project goals difficult to sustain. O’Meara
and González Guadarrama also report complications in sustaining, over time,
the arrangements made for a local language archive intended to make linguistic
research data available to the wide community; these complications are the result
of the cyclical change of local government officials. These authors also explain
how a lack of generalized trust in language documentation endeavors prevent
these from evolving and growing to the point where they can have a positive
impact towards language revitalization. Yáñez Rosales et al. report similar issues
faced by a revitalization initiative in a Jalisco Nahua community as a result of
school administration turnover. The San Jerónimo Acazulco Otomí case described
in Pharao Hansen et al. shows the social tensions that can ensue when there is no
14   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

one linguistic authority in the community that can validate the documentation
efforts led by the researchers as well as the revitalization efforts led by commu-
nity members themselves. In all cases, a critical element of social infrastructure
is lacking and hampers best efforts to carry out long term documentation and
revitalization as prescribed in best practices in linguistics.
Various chapters describe scenarios where community members interested in
language teaching lack the necessary training to do so effectively. Santos García,
Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro (Chapter 4, this volume) report that the
Wixárika community of El Colorín in the state of Nayarit, Mexico does not have
teachers in its school system who are speakers of the local language despite the
fact that federal law guarantees mother-tongue education. On the flip side, cases
are found where those who have the necessary teacher training are not the most
proficient speakers of the target language or are not speakers of it at all. Vallejos
presents an evidence-based discussion showing how the language of speakers of
Kukama-Kukamiria with different levels of fluency is substantially different from
the language of fluent L1 speakers. The author documents the structural differ-
ences between fluent speakers and latent-speakers and discusses the language
change patterns that might emerge through the participation of latent-speakers
as role models in language classrooms. This points to the impact that the partici-
pation of speakers other than fluent L1 speakers can have in a process of language
revitalization. This is an issue relevant to the case presented in Pharao Hansen
et al. where, of the three community members who were interested in revitali-
zation, only one had teacher training but only passive knowledge of the target
Otomí language. It is common in Mexico to see trained teachers who are speakers
of an indigenous language placed as teachers in a community where a different
language variety or even an altogether different language is spoken. O’Meara and
González Guadarrama describe the negative attitudes by members of the San
Mateo Almomoloa community towards teachers in the local schools who were
from outside the community and were speakers of a variety of Nahuatl that is dif-
ferent from the one spoken locally. Pérez Báez describes that most work towards
sustaining the use of San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec was made possible by the inter-
est and dedication of two teachers in the local pre-school. These highly compe-
tent, trained teachers were Zapotec speakers. However, they were not speakers of
the local Zapotec variety. So while they were interested and personally engaged in
revitalization, their ability to engage in literacy efforts was hampered.
These scenarios contrast significantly with the situation described in Bene-
dicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna for Nicaragua where constitu-
tional recognition of local languages has enabled the creation of a robust system
of bilingual intercultural education. While the authors do not overtly make this
observation, one can infer that the role of the documentary linguist across these
Introduction   15

cases is substantially different: in all the examples in the previous paragraph,

the linguist must extend his or her work into the fields of applied linguistics and
pedagogy in an effort to respond to the moral directive of contributing to the sus-
tainability of the languages of interest to linguists. In the Nicaraguan case, the
educational system is supported by a robust cohort of trained teachers at various
levels and equipped with educational materials in the relevant languages that,
among other things, allow for the use of local languages (to varying degrees) as
media of instruction. The relationship between community members involved in
language instruction and the external documentary linguist is then able to follow
a Participatory (Action) Research approach in which a substantial part of the doc-
umentary and applied work is carried out by community researchers (Benedicto
et al. 2004, 2002; Benedicto et al. 2007).
Reclamation scenarios pose a special situation and one in which the only
recourse is to reach out to teachers who are speakers of related languages. The
Nahua case described in Yáñez Rosales et al. for the state of Jalisco, Mexico also
shows the challenge that reclamation presents when those trained as language
teachers are speakers of varieties that are not those to be reclaimed. While rec-
lamation efforts have the inherent difficulty of developing trained teachers from
within their reduced or non-existent group of speakers, the situation is exacer-
bated by the dysfunctional bilingual education policies in Mexico. In her dis-
cussion about the differences in language structure across speakers of Kukama-�
Kukamiria with different fluency levels, Vallejos actually shows that there is value
in the language knowledge that latent-speakers of a highly endangered language
may have.

3.3 Community engagement, motivation and language

�endangerment in Latin America

Concern over language endangerment has created renewed interest and efforts
in language documentation, language revitalization, and language planning in
general. These efforts are often backed by the motivation to preserve linguistic
diversity, to scientifically explore language similarities and differences, or to pre-
serve linguistic information related to human history and/or social development.
However, it is also understood that each language community is unique and that
specific issues must be met on a community-by-community basis (Dobrin 2008).
In Latin American language communities, these differences require particular
attention to the motivation of communities to engage in language planning activ-
ities, programs and projects.
16   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

The main point of this section is that motivation for engagement with and
involvement in language documentation and revitalization is not a categorical
concept but rather a continuum representing various social circumstances. In
Latin America some communities are engaged in a way which seems consist-
ent with widely known views on language endangerment (see the chapters by
Santos García, Carrillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro and Benedicto, Shettle and
Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna), others show little or no interest in these types
of activities and efforts (see the individual chapters by Pérez Báez, Villard and
Sullivant, and Rogers [Chapter 10, this volume]), and some clearly fall somewhere
in between (see the chapter by Yáñez Rosales et al.). This continuum of engage-
ment and motivation affects the expected outcomes of language documentation
and revitalization projects (as is discussed below in Section 3.4) as well as the
linguists themselves, who are faced with pressure to show how their own work
fits into the published best practices in the field of linguistics.
In the case of the Wixárika community in Nayarit, Mexico as described by
Santos García, Carrillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro, there is an almost ideal
amount of engagement and motivation. External linguists and researchers col-
laborate with community members to create and sustain revitalization efforts.
This type of collaboration has developed after years of social and political influ-
ence on and in the community as well as sustained interest by the external
researchers. However, even in this ideal situation it is clear that lauded revital-
ization programs such as language nests and immersion classrooms are imprac-
tical. Success for this language community came only after what the authors
call a “more locally oriented approach” (Santos García, Carrillo de la Cruz, and
Verdín Amaro, this volume: 103) to community engagement. This involved avoid-
ing pre-conceived ideas and plans for the community and developing initiatives
(even temporary ones) based on the actual needs and issues in the community,
such as the ongoing revitalization of cultural practices.
For two Nahua speaking communities in Mexico, Yáñez Rosales et al. show
that motivation is affected by the sociolinguistic situation in a community.
Throughout Latin America, communities show interest in responding to the loss
of their languages, but after years of social and political inequality there are often
no speakers of their ancestral languages left. As the Nahua cases illustrate, com-
munities in this situation are not motivated to revitalize a language that is no
longer their first language. They are interested in what the authors refer to as
language reclamation. This starts as the recognition of the symbolic value of a
language for a community and requires a unique set of resources and goals. This
sociolinguistic atmosphere calls for a delicate balance of external support and
internal community involvement and is expected to take much longer than other
revitalization scenarios.
Introduction   17

On the opposite side of the spectrum, it is common for language communities

throughout Latin America to not even have an interest in or expectation for lan-
guage revitalization or documentation. For example, the Chatino communities of
Zacatepec and Tataltepec in Oaxaca, Mexico as described by Villard and Sullivant
have little interest in these activities because large-scale community migration
has altered the social value of the communities’ languages. Members of these
communities have a greater interest in learning English as a tool of social and
economic advancement that in developing their own languages toward this same
goal. The addition of English to the already existing social diglossia in these com-
munities has severely hampered any interest in the revitalization of Chatino and
has affected the way external linguists interact with the community. The authors
clearly illustrate that they are not able to be agents of language shift reversal and
focus instead on the few pockets of interest in preserving the language through
recorded materials.
The Xinkan community offers another perspective on motivation and engage-
ment in language documentation and revitalization. Rogers describes how in this
community, as in many other communities throughout Latin America, individu-
als have suffered years of prolonged prejudice and discrimination. This social and
political inequality has in turn affected the way these local communities are per-
ceived by both national governments and other local communities. In the Xinkan
case, the result of this inequality is that community interest is less about docu-
menting or revitalizing a language for the sake of preservation or ethnic identity,
and more about the need to establish authenticity as an indigenous community.
Efforts toward language documentation and revitalization in this community are
merely a means by which to show their authenticity and support their claims
for equality. Since there are no speakers of the ancestral languages, community
members organize their claims for equality and social and political reform based
on scientific language documentation and revitalization. Rogers concludes that
following from this type of situation for some communities the focus should not
be language documentation and revitalization, but “language documentation
and community creation” (Rogers, this volume: 268).
For some language communities the reality of language endangerment is
obscured by unique social factors, and this in turn affects their willingness to
engage in language documentation and revitalization efforts. The Zapotec com-
munity in San Lucas Quiaviní, Oaxaca, Mexico is split between two connected
communities across an international border: the community in Oaxaca and
a sister community in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. Pérez Báez
describes that in the Los Angeles community, children rarely acquire the ances-
tral variety of Zapotec, while in the community in Oaxaca they do so regularly.
With expectation of migration from Oaxaca to California (and often back again),
18   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

the community language is endangered as migrant children only learn Spanish or

English. However, this shift is not recognized by the community because the prac-
tice of migration and beliefs about the integral relationship between the language
and the place of birth mask its effects. This has an obvious impact on the inter-
est in language maintenance in the community, and has resulted in the author
having to create awareness of the issue in the first place.
Finally, in many cases languages are spoken across political boundaries.
Sánchez (Chapter 8, this volume) addresses situations where language communi-
ties span multiple countries creating difficulties in the way a community can be
involved with language documentation and/or revitalization. In these situations
a portion of the community is subject to one set of country-specific regulations
and state-level policies while another portion is guided by a distinct set of regula-
tions and policies. Sánchez shows that this “transnational”-ity can make coordi-
nated efforts difficult (although some efforts have had success), especially when
the majority language shared by the countries is not the same, for example as in
the case of the Kukama-Kukamiria language which is spoken both in Peru and
Brazil (Vallejos 2014).
These various scenarios raise ethical questions. How much can external
researchers “massage” the language ideologies of individual communities?
Should external researchers intervene in the community to establish a level of
motivation that meets the expectations set forth in the literature on language
documentation and revitalization; and if yes, to what extent? Or should external
researchers passively follow whatever community members deem appropriate in
their specific situation? Each of the authors mentioned above have created a solu-
tion to these questions that is most appropriate for the communities with which
they collaborate. These contributions add to the general understanding of what
research in the areas of endangered languages and language documentation and
revitalization entails, and may provide some solutions that may be helpful as
other field researchers work to understand what may be the best way to move
forward in their relationship with an endangered language community.

3.4 Expected outcomes and language endangerment in Latin

America
Language documentation and revitalization are flexible and fluid because of the
uniqueness of the sociolinguistic, economic and political characteristics of each
and every language community. This fluidity, in turn, makes it hard to measure
and even define success for activities focused on language endangerment. One
community might define success by its efforts to collect a recording of 100 words,
Introduction   19

while another might define success by its implementation of an established

revitalization program (such as a language nest program). However, discus-
sions about language endangerment, documentation, and revitalization often
detail specific milestones, goals, or achievements as being highly significant (as
introduced in Section 1). These provide evidence that the programs, activities,
or research are headed in the “correct” direction and that something significant
has been accomplished. These expectations often include collaboration with
and not work on, or in, a language community; the careful archiving of materials
in ways which ensure the future access to a language; and the responsibility to
return all materials created, recorded, or developed to the language community
for their unique purposes. However, because of the differences in motivation and
engagement in language documentation and revitalization efforts in communi-
ties throughout Latin America (see Section 3.3 above), these expected outcomes
are often difficult to achieve, are unwanted by the individual communities, or are
simply meaningless given the particular context. Many of the contributions to
this volume show how attempts at meeting the expectations dictated by funding
organizations or universities are difficult to achieve.12
For example, the description of the Chatino communities by Villard and Sul-
livant shows that a community does not always see the need to produce these
standardized results. This chapter shows that these language communities want
external linguists to be engaged in teaching English as well as in creating mate-
rials or activities related to Chatino. This would definitely seem to aid language
shift rather than reverse it. The authors suggest that in these communities success
is best defined through efforts in “empowering individual speakers, which may
lead, in the long run, to grassroots revitalization efforts” (Villard and Sullivant,
this volume: 300), but that this is only feasible after prolonged contact between
the language community and the external linguists.
Similarly, Pérez Báez explains that the San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec commu-
nity shows that community members have no expectations about how the efforts
and work of an external linguist might benefit them. The author described her
efforts in disseminating information and the results of her research to the com-
munities, but found the community to have little interest in them. She had envi-
sioned a long-term language maintenance effort in the community as a direct
outcome of her years of work there. However, the beliefs and social practices of
community members make this type of outcome to be of limited impact (at least
for the time being).

12 A fact that we do not believe is unique to the individual case studies included here.
20   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

The case study of the Kukama-Kukamiria communities by Vallejos shows that

expected language documentation and revitalization outcomes can be affected
by the types of speakers present in a language community. Following Grinevald
and Bert (2011), this chapter classifies speakers on a scale from fluent speakers
to last speaker and shows that the level of benefit for documentation and revital-
ization stemming from the involvement of speakers does not decrease as fluency
decreases. The Kukama-Kukamiria communities, despite having limited access to
fluent speakers of their heritage language, value the outcomes of documentation
and revitalization projects as a means of cultural revalorization. Furthermore,
Vallejos shows that we have much to learn from all types of speakers and that
language documentation projects should not focus on fluent speakers alone.
As a final example of the differences in expected outcomes between exter-
nal linguists and community members, in some communities the expectation
is simply to provide support for the non-linguistic (i.e., ethnic) identity. For the
Xinkan community of Guatemala this is precisely the case (see the chapter by
Rogers). This community has no interest in revitalization programs, language
planning initiatives, or language learning materials; they simply want evidence
and support for their claims to the unique space within the sociopolitical and
historical atmosphere of Guatemala. This goal is a direct outcome of both the lack
of a community of language users in the Xinkan community and the existence of
legislation that suggests social, political and economic support for indigenous
communities – as long as they can prove they are authentically indigenous.
Latin American language communities often do not expect, or even see the
need for, the outcomes many field linguists feel the need to produce. To improve
discussions about language endangerment, the expectations and measures of
success will necessarily need to be more open and flexible than previously stated
in the literature.

3.5 Ethics and language endangerment in Latin America

In general, the discussion about ethics and best practices is relatively new to
the field of linguistics (see Austin 2010; Czaykowska-Higgins 2009; Dorian 2010;
Dwyer 2006; Grinevald 1993, 2007; Newman 2009; Rice 2006; Tsunoda 2005;
and Yamada 2007). As with other topics in language endangerment, discussions
about ethics have primarily drawn from experiences in North America, Europe,
and Australia. Notable exceptions dealing with Latin American languages are
Grinevald (1993, 2007) and Yamada (2007). As seen in previous sections of this
chapter, Latin America requires a unique set of perspectives when responding to
language endangerment; this applies as well to ethics in linguistics research. The
Introduction   21

contributors to this volume highlight certain ethical issues that have presented a
particular challenge in their research. These can be grouped into issues related to
defining roles in the relation between a researcher and community members, the
particulars of establishing a collaboration, and considerations related to obtain-
ing informed consent.
Czaykowska-Higgins (2009) classifies three types of ethical models: lin-
guist-focused, community-based, and Community-Based Language Research
(CBLR). The main difference between the first two models and CBLR is that in the
former the linguist retains the role of expert while in the latter all the research
participants are considered to be experts, linguists and speakers alike. Similarly,
Rice (2006) and Czaykowska-Higgins (2009) agree that there has been a shift in
North America in the last few years towards a more community-based approach
to linguistic fieldwork, be it CBLR or one of the other two research models. The
advantages of this approach to language research are evident; however, this does
not imply that this approach can be applied to all research situations (see Dobrin
2008, Crippen and Robinson 2013).
In some Latin American contexts, as explained in this volume, collabora-
tion may follow the path of what is considered to be a successful collaboration
in language documentation and revitalization in the current literature. Exam-
ples include Vallejos’ collaborative work with Kukama-Kukamiria speakers with
various levels of fluency, which in turn greatly benefitted the research; and the
long standing collaboration with the Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna described
in Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna with a myriad outputs
of benefit both to the language community and to the researcher’s work. Santos
Garcĭa, Carillo de la Cruz and Verdín Amaro also describe a case where a produc-
tive collaboration emerged between researchers and a Wixárika community in
Nayarit, Mexico. However, in many other cases, communities are not interested in
collaborating, or at least not in a manner that follows the canons advocated for in
the literature; nor have the communities an interest in taking control of a project.
The case studies presented by Villard and Sullivant and by Pérez Báez are two
cases where a collaboration around revitalization was not of interest to the larger
community. In both cases the authors explain how they approach this particular
challenge. Rogers explains that while collaboration emerged with Xinka commu-
nity members, the community interests did not revolve around revitalization of
the local language either; rather the interest was in using the language as a means
to validate an identity. In other cases, the available resources or social support
may impede the progress of an established collaboration. Consider the situations
described in O’Meara and González Guadarrama, where a lack of support from
authorities, but not other community members closer to the research, and a lack
22   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

of infrastructure hampered the researchersʼ efforts to return their research results

via a community-based language archive.
In the Latin American context, a frequent concern relates to the need to
obtain informed consent prior to working with a consultant. Complications may
arise simply because of the format and manner in which consent is to be obtained
as per the regulations of ethics review boards. There are three recognized types
of informed consent: written, verbal, and third-party consent. Most ethics review
boards require written consent but written consent may not be appropriate in
some Latin American contexts, for two primary reasons. First, it is still frequent
that fieldworkers will work with non-literate consultants. Therefore, there is no
value in presenting a written document that a person may not be able to read.
In fact, it can be argued that doing so may be not only offensive but also rather
abusive and illegal. The practice of presenting a written document can be prob-
lematic even when working with literate consultants. Even if written in “simple
language”, informed consent documents are unusual and can be dense and not
easily understood even by literate consultants. A one-page, single-spaced docu-
ment may take several minutes for someone to read, and reading in the presence
of the researcher and under pressure to respond may put undue stress on con-
sultants and coerce them to sign independently of whether the document was
understood. Ironically, this is precisely the type of pressure that the procedures
of ethics review boards attempt to prevent. Sánchez warns that a standardized
approach to permission and consent is not always best since the relationships
between a language community and their own “self-perception” are complex and
must be considered a local issue.
Certainly, it is possible to obtain a waiver of signed consent and verbal consent
can be accepted with prior approval from an ethics review board. However, verbal
consent still requires that an information sheet be presented to the consultant
with the same effects as above: the consultant is put in a position to read a dense
document in the presence of the researcher and acquiesce to the request to par-
ticipate in the research. Further, while IRB/REB documents are intended to reas-
sure participants, in many Latin American contexts the presentation of a written
document may evoke scenarios in which written documents have been used to
validate abusive practices that strip individuals in vulnerable situations of their
rights. While this is not discussed overtly in Pérez Báez, her research required
participant observation over a period of three summers in San Lucas Quiaviní
prior to beginning formal research. As such, her research was heavily grounded
on trust she developed with community members over time. Pérez Báez reports
that the information sheets were at odds with the trust-based relationships that
she had established with the community and made for uneasy starts to the inter-
views she conducted. Pharao Hansen et al. include a quote showing that com�
Introduction   23

munity members remember the times when a lack of literacy skills enabled abuse
towards indigenous peoples.
Situations such as the one that Pérez Báez describes emerge when the socio-
cultural context surrounding a research project is not of the type that makes the
presentation of a written document or the notion of informed consent coherent.
This in turn raises questions about the meaning of consent and understanding
about the use of data in communities without access to electricity, the Internet or
international archives (see Dorian 2010: 181 and Thieberger and Musgrave 2007).

4 Conclusion and goals for this volume

The 11 case studies presented in this volume raise a number of questions about the
principles that should drive language documentation and revitalization in Latin
America. These questions revolve around the role that a researcher is expected to
play, the obligations that a researcher is asked to take on, and the boundaries that
a researcher is told to observe, as per current best practices in the field. We have
few answers to these questions, but as suggested by the cross-references made
to the chapters in this volume, the contributors have found different solutions to
them.
The chapters in this volume should make it clear to the reader that the
context for language documentation and revitalization as a response to language
endangerment presents challenges in Latin American communities that may not
generally emerge in other contexts such as those in the United States, Canada,
Australia or New Zealand. The foregoing discussion, in fact, only discusses the
biggest issues mentioned in the chapters of this book. The contributors to this
volume have firsthand experience with a variety of other issues beyond those
mentioned in detail here, including: access to education and education levels, the
presence and importance of literacy, the geography and physical environment of
language communities, and attitudes and perspectives on the value of language
and its use. These, and many others, may not be explicitly mentioned in the chap-
ters that follow but ideas about them can be found throughout. Further discus-
sion about language endangerment in Latin America must show how these social
variables affect the responses by both researchers and community members.
It is similarly clear that the global response to and concern for language
endangerment must be informed by all of the variables and challenges discussed
here and not just the variables found in more widely known scenarios. With this
volume we hope to foster increased discussion of these issues in order to make
current ethical frameworks appropriate to a broader number of community sce-
24   Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers and Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada

narios. To this end, the 11 chapters in this volume provide a detailed discussion of
some of the most important factors affecting language documentation and revi-
talization in Latin America.

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Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio
2 Perspectives for the documentation of
indigenous languages in Brazil

1 Introduction
In the last two decades language documentation has advanced greatly in
Brazil, a nation with many minority languages within the predominantly Por-
tuguese-speaking national context. This paper aims to provide an overview of
the evolution of language documentation and relevant language policy in Brazil.
There are identifiable country-specific macro factors and trends at work which
strongly influence the prospects for language documentation and revitalization
and which are different from those found in other world regions.
In Brazil the situation of the native peoples (some of which are still out of
contact with the outside world) is different from that of the native peoples of the
USA or Australia. Scientific linguistics is relatively recent in Brazil. The impact of
international documentation programs has been stronger in Brazil, where doc-
umentation was less developed, than in Europe or the United States. Large gov-
ernment programs in Brazil have important effects but are notably precarious,
with success by no means guaranteed. Like other aspects of Brazilian society, the
development of language documentation and revitalization encounters resist-
ance from those who are adapted to the underdeveloped system. Such an under-
developed system is not a lack of something, but rather a positive system that
actively seeks to reproduce itself and defends maintenance of the status quo by
reacting against what is perceived as threats. So, as odd as it may seem, linguists
whose prestige would diminish with the development of more effective responses
to the issue of language endangerment in the country can be motivated to oppose
them. At a more micro level the questions encountered in projects are similar to
those encountered elsewhere, for example, taking into account local systems of
cultural meaning (Dobrin 2008), dealing with local politics and rivalries (Bene-
dicto et al. 2002; Pharao Hansen et al., this volume), power sharing in collabo-
rative projects (Benedicto et al. 2007) and realistically evaluating the chances of
success in language revitalization (Dorian 1987).

Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi – Ministry of Science,
Technology, and Innovation
30   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

Some historical information about linguistics in Brazil is presented in Section

2. Then the role and impact of the large international documentation programs
are examined. Two individual documentation projects supported by interna-
tional documentation programs are described briefly in Section 3. A noteworthy
effort that merits attention, the indigenous language documentation program of
Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), is discussed in Section 4. Language
documentation and maintenance, and language policy and planning in general,
require knowledge of the situation of the languages of a country. This has been
problematic in Brazil, given the large size of the country, the number of lan-
guages, and the often difficult access to speakers of the native languages, more
than two-thirds of which are spoken in Amazonia. Academic politics among the
community of linguists complicates the matter further. The nature of the difficul-
ties in knowing the situation of the indigenous languages is described in Section
5. Two initiatives by the federal Brazilian government in principle aim at survey-
ing the nation’s languages: a national survey of the languages of Brazil (INDL)
and the inclusion of a question about indigenous languages in the 2010 Brazilian
national demographic census. The methodology of these potentially important
programs and their results to date are discussed in Section 6, relating them to
some of the relevant questions for language policy and management. In Section
7 a summary of the aspects presented in the paper is offered to help evaluate the
perspectives for language documentation and revitalization in Brazil.

2 Language documentation in Brazil and the

international documentation programs
Language documentation, in some sense, was carried out early in Brazilian colo-
nial history, with descriptive efforts by Jesuit missionaries; for example, Anchieta
(1595). That work was tied to practical aims and did not continue. The Jesuits were
expelled in the mid eighteenth century. In the last half of the nineteenth century
and the first half of the twentieth century, non-specialists, especially members
of scientific expeditions, achieved a certain amount of linguistic description.
Notable among these non-specialists were Karl von den Steinen, General Couto
de Magalhães, Theodor Koch-Grünberg, Curt Nimuendajú, Emilie Snethlage, and
João Capistrano de Abreu. Modern scientific studies began in the second half of
the twentieth century. Mattoso Câmara Junior established the Linguistics Sector
of the Museu Nacional in Rio de Janeiro in 1961 and wrote a monograph about
indigenous languages (1965), in spite of not being a fieldworker himself. By the
middle of the 1980s the study of indigenous languages had spread to a number
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   31

of universities and it has continued spreading to almost all regions of Brazil.

Beginning in the late 1980s a number of Brazilian students went abroad to pursue
graduate studies in linguistics. Upon their return they contributed to the national
capacity in scientific linguistics by bringing recent theory and methods from the
centers where they studied. The first comprehensive grammar of an indigenous
language written by a Brazilian linguist in decades was published by Seki (2000).
For a period of time, ranging from the late 1950’s to the early 1980’s, the
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) occupied a prominent position in the study
of Brazilian indigenous languages. An accord of cooperation was established
between the Museu Nacional and SIL in 1956, and it was terminated only in 1981.
With the increase in the number and quality of Brazilian scientific linguists the
importance of foreign missionaries in the study of native languages has decreased
and no national academic institutions have formal cooperation agreements with
SIL at the present time. Missionary linguists have not participated in the recent
development of language documentation in Brazil. However, they continue to be
active in the field and promote religious conversion which may threaten tradi-
tional verbal culture.
The greater Brazilian capacity in linguistics was important when the large
international language documentation programs began. The DOkumentation
BEdrohter Sprachen (DOBES) program of the Volkswagen Foundation supported
projects in Brazil beginning in 2001. The Endangered Languages Documentation
Programme (ELDP) administered by the School of Oriental and Asian Studies of
the University of London, with resources from the Hans and Lisbet Rausing Char-
itable Fund, supported projects in Brazil starting in 2002. These programs were
notably friendly to countries with great linguistic diversity where the national
capacity in language documentation could be developed. In the first rounds of
the competition for these projects the Brazilian linguists who had studied abroad
and the foreign linguists residing in Brazil were more successful, owing in part to
their familiarity with foreign languages and international norms for project pro-
posals, as well as greater exposure to the international concern for endangered
languages and for language documentation and revitalization. The languages in
Brazil documented with support from the DOBES and ELDP projects are listed in
Table 1 below.
32   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

Tab. 1: Languages documented with support from DOBES and ELDP projects in Brazil

Language (family) Linguist Institution(s)1

DOBES:

Kuikuro (Carib) Franchetto Museu Nacional

Trumai (isolate) Guirardello MPI Nijmegen/Museu Goeldi
Aweti (Tupí) Drude Free University of Berlin/Museu Goeldi
Kaxuyana (Carib) Meira Leiden/Museu Goeldi
Bakairi (Carib) Meira Leiden/Museu Goeldi
Mawé (Tupí) Meira Leiden/Museu Goeldi
Kaxinawá Camargo CNRS
Aikanã (isolate) van der Voort MPI Nijmegen/Museu Goeldi
Kwazá (isolate) van der Voort MPI Nijmegen/Museu Goeldi

ELDP:

Puruborá (Tupí) Galucio Museu Goeldi

Sakurabiat (Tupí) Galucio Museu Goeldi
Karo (Tupí) Gabas Museu Goeldi
Ayuru (Tupí) Demolin Free University of Brussels/Univ of São Paulo
Salamãy (Tupí) Moore Museu Goeldi
Xipaya (Tupí) Rodrigues Federal University of Pará
Apurinã (Arawak) Facundes Federal University of Pará
Ofayé (Macro-Jê) Ribeiro University of Chicago/Federal Univ of Goiás
Kaduwéu (Guaykuru) Sandalo State University of Campinas
Enawenê Nawé (Arawak) de Resende Museu Nacional
Oro Win (Chapakura) Birchall Radboud University Nijmegen/Museu Goeldi
Waikhana (East Tukano) Stenzel Federal Univ of Rio de Janeiro
Wanano (East Tukano) Stenzel Federal Univ of Rio de Janeiro
Kanamari (Katukina) Dienst Goethe University
Akuntsu (Tupi) Aragon University of Utah
Kubeo (Tukano) Chacon University of Utah
Desana (Tukano) Silva University of Utah
Gavião (Tupi) Meyer Museu Goeldi
Suruí (Tupi) Meyer Museu Goeldi
Dâw (Nadahup) Epps University of Texas, Austin
Paressi-Haliti (Arawak) da Silva Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
Paressi-Haliti (Arawak) Brandão University of Texas, Austin

These programs, along with some support for projects from other international
entities such as the National Science Foundation and the Endangered Language
Fund, helped to introduce digital technology and documentation methods into

1 Institutions to which the linguists were associated at the time of the project.
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   33

Brazilian linguistics. They also made language documentation more prestigious

and encouraged descriptive and diachronic studies based on the data they pro-
vided. For example, the documentation project of Sérgio Meira with the Bakairi
and of Bruna Franchetto with the Kuikuro provided essential data for the classi-
fication of the southern Carib languages and their relation to the Cariban family
(Meira and Franchetto 2005). This ground-breaking article concludes that the
southern Carib languages do not form a single subgroup, since there is no evi-
dence of innovations shared by all of them. The evidence favors two independent
sub-branches of the Cariban family in the south: Bakairi-Ikpeng and Kuikuro.
This implies that the diversity is not greater than in the north and undermines the
hypothesis of a southern origin of the Cariban family.

3 Examples of documentation projects in

Amazonia
Two examples of documentation projects for Amazonian languages are given
below. The first is noteworthy because it was aimed at a very precarious language
situation and achieved considerable benefit for the native community nonethe-
less. The second is notable for its unusual objects (whistled and instrumental
speech) and for its pioneering methods, as well as its effect in encouraging tra-
ditional practices. In both projects, the native communities and the linguists dis-
cussed fully the objectives and procedures of the project with everyone involved,
offering suggestions and critical observations until a consensus was reached that
was viable and satisfactory to all participants. Community support and participa-
tion was very strong, as is generally the case among Brazilian indigenous peoples
for documentation projects which return the project results to the community in
an intelligent, usable manner. As discussed by O’Meara and Guadarrama (this
volume) in the context of Mexico, the question of providing accessibility to the
results of documentation projects is an important issue, especially in places
where the speaker communities are geographically isolated or at least rural and,
in most cases, have no access to technological infrastructure.

3.1 Documentation of the Puruborá language

The Puruborá case is illustrative of the local impact of language documenta-

tion projects. The Puruborá indigenous people live in the state of Rondônia
(Brazil). Their initial contact with western settlers was around the first decade
34   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

of the twentieth century. By the end of the 1940s, their population was reduced
to about 150 people, decimated by various diseases. At that time they left the
demarcated indigenous territory, where they had been living for three decades,
and spread out around the region. That is when the Puruborá language ceased to
be used, and the youth no longer learned the language. Afterwards, reference to
this people is practically nonexistent. The Puruborá language and people were
considered extinct. Until the first years of the twenty-first century, there was no
mention of the Puruborá in the official registers regarding indigenous people
or spoken indigenous languages in Brazil. A new chapter in the history of the
Puruborá began with the identification of some Puruborá families near the old
Puruborá territory in the year 2000. Since then there has been an active search
for Puruborá descendants led by the Puruborá themselves, and they now number
over 400 people spread over various towns in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. The
families that remained in the area near the traditional territory and started the
identification process are identified as the core of the community. Their location
is seen both by the Puruborá and by the state representatives as the “Puruborá
village”, despite the fact that official recognition from the Brazilian government
as well as the demarcation of a Puruborá Indigenous Territory is still under inves-
tigation. Since 2001, the Puruborá organize larger assemblies where most of the
remaining Puruborá gather together to help build the sense of community and
belonging as well as to decide on the directions of the Puruborá movement.2 The
Puruborá now have their own social organization and a political leader chosen
in an assembly.
The Puruborá language is the only known member of the Puruborá branch
of the Tupian family, but at present there are no remaining fluent speakers and
only two semi-speakers or rememberers.3 Over the last three generations, it has
not been taught or used as a language of regular communication. In 2001 the
Museu Emílio Goeldi started a project to document this language, as part of a
larger ELDP documentation project that aimed to document five highly endan-
gered Tupian languages. The objective of this project was to carry out systematic
documentation, registering all of the remaining aspects of the Puruborá language
and culture that were still accessible. Before this project the only sources of infor-
mation about Puruborá were old wordlists of limited size and value (Koch-Grün-

2 Some of these assemblies were recorded by the documentation project, resulting in three doc-
umentaries.
3 In 2001, at the onset of the documentation project there were eight Puruborá elders, but only
six of them still remembered words or sentences in the Puruborá language. Between 2001 and
2013, four of these elders passed away.
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   35

berg 1932; Bontkes 1968; Moore 1989). This is an example of the current linguistic
situation in Brazil, where the languages most threatened with extinction, with
a reduced number of speakers and lack of transmission across generations, are
typically the least studied (see Section 5 below).
The Puruborá Documentation Project involved fieldwork, audiovisual docu-
mentation, organization of language data into databases, descriptive study, and
the return of the material produced and the knowledge gained of what remained
of the language to the Puruborá people. This project greatly increased the mate-
rials available for the Puruborá language. The documented corpus, composed of
short word lists in 2001, has now around 1,000 words as well as dozens of sen-
tences. This material forms the largest source of data available for the Puruborá
language, consisting mostly of audio recordings, with some parts supplemented
by video recording. The documentation efforts focused on parts of the language
that were still recoverable. The Puruborá speakers were primarily able to remem-
ber concrete vocabulary items – abstract vocabulary and grammatical knowledge
were more difficult to remember. The project produced 50 hours of audio and
video recordings of cultural and linguistic information. The research also helped
to locate various historical documents containing ethno-historical information
about the Puruborá, which have been used by the community in their struggle
for recognition of their traditional land. Five audio CDs, three audio DVDs and
four DVDs of cultural and linguistic data have been produced and returned to the
Puruborá people, including the people living away from the so-called Puruborá
village. All the material produced by the project was deposited at the Museu
Goeldi digital archive, where it is organized and stored for future use.
The documentation project greatly benefited from the continued support of
the Puruborá community, which includes all the remaining 400 plus Puruborá
people gathered together in the Puruborá assemblies, as they showed a growing
interest in the reaffirmation of their indigenous identity and the recovery of what
was left of their traditional language and culture. All the remaining elders that
still retained parts of their language have actively participated in the study and
recording of the language. The project tested a methodology, which proved to be
successful, for the documentation of a highly endangered language: the reunion
of the remaining speakers (who are frequently geographically dispersed) in order
to stimulate their memory and facilitate the collection of information. This method
was shown to be extremely effective with the Puruborá and can be used in similar
cases. At the beginning, the project did not expect to document the language
beyond lexical data since it had not been spoken for over 30 years. However, the
project activities helped the remaining speakers to remember various aspects of
the language, thus increasing the scope of documentation.
36   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

The project also awoke the interest of the younger generations. Initial steps
were made toward acquainting the younger Puruborá with their linguistic herit-
age. In 2005 a Puruborá orthography was proposed and discussed in the Puruborá
assembly (Galucio 2005b). This began the process of literacy in Puruborá and has
aided the younger generation in learning aspects of their language. In 2012, the
state government hired a young Puruborá, who had learned some of the language
as recorded by the elders and documented through the project, to teach Puruborá
at the community school, built by the Puruborá in the same location where the
assemblies take place. As a result, some members of the community who live near
the area that has been called the Puruborá village are now learning what was
recalled by their older relatives, using the material produced by the project. The
project also developed written materials for the community. In 2013, a bilingual
Puruborá-Portuguese booklet of animal names (Galucio, Puruborá, and Aporete
Filho 2013) was produced in collaboration with the two elders who have the best
recollection of the language, for use in the community school.
The development of this project showed that it is possible to carry out suc-
cessful documentation of highly endangered languages, helping to safeguard tra-
ditional cultural and linguistic heritage, even in situations where the language is
extremely fragile. The materials collected throughout the project show the impor-
tance of this type of work from a sociocultural and scientific viewpoint. Many
of the discoveries about the Puruborá language that resulted from this project
could not have otherwise come about. For example, valuable information was
gathered for the internal classification of the Tupian language family as a result
of the project (Galucio and Gabas 2002). The results have also provided a basis
for the analysis of the phonetic and phonological structure of the Puruborá lan-
guage (Galucio 2005a; Santos and Galucio 2007a, 2007b). This project may also
serve as a viable methodological model for documentation and revitalization pro-
jects focused on protecting linguistic heritage, especially in the most difficult and
extreme cases.

3.2 Documentation of the whistled and instrumental speech of

the Gavião and Suruí of Rondônia, Brazil
A documentation project by Julien Meyer and Laure Dentel (2008–2012) supported
by the ELDP was unusual in aiming at the documentation of whistled speech and
instrumental speech among the Gavião and Suruí (Paiter) peoples of Rondônia,
Brazil. These two language forms are used in many regions of the world as com-
plementary speech registers either for distance communication or for emulating
songs, but have seldom been described in Amazonia. Documentation of these
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   37

important parts of verbal culture is urgent since they generally disappear long
before the spoken language. They are often not noticed, even by linguists and
anthropologists who work with the people who have these practices. Whistled
speech in Amazonia is most frequently performed in the forest, and any reduction
of the time native peoples spend in the forest diminishes its frequency of occur-
rence. Instrumental speech involves a number of skills, such as constructing the
instruments from natural materials, mastering the art of playing the instruments,
and learning a repertoire of traditional music. These skills can be easily lost in
the youngest generation through disuse. The relation of much traditional music
to traditional spiritual beliefs provokes missionary opposition to it, which may
promote loss.
Studies of these speech imitations have scientific relevance for questions
such as:
– What is the relation between the phonology of a language and its whistled or
instrumental form?
– How much can the acoustic signal be reduced while maintaining intelligibil-
ity?
– How are these forms of language used and why?

Previous studies had produced analysis of the phonology of Gavião (Moore 1984,
1999) and Suruí (Guerra 2004) that was adequate for the required scientific lin-
guistic basis for the work. The methodological steps in the documentation of the
whistled speech were as follows (Moore and Meyer 2014):
– Preliminary inquiry to determine who were the most adept whistlers, when,
where and how whistling was used. Recording of whistling was initiated.
– Recording of the common whistled sentences and transcription of these sen-
tences as they would be normally spoken. The various methods of whistling,
some involving the use of hands, were recorded.
– Recording of spontaneous occurrences of whistled conversations in audio
and video, with subsequent transcription of these conversations as they are
normally spoken.
– Double recordings in audio and video, near the speaker and near the hearer,
of prepared sentences to test intelligibility. Observation of speaker strategies
to maximize intelligibility.
– Recording of whistled and spoken word lists for phonetic detail.
– Phonetic and phonological analysis of the recordings.
– Preparation of audio and video documentation materials for the native com-
munity.
38   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

Among other results, the study demonstrated that whistling was more intelligi-
ble than speech at a distance. The messages being communicated are tied to the
immediate shared context, which helps in interpretation. For example, whistling
can convey instructions during a hunt or a request to bring some object. In the
forest, whistling does not betray human presence to potential prey. It is used
often in the Gavião villages, though much less so in the Suruí villages. As would
be expected in the case of a tone language, Gavião whistling conveys the F0 of
speech, as well as contrastive length, but not vowel timbre. Consonants are less
articulated (for example, by the lips or teeth) during hand whistling. Consonant
articulation is more important when context is reduced.
Worldwide, instrumental speech (for example, talking drums) takes many
forms. Among the Gavião there are three musical instruments that are said to
“speak”: a flute, a pair of mouth bows, and large bamboo clarinets that play one
note each (requiring three players to play, taking turns to vary the melody). Each
instrumental music piece that is said to speak has a traditional song associated
with it, though that is not sung while it is played. There are, then, three things
to be recorded separately and correlated: the music as it is played by the instru-
ments, the associated song, and that song as it is normally spoken (Meyer and
Moore 2013). The methodological steps for documentation were as follows:
– Initial fact finding about who has the knowledge of the talking instruments,
how they are made, when and how they are played. Details are needed about
what the instruments say, the repertoire of songs, contexts of use, and the
sound production capacity of each instrument.
– Documentation of how the instruments are constructed and tuned.
– Recording each song in each of its three forms: played on instruments, sung,
and spoken normally.
– Linguistic treatment of the sung and spoken forms of the songs, including
transcription, translation, and detection of unusual words or morphology.
– Edition of preliminary documentation videos and the correction of these with
native consultants.
– Analysis in terms of acoustics, phonology, and musicology of the three forms
of the songs and the relations between them.
– Preparation of audio and video material in the form of CDs and DVDs for the
community, the National Indian Foundation, and archiving in Brazil.

The results showed that the contrastive tone and length of the language were
dominant factors in the relations between the three forms of the songs. The
melody of each song basically matched the tone and length of the lyrics, with the
limits of the instrument being a constraint. For example, only flat and not curved
tones occur in the songs, since the flutes cannot produce curved pitch. The lyrics
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   39

of the song were similar in tone and length to their normal spoken form, but
were affected by the capacities of the instruments and their players. One striking
finding was that the lyrics of the associated songs were rich in archaic lexical and
morphological forms, which is not generally true of Gavião native music com-
posed today. Possibly these songs are centuries old – an amazing heritage.
It was satisfying to see the revitalizing effect of the documentation project, as
the younger Gavião recognized the complexity and talent involved in their tradi-
tional practices and took more pride and interest in them. They now sometimes
amuse themselves at events (such as educational gatherings) by giving demon-
strations of their ability to communicate by whistling, which leaves onlookers in
mystified awe. The documentation material was cataloged and deposited in the
digital language archive of the Museu Goeldi, where it will always be available
to future generations of Gavião and Suruí. Meyer’s work has been reported (e.g.,
Meyer 2012; Meyer and Moore 2013; Moore and Meyer 2014), and as knowledge of
his work and methods has spread in Brazil, more linguists and anthropologists
are discovering that whistled and instrumental speech exist in the indigenous
groups that they study, for example, among the Wayãpi.

4 A Brazilian government program for

documenting indigenous languages:
PRODOCLIN
One of the effects of the international documentation programs was to stimu-
late the creation of a Brazilian program for the documentation of indigenous
languages using modern digital technology and recent methodology. The presi-
dent of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) obtained considerable
financial resources from the Banco do Brasil for documenting native languages
and cultures through a program administered by the Museu do Índio in Rio de
Janeiro. The coordinator of the program was the linguist Bruna Franchetto who
utilized her past experience in a DOBES project when designing this new Brazil-
ian documentation initiative.4 The Brazilian program incorporated some aspects
of the DOBES approach to language documentation, adapted to Brazilian con-

4 Franchetto’s documentation of the Kuikuro language on the Xingu Park reserve was an out-
standing DOBES project, carried out in the first round of the program.
40   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

ditions, but was completely independent from it. The language documentation
material was to be archived in Brazil, not abroad.
As planning for the program, now called PRODOCLIN (Projeto de Documen-
tação de Línguas Indígenas), began in 2006, a small group of linguists launched
fulminating attacks against it. In spite of the DOBES program’s contributions to
developing language documentation in Brazil, DOBES was also a target of the
attacks, which threatened funding for the Brazilian project and the future of
modern language documentation in the country. These attacks were repeated in
a keynote address to the Brazilian Linguistics Association (ABRALIN) and pub-
lished in 2009 (Rodrigues 2009). Earlier, Rodrigues had been unsuccessful in an
application for funding from an international documentation program, whereas
young Brazilian linguists who had studied abroad were very successful, setting up
a possible shift in relative prestige to the young talents. It is worth examining these
events and debates briefly to understand the macro political processes facilitating
or impeding language documentation and to feel the tone of the discussion.
To argue against the FUNAI language documentation program, Rodrigues
attempted to equate it with the DOBES program and create doubts about the
latter, with the linguist Himmelmann as a special target. According to Rodri-
gues (2009: 34), “Now, very recently, the anthropologists of the Museu Nacional
induced the Museu do Índio to make an accord with the Max Plank-Institut [sic]
for Psycholinguistics, based in Nijmegen, Holland, to introduce the DOBES model
of documentation for endangered languages[…]”.5 In fact, the accord in question
was merely for technological cooperation, especially for the archiving of digital-
ized and annotated recordings in Brazil. Rodrigues (2009: 34) claimed that the
DOBES program aims to “[…]relegate to the future the analysis of the documented
data[…].”6 However, Himmelmann in fact advocated the analysis of data as part
of documentation: “It is worth emphasizing that documentation does not exclude
analysis. Just the opposite: analysis is essential” (Himmelmann 2006: 23). As to
why the supposed relegation of the analysis of data to the future would be part of
DOBES policy, Rodrigues (2009: 34) stated that “[…]the justification of Dr. Him-
melmann, one of the mentors of the model, is the deciphering of the Sumerian
and Hittite inscriptions some millennia after being made[…]”.7 With respect to

5 “Agora, recentissimamente, antropólogos do Museu Nacional…induziram o Museu do Índio da

FUNAI…a fazer um convênio com o Max Plank-Institut para Psicolinguística, sediado em Nimega
na Holanda, com o fim de introduzir o modelo DOBES de documentação linguística para línguas
ameaçadas…”
6 “…relegar para o futuro a análise dos dados documentados…”
7 “…as justificativas do Dr Himmelmann, um dos mentores do modelo, são as decifrações das
inscrições sumeras e hititas alguns milênios depois de feitas…”
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   41

Sumerian and Hittite inscriptions, what Himmelmann had actually said was that
objects made for practical ends could serve as documentation up to a point, but
that it is possible to construct much more adequate and complete models using
modern linguistic knowledge and technology (Himmelmann 2006: 3)  – a per-
fectly correct and relevant point. Seeking to oppose documentation to descrip-
tion, Rodrigues (2009: 34) affirmed that “[…]the adoption of the DOBES [and by
implication modern digital linguistic documentation] undermines the training
of linguists with the analytic methods already established[…]”8 and threatens
language description. Again, this assessment does not represent the position
of Himmelmann (2006), which was quite the contrary. For instance, when dis-
cussing the “[…]structural linguistics well-established format for language docu-
mentations that consists primarily of a grammar and a dictionary,[…]” Himmel-
mann (2006: 19) observed that, “[i]n this regard, it should be emphasized that
the above points in no way question the usefulness and relevance of descriptive
grammars and dictionaries with regard to their main purpose[…]”. In fact, the
advisory boards of the DOBES and ELDP programs include respected experts in
analysis and description of languages, such as Colette Grinevald, Pieter Muysken,
and Anthony Woodbury. Evidently, a professional linguist would utilize the data
collected in documentation for scientific purposes. One example of this is the
scientific production of the DOBES project of Franchetto on the Kuikuro language
in the period 2001–2006, which yielded 45 presentations in national and inter-
national events, six book chapters, eight articles in national and international
journals, three bilingual didactic books and an exhibit in the Museu do Índio, in
addition to accumulating a database for yet additional future studies.
To avoid too much public debate, which would have jeopardized the financ-
ing for the PRODOCLIN program, the response to the attacks was mainly in the
form of a letter from the directors of the three institutions that were targeted,
the Museu do Índio, Museu Nacional, and Museu Goeldi, to the ministries of
the federal government. This had the desired effect and the program continued.
Opposition to it never spread significantly within the community of linguists
in Brazil, who, of course, would benefit from the resources and training made
available. The program began in 2008. The linguistic documentation program,
PRODOCLIN, together with the cultural documentation program, PRODOCULT
(Projeto de Documentação de Culturas Indígenas), share facilities and constitute
the overall initiative, called PROGDOC.

8 “…a adoção do DOBES desestimula a formação de linguistas com os métodos analíticos já bem
estabelecidos…”
42   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

PRODOCLIN has thirteen projects, including languages with different degrees

of endangerment, spoken in different regions of Brazil, as listed in Table 2:

Tab. 2: Languages documented through the PRODOCLIN program

Language Family Location (State)

Apiaká Tupi-Guarani Mato Grosso

Desano Tukano Amazonas
Ikpeng Carib Mato Grosso
Kanoé Isolate Rondônia
Kawaiwete (Kayabi) Tupi-Guarani Mato Grosso
Karajá Macro-Jê Mato Grosso
Kisêdjê (Suyá) Macro-Jê Mato Grosso
Paresi-Haliti Arawak Mato Grosso
Maxakali Macro-Jê Mato Grosso
Ninam Yanomami Roraima
Rikbaktsa Macro-Jê Mato Grosso
Shawãdawa (Arara Pano) Pano Acre
Yawanawa Pano Amazonas

Each project has a coordinator, preferentially a graduate student in linguistics,

a multidisciplinary team, and two indigenous researchers. In order to transmit
the technology and methodology for documentation, training workshops were
held for coordinators and native researchers, in addition to training given in the
indigenous villages. Care was taken to obtain documented informed consent for
all activities from the native community, since Brazil has rather strict regulations
governing the use of images or recordings of native cultures. Results required of
each project are:
– digital audio and video files of sessions that are recorded, transcribed, and
translated
– a basic descriptive grammar
– a lexical database (dictionary)
– a survey and diagnosis of the situation of the language
– publications, including educational material and scientific research
– mini-sites on the Internet for the native group

Efforts were made to document culturally important subjects and to prepare the
indigenous communities to carry on the work after the end of the project. Copies
of all material from each project were returned to the native communities. The
data collected has been useful to the student coordinators for their dissertations
and theses. Since these students are from various institutions, the technology
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   43

and methodology for language documentation is disseminated. In the network of

native communities the awareness of the possibilities of digital documentation
quickly spreads and the demand for documentation increases. Many indigenous
communities in Brazil have computer-literate members and access to computers
and the Internet.
One part of PROGDOC is the creation of a digital archive to maintain the
materials produced by the program safe and accessible into the future. This is
an important element in terms of capacity building at the national level, without
which the materials would be eventually lost or would have to be exported to
some secure archive abroad. Material from the program includes 493 hours of
video, 321 hours of audio, and 50,157 photos.
The PRODOCLIN program maintains a relation of cooperation and inter-
change with the only other digital archive in Brazil, that of the Museu Paraense
Emílio Goeldi, a research institute of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and
Innovation, located in Belém. The Goeldi also carries out extensive language
documentation. Its language archive is part of a long tradition of maintaining
scientific collections about Amazonia. The collection of the Linguistics Division
contains 1,300 items of several media types (tapes, discs, etc.), which have been
digitized and cataloged. The digital archive currently contains 80 individual lan-
guage collections totaling about 800 hours of data filed in about 1,500 thematic
sessions. The video material is still being processed:
Both the Museu do Índio and the Goeldi archives use the Language Archiv-
ing Technology (LAT) software suite specially developed by the Language Archive
(TLA) at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics for archiving and manag-
ing larger linguistic databases. The implementation of this type of digital archive
in Brazil is hopefully part of an emerging South America network of regional
archives, involving Argentina, Peru, Brazil and eventually other countries.

5 What is the situation of the indigenous

languages of Brazil?
One necessity for planning language documentation or language policy is knowl-
edge of the situation of the languages involved. Part of that is knowledge of how
many languages and varieties there are. One tenet of the linguistic folklore of
Brazil is that there are 180 indigenous languages. No one repeating this number
can explain what it means exactly or what the criteria are for grouping variants
into one language. Native languages, like native religions, generally do not have
an indigenous name that refers specifically to them. There are hardly ever indig-
44   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

enous words for “language” or “dialect” that are different from “speech”. Com-
munity judgments of shared identity or language similarity are not necessarily
uniform in the community nor constant over time. So appealing to indigenous
groups to apply non-indigenous concepts such as “language” or “dialect” is not
promising. In world regions where there are centuries or millennia of folk linguis-
tic tradition the distinctions made in national culture may depart from linguistic
reality, for example in the case of Chinese “dialects” that are not mutually intel-
ligible. However, many native groups and languages in Brazil have been known
for less than one hundred years and there is not a firmly established tradition
for language classification. It is useful to have a rational language classification
to guide educational efforts and language policy in general. Arguably the best
time to propose a rational classification is when there is not yet a firm generally
accepted classification.
There continues to be constant confusion between names for languages and
names for ethnic groups. For example, the speech of the Gavião of Rondônia is as
similar to the speech of the Zoró as Boston English is to New York English, but the
two are often listed as separate languages. Even what is an “ethnic group” is not
easy to determine among native peoples. For example, in the south of the state of
Rondônia the groups Oro Nao’, Oro Eo At, Oro Mon, Oro Waram, and Oro Waram
Xijien consider themselves as part of one people, the Wari’. These groups are cul-
turally similar and speak to each other easily. In this case the rational option is to
consider Wari’ as a language and the speech of the various groups as variants or
dialects. The solution should be similar for, say, the case of the Gavião and Zoró,
in spite of the lack of a traditional name that includes both of them. The notion of
mutual intelligibility, in spite of its problems, has the virtue of offering a consist-
ent, reasonably objective, criterion for grouping variants into languages and can
be explained to indigenous groups to avoid misunderstandings. By that criterion
there are perhaps 153 (in round numbers, about 150, to avoid a false impression
of precision) known native languages still spoken in Brazil, if we consider all the
known languages spoken in the country and count the cases of multiple dialects
with mutual intelligibility as single languages (Moore, Galucio, and Gabas 2008).9
Interestingly, native peoples tend to adopt language classifications over time.
A recent case was the creation, possibly by members of an NGO, of the term Tupi-
Mondé for the languages and dialects of the Mondé branch of the Tupi family. This
is based on an erroneous analysis of the term Tupi-Guaraní (in which the word
Tupi refers to Coastal Tupi, not to the family). This term quickly spread among the

9 Revised version available at http://www.etnolinguistica.org/media:set2008 (Accessed 14 No-

vember 2015).
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   45

Gavião, Zoró, Aruá, Cinta Larga, and Suruí peoples, many of whom, when asked,
now say that they speak “Tupi-Mondé”. The point is that classifications are incor-
porated eventually and the tradition of indigenous language names and distinc-
tions is still being formed in Brazil, however puzzling this may seem at first. The
confusion over these issues, as we shall see, bedeviled the language part of the
2010 national census of Brazil.
One of the key parameters in evaluating the situation of a language is the
number of people who speak it. The degree of endangerment of indigenous
languages was gravely underestimated for years in Brazil because of the con-
fusion between speaker numbers and group population, and the problem still
continues. For example, according to Rodrigues (2006) there are 284 speakers of
Parintintin and 222 speakers of Yawalapiti whereas linguists who have done field
surveys say that there are only ten speakers of Parintintin (Ana Carla Bruno, p.c.
2005) and ten or fewer speakers of Yawalapiti (Bruna Franchetto, p.c. 2006). Rod-
rigues (1986: 81) claims 256 speakers of Torá and Dixon and Aikhenvald (1999:
343) give a similar number. However, according to the website of the Instituto
Socio Ambiental this language became extinct a generation ago. Moore, Galucio,
and Gabas (2008) is one of the most recent attempts to estimate speaker numbers
for indigenous languages. The estimates are based on data that Moore collected
informally from more than thirty linguists who work with native languages in
Brazil, as well as published sources. Supplementary information was also col-
lected by a cooperation request to a discussion list for linguists and others who
work with native South American languages. Obviously the data are not definitive
and do not obviate the need for standardized field surveys. The linguists con-
sulted usually had an approximate idea of speaker numbers and transmission for
some languages. Where information was missing or doubtful the fact was indi-
cated. Another source of information is the Brazil section of UNESCO’s Atlas of
the World’s Languages in Danger.10
Data on language transmission is even harder to obtain. Yet it is the main
determiner of the future of a language. The above two sources offer some esti-
mates of transmission. The question is complicated by degrees of fluency. It is
common for the youngest generation to understand the language but not speak
it. According to the Tembé people, in 2007, out of 111 households only 11 spoke
primarily the native language. Moore, Galucio, and Gabas (2008) estimate that at
least 21 % of the approximately 150 indigenous languages of Brazil are threatened
with extinction in the near future because of low speaker numbers and lack of
transmission.

10 Accessed online at http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas on October 15, 2015.

46   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

Owing to progress in recent years in the study of indigenous languages in

Brazil, some description exists for at least 121 languages, excluding three cases
for which data was insufficient (Moore, Galucio, and Gabas 2008). This number
corresponds to 81 % of the total of the remaining 150 languages still spoken in
the country. Moore, Galucio, and Gabas (2008) also offer a rough estimate of the
degree of study of these 150 languages. In this estimate a “complete” description
is a grammar and dictionary, an advanced description is a doctoral thesis or many
articles, incipient study is a MA thesis or a few articles, and little or no description
is the lack of appreciable scientific study. These numbers change rapidly with the
advance of study. The quality of the work was not estimated. The estimate in 2008
was as follows:
– 20 languages (13 %) have a complete description
– 57 languages (38 %) have advanced description
– 44 languages (29 %) have incipient description
– 29 languages (19 %) have no significant scientific description

On the other hand, with respect to language documentation, aside from the list
of known projects, it was not possible to estimate the actual degree of documen-
tation (for example, recordings) that has been done for each project and/or lan-
guage, nor where the documentation materials are stored. Revitalization projects
and their efficacy are also very difficult to estimate.

6 Brazilian government initiatives for indigenous

languages
Two recent large-scale government programs are relevant for language documen-
tation: the national survey of the languages of Brazil (INDL), and the inclusion
of a question about indigenous languages in the Brazilian national demographic
census of 2010. These two initiatives are still not well understood, even in Brazil,
but potentially very significant.

6.1 The national survey of the languages of Brazil: the

Inventário Nacional da Diversidade Linguística (INDL)

Brazilian society is multiracial and pluralistic and the federal government has
taken a relatively progressive approach to language diversity. Aside from the PRO-
DOCLIN program, described above, there are other potentially important initi-
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   47

atives by the federal government. In March of 2006 an educational seminar, of

notably high caliber, was held in the Câmara de Deputados Federal (equivalent
to the US House of Representatives) about the languages of the country. A work-
group, the Grupo de Trabalho da Diversidade Linguística – GTDL (Workgroup on
Linguistic Diversity) was formed soon thereafter, charged with formulating a plan
for surveying languages and recognizing them as part of the national cultural
heritage. The GTDL was within the Instituto de Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico
Nacional  – IPHAN (Institute for National Historical and Artistic Patrimony), a
division of the Ministry of Culture. Within IPHAN the workgroup was adminis-
tered by the Departamento de Patrimônio Imaterial, which deals with ceremo-
nies, events, and other non-material manifestations of culture in Brazil. Since
there were no linguists in IPHAN three professional linguists were included in
the GTDL, along with IPHAN employees and representatives of ministries and
organizations.
The coordinator of the GTDL was interested in the topic and worked to bring it
forward, in spite of its intimidating complexity. There are two steps in the process
of declaring something as part of the national cultural heritage: levantamento
(survey) and registro (registry). A survey is an overview of what exists in a region
and registry is an in-depth collection of facts, icons, images, etc., to characterize
it for national memory and give it official recognition (which confers a certain
degree of protection). The coordinator of the GTDL observed that for languages
the survey was what was important. There was no basis for declaring one lan-
guage rather than another as part of cultural heritage, which would be contrary to
the idea that all languages should be respected and protected. A national survey
of languages would correct the existing lack of knowledge of the situation of the
languages of Brazil and provide the basis for directing actions of documentation
and revitalization, as well as other activities of language policy, such as education
in the mother tongue. As discussed by Sánchez (this volume), a relatively similar
project was undertaken by the government of Peru, where an accurate ethnolin-
guistic map of the country was made to provide information on the current situ-
ation of the Peruvian native languages and to function as a language planning
tool for decision making regarding the recovery, preservation, and promotion of
indigenous language use. A problem that has proved persistent was the lack of
a pre-existing model for how to do a survey of languages on a national scale.
Linguists have models for how to do scientific research and some have acquired
models for documentation, but a language survey is neither of these. Neither is
it the demand-based activity to which IPHAN is accustomed. Linguists are accus-
tomed to individual or small group projects but not to planning and administer-
ing anything so enormous as a survey of the languages of a vast country such as
Brazil, to be completed within a reasonable period of, say, five years. In the GTDL,
48   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

only the representative from the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística –

IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) had any experience with
national surveys. The need for standardized procedures and an efficient central
database were beyond the experience of the other members of the workgroup.
The survey could revolutionize knowledge of Brazil’s languages and make
all previous estimates and classifications obsolete. An author of influential clas-
sifications and estimates, Aryon Rodrigues, was one linguist of the GTDL and
wrote that a survey of the indigenous languages of the country was not feasible,
though this opinion was rejected by the group. The survey, if done well, would
offer answers to many key questions about the languages and the factors affect-
ing them, positively or negatively.
After many meetings and discussions, the content of the proposed national
survey, called the Inventário Nacional de Diversidade Linguística  – INDL
(National Survey of Linguistic Diversity) was agreed upon. This content was pre-
sented in a public hearing and then published (GTDL 2008). The content is sum-
marized below:
– Description of the survey team
– Description of the phases, methods, and results of the survey
– Identification of the language: its various names, autodenomination, region
of origin, time in Brazil (in the case of immigrant languages)
– Number of speakers and semi-speakers by age group, degree of language
transmission, population of the group
– Linguistic and historical characterization, including genetic classification of
the language, internal variation, past geographical movements, contact with
other languages
– Geographic distribution: location of speaker communities and their respec-
tive degrees of fluency, as well as communities of the same ethnic group
which no longer speak the language.
– Language use in society: contexts of use, special forms of the language in
defined contexts
– Status and institutions: official status, cultural promotion groups, schools,
health posts, organizations for political representation, activities in the lan-
guage (such as teaching it to outsiders), publication, cultural events, media
presentations, revitalization and maintenance efforts, effects of missionary
activity on the language and on traditional native beliefs and verbal art
– Writing: literacy rates in the language in each age group, use of the language
in schools, source and adequacy of the writing system(s), degree of utiliza-
tion of each writing system in the case of multiple systems, existence and
description of didactic materials
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   49

– Oral literature: traditional narratives in the language, music, the context and
performers of these, their degree of transmission
– Written literature: written works produced by the community or outsiders
– Audio-visual production and the location and access of the products
– Studies about the language, with bibliography
– Samples of the language: audio recordings of Swadesh’s 200-word list, inde-
pendent writing samples of the same word list by literate speakers (to test
consistency and orthographic adequacy), a short video of a few minutes of a
conversation with subtitles in Portuguese

Some explanation is in order about the content specification, which was to be

uniform for all types of languages to be surveyed: indigenous languages, immi-
grant languages, Brazilian sign language (LIBRAS), Portuguese dialects, and
Afro-Brazilian speech. Where a particular item did not apply, for example,
“theater groups” for the Yanomami, it would be left blank. The field methodol-
ogy would be different for each type of language. For indigenous languages the
leading suggestion was to administer the survey by calls for projects which would
cover all the languages of a region, hoping to economize time and expense. If the
survey manual could be made maximally efficient and clear, people in the region,
such as NGOs, indigenous associations, etc., could carry out the survey, helped
by their prior knowledge of the native groups there.
After the content of the survey, the next problem to be resolved was the field
methodology. In order to test different approaches, pilot projects were commis-
sioned, with funding from IPHAN or from other sources. In a casual bureaucratic
decision which would have regrettable effects for the next few years and beyond,
the IPHAN call for pilot project proposals, channeled through the Associação
Brasileira de Linguística, specified a minimum of R$150,000 (about US$75,000
at the time) per project. Those responsible for the call for projects said that this
was their norm, so as not to administer many small projects. Such large amounts
of money opened the door to the use of pilot projects as a feeding trough for lin-
guists and their students, rather than as an attempt to find efficient, inexpensive,
and accurate field procedures.
The pilot projects varied greatly in their expense and efficiency. The project
for the Wayoro (or Ayuru) was extremely lean, with only one linguist as the only
non-indigenous participant, relying on indigenous assistants for much of the
work. Techniques were devised to maximize efficiency while maintaining an
acceptable degree of accuracy. Villages were located by natives looking at Google
Earth images. Households were indicated by maps of villages drawn by local res-
idents. Information on possible speakers outside the native reserve was gathered
50   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

from their relatives on the reserve. Those outside the reserve (a large and growing
proportion of the indigenous population in Brazil) were visited later.
On the basis of preliminary testing and advice from native assistants, four
degrees of fluency were recognized and used in the fluency evaluation: speaks
fully, speaks reasonably, understands but speaks little, and no significant fluency.
These levels were defined operationally, with questions such as, “If someone tells
you that he is going to a certain village tomorrow to go fishing with his brother,
could you understand what he said?” If the person can understand this question
then he at least understands the language. A positive answer to the question,
“Could you reply, ‘I will go there with you and get some manioc flour from my
uncle’?” would imply that he spoke reasonably. These levels were generally easily
understandable and fairly replicable. Fluency judgments were made by speakers
who knew the person in question, not by the person himself. The judgments were
checked independently with another speaker. The household survey and the
speaker estimates were done without actually going to each house, which, in any
case, did not seem to increase accuracy, since some household members may not
be present and those present may not be careful with accuracy and precision in
the information that they provide. Even among motivated and intelligent native
assistants providing information there was a certain tendency to omit the more
marginal members of a household and also small children.
In a highly complex situation such as the reserve on which Wayoro is spoken,
with ten ethnic groups, intermarriage and varying degrees of language and
culture loss, a household survey was needed, though in more homogeneous sit-
uations statistical sampling and extrapolation would be adequate. The recorded
lexical sample (200-word list supplemented by names for common animals,
plants, and manufactures) was quick and very useful. That was also the case for
the independent spelling samples, which give a fast indication of the degree of
success of literacy efforts.
The expenses of the pilot projects for indigenous languages varied enor-
mously, with those supported by IPHAN (the Juruna and Asurini projects) being
far more expensive. The approximate figures for four pilot projects to survey
indigenous languages are given in Table 3 below.
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   51

Tab. 3: Summary of costs for the INDL pilot projects for indigenous languages

Ayuru (Wayoro) Mbyá Guarani Juruna Asurini of

Tocantins

Persons surveyed 800 7.000 400 500

Total cost, R$ 14.000 230.000 150.000 228.000
Cost per person, R$ 18 33 375 456
Estimate cost to survey 14.000.000 26.300.000 300.000.000 365.000.000
the 800.000 indigenous
people of Brazil, R$

While the expensive projects produced more products, they went far beyond what
was appropriate for an efficient national survey in terms of cost and time.
In December of 2011 the president of Brazil signed a decree for the imple-
mentation of the INDL, the national survey. This created a Technical Commission
with core members from the ministries and from the IBGE. At the same time there
was replacement of the IPHAN staff participating in the INDL: the coordinator
and administrative assistant left and a young Brazilian linguist with a doctorate
from the USA who was a specialist in indigenous languages accepted a fellow-
ship as the linguistic consultant, with the responsibility to evaluate critically the
pilot projects and write the instruction manual for the survey. These changes had
serious impact for the course of planning the INDL at IPHAN.
It soon became apparent that there had been a sharp break from previous
understandings of what the content, methods, and aims of the INDL were. Not
only were the complex, costly methods favored, complexity was further increased
by advocating multi-disciplinary teams, hours of annotated video and other meas-
ures more typical of the intensive documentation of a single language. Moore, the
Technical Commission representative from the Ministry of Science, Technology,
and Innovation, made a very rough estimate, on the basis of the cost and activ-
ities of the pilot projects, that the cost of implementing such complex measures
for all of the indigenous languages would be a minimum of R$240,000,000 – over
one hundred million dollars at the exchange rate at the time. If given a manage-
able budget of R$5 million per year, the INDL would take 48 years to complete,
by which time many of the languages would be extinct. The response of the coor-
dinator of the INDL was that IPHAN was interested in qualitative questions, not
quantitative ones. Most members of the Technical Commission, who had followed
the survey planning for years, had a different view. Fortunately, agitation in favor
of an efficient survey with universal coverage was successful in late 2013 and a
realistic view of survey methodology and cost prevailed in IPHAN, with plans
then being made with an eye to expense and feasibility.
52   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

Unfortunately, IPHAN still considered the INDL mainly as a program for

recognizing individual languages as cultural patrimony, with many miscellane-
ous facts and illustrative recordings being gathered, without a serious, detailed
evaluation of the situation of each language. Their field manual for the survey,11
released in 2014, embodies this vision. In a recent reaction, the Brazilian Linguis-
tics Association (Associação Brasileira de Linguística 2015), in its general assem-
bly on 27 February 2015, unanimously passed a resolution which stated that

the Brazilian community of linguists understands that the National Inventory of Linguistic
Diversity must include a standardized and obligatory diagnostic of the situation of each lan-
guage of the country, including, for example, the following questions considered important
for the document:
1. The number of speakers and semi-speakers of each language, by age group;
2. The degree of transmission of each language in quantitative terms:
3. The number of people literate in the language and the degree of adequacy of the
writing system(s);
4. The degree of maintenance of traditional verbal patrimony (narratives, music, festi-
vals, rituals, etc.) and indication of the forces which impede or promote the mainte-
nance of this patrimony.12

The example of the INDL illustrates a frequent tendency in Brazil to recognize the
problem of language loss and the need for documentation and revitalization but
to respond with simplistic, inadequate measures, often designed by non-special-
ists who have no successful experience in such matters.

11 http://portal.iphan.gov.br/uploads/ckfinder/arquivos/Guia de Pesquisa e Documentação

para o INDL – Volume 1.pdf (Accessed 14 November 2015)
12 …a comunidade brasileira de linguistas entende que o Inventário Nacional de Diversidade
Linguística deve incluir um diagnóstico padronizado e obrigatório da situação de cada língua
do país, contemplando, por exemplo, as seguintes questões consideradas importantes para os
fins do documento:
1. O número de falantes e semi-falantes de cada língua, por faixa etária;
2. O grau de transmissão de cada língua em termos quatitativos;
3. O número de pessoas alfabetizas de fato na língua e o grau de adequação do(s) sistemas(s)
de escrita;
4. O grau de manutenção do patrimônio verbal tradicional (narrativas, músicas, festas, ritu-
ais, etc.) e indicação das forças que impedem ou promovem a manutenção desse patrimô-
nio.
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   53

6.2 The Brazilian national demographic census of 2010 and

the indigenous languages

Another recent initiative of the Brazilian federal government, which seemed

promising, is the inclusion in the Brazilian national demographic census of a
question on which language(s) the respondent speaks. This would have been
extremely useful for evaluating the status of immigrant languages such as Pomer-
ano or Japanese, whose numbers and geographical distribution are not known
with precision. Unfortunately, for reasons of economy, only indigenous respond-
ents were asked which languages they spoke.
The census takers used handheld Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to enter
the data from the Brazilian census of 2010. Maximum efficiency and accuracy
could be achieved by having an exhaustive list of all languages and their alter-
nate names and spellings in the PDA. By entering the first three letters of the lan-
guage name the census worker would be presented with alternatives from which
he could select the correct entry. Writing out the names is much slower and more
prone to error. Presumably a definitive list of languages will eventually be pro-
duced by the INDL, but a reasonable list was needed by 2009 to prepare for the
census of 2010. So a database of all indigenous languages was requested from the
GTDL by the census planners of the IBGE.
This provoked the old confusion between ethnic names and languages and
between population and speaker numbers. Speaker numbers were not included
in the PDAs and were only useful for forming expectations of the tasks involved in
the census, but in order to be of any value, they still needed to be correct figures
and the old confusion between speaker numbers and population figures had to
be worked through. The database adopted by the GTDL, which would become the
definitive classification for the federal government, had four main columns: (1)
the genetic classification of the language (its family), (2) the “language of classifi-
cation” (a language defined as a group of varieties which are mutually intelligible
with each other but not with other languages), (3) the “language of identification”
(basically the name of an ethnic group), and (4) subgroups, alternate names and
spellings of the ethnic names. Often the third column contained names of ethnic
groups who speak the language indicated in the second column. For example,
Wari’ would be the entry in the second column as the language of classification
and the groups who speak mutually intelligible dialects belonging to the Wari’
language (Oro Nao’, Oro Won, etc.) would be in the third column, with the first
column indicating the name of the family, Txapakura. In this way the maximum
of information was there. The idea was that if a respondent said he spoke Wari’
or if he said he spoke Oro Nao’ either answer could be put into the table and
understood.
54   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

The IBGE was puzzled that the indigenous groups do not have separate
names for their languages and religions as many societies do. Partly because of
this they removed the second column twice, with the majority of the GTDL opting
to reinsert it. The classification of the IBGE is official for all of Brazil, including
the Ministry of Education, the FUNAI, and other government entities. So it was
essential that it should be technically accurate and understood properly.
A further difficulty was that many names of languages of the past had to be
included in the database, since some respondents would claim to speak them.
There are incentives in Brazil for establishing indigenous identity, such as medical
care and land rights. Also if people can recall or learn something of an ancestral
language they may feel that they speak it to a certain extent. There are potential
legal and administrative problems associated with affirming that putative speak-
ers of languages long considered extinct by authoritative sources really speak
them. As a means of avoiding such uncertain claims, the languages in question
were designated as “without current classification” in the first column (language
family), since there was no basis for equating the putative present version of the
language with a historical antecedent. For example, the presumably extinct lan-
guage Tupinambarana was designated “without current classification” in the
language family column rather than designated as Tupi or Tupi-Guarani, pending
an investigation of its contemporary status.
In spite of all the precautions of the GTDL, when the results of the 2010 census
were published in the press the linguists of Brazil were stunned that the census
claimed not the 150 indigenous languages roughly estimated on the basis of con-
sults with researchers working with indigenous groups nor the older number
of 180, but rather 274! That was considerably higher than the 209 languages of
identification (ethnic names) that were declared by the indigenous people inter-
viewed by the census, the difference being made up of self-declared speakers of
languages generally thought to be extinct or perhaps poorly identified languages.
For example, 251 respondents supposedly spoke Tupinambarana, which is con-
sidered to have disappeared in colonial times (Aikhenvald 2012: 39). For some
languages the results were reasonable. For others they were strange. For example,
in Table 1.13 of the 2010 census results13 only one speaker of Gavião of Rondônia
is listed, though there are at least 400, based on Moore’s decades of experience
with the group. Looking into the data, an IBGE worker stated that all of the Gavião
except one declared themselves speakers of “Tupi-Mondé”, the neologism indi-
cating one branch of the Tupi family. This is doubtful since older speakers prob-

13 ftp://ftp.ibge.gov.br/Censos/Censo_Demografico_2010/Caracteristicas_Gerais_dos_
Indigenas/pdf/tab_1_13.pdf (Accessed 14 November 2015)
 Perspectives for the documentation of indigenous languages in Brazil   55

ably do not even know this term. Serious overestimates of speaker numbers also
occur in the same region. For example, in the IBGE table the number of speakers
of Paiter (Suruí of Rondônia) is more than double the population. There are five
speakers of Aruá, according to Moore’s 2010 survey, but the census claims 189. It
is perhaps possible to go to the original data collected during the demographic
census and resolve some of the problems, but this has not been systematically
done and there is danger that the strange numbers and classification will be used
for language policy, with possible negative consequences. A much more realistic
answer to the question of which and how many indigenous languages are spoken
in Brazil was one of the expected results of the Survey of Linguistic Diversity
(Inventário National de Diversidade Linguística), discussed in section 6.1.

7 Perspectives for language documentation and

revitalization in Brazil
A number of topics have been discussed above which are relevant for language
documentation, and some history of major macro forces and initiatives has been
outlined briefly. Clearly, the macro forces are unique to Brazil, without close
counterparts in more developed countries. With considerable effort it has gen-
erally been possible to channel these forces in rational, useful directions. Oppo-
sition to documentation programs and to gathering realistic information on the
indigenous languages and their speakers has not had much success and grows
weaker. The possibility of an intelligent survey of the situation of the native
languages of Brazil remains to be determined. If a survey with well-planned
�diagnostic content, as suggested by the Brazilian Linguistics Association, is in
fact conducted it should be possible to obtain an accurate panorama of what is
happening to the indigenous languages and identify the factors that affect their
vitality. The results of programs for bilingual education, language revitalization,
and language documentation could be evaluated, for the first time, to understand
what works, what does not work, and why. This information is fragmentary and
unsystematic at the present, a fact that has made quality control a major problem
in language programs.
Favorable factors for the native languages of Brazil are the enthusiasm of
the indigenous groups for language documentation and maintenance, also their
increasing technical competence. Training in documentation for indigenous
peoples needs to continue, with safe, organized repositories for the documen-
tation produced. The Brazilian community of scientific linguists is increasingly
knowledgeable about documentation and including it in their work. The federal
56   Denny Moore and Ana Vilacy Galucio

government is basically favorable, though specific agencies are not necessarily

prepared for tasks involving native languages, which are, for the unaccustomed,
exotic, complex objects. Growth in institutional capacity is important, such as the
implementation of the two professional digital language archives in the country.

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Carolyn O’Meara* and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama
3 Accessibility to results and primary
data of research on indigenous languages
of Mexico

1 Introduction1
One of the topics frequently addressed in the linguistic documentation litera-
ture has to do with the accessibility of the results that derive from such projects
(Austin 2006; Bowden and Hajek 2006; Dwyer 2006), in particular as it pertains
to the process of archiving data (i.e., recordings, transcriptions and field notes)
(Johnson 2004). The response from the academic world has not only been the cre-
ation of digital archives designed to house data from such projects, but also the
requirement to archive the data according to the rules established by a particular
granting institution. In many cases, access to these data sets is made available
to interested parties through the archive’s website (or minimally, the metadata is
made accessible). At the same time, many of the projects focused on documenta-
tion and description of indigenous languages of Mexico take place in communi-
ties that are geographically isolated or at least rural and frequently do not have
the technological infrastructure to allow reliable access to the Internet to be able
to view these archival collections, not even considering the issue of disseminat-
ing information regarding the existence and location of such collections. The
problem addressed in this paper is the way in which linguists can comply with
their obligation to share the data of their study with the community of speakers,

1 The authors would both like to acknowledge and thank the speakers and speaker communities
that we have collaborated with over the years. In the case of O’Meara, she is particularly grate-
ful to Imelda, Eryka, Francisco, Francisca, René, among many others in El Desemboque and in
Punta Chueca, Sonora. In the case of González Guadarrama, he would like to thank the members
of the community of San Mateo Almomoloa. O’Meara would also like to thank the Instituto de
Investigaciones Filológicas at the UNAM for their support in her research, as well as the generous
support provided by the National Science Foundation (BCS-0553965 and BCS-0723694).

*Corresponding author: Carolyn O’Meara, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,

e-mail: ckomeara@unam.mx
Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama (Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia)
60   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

while at the same time doing so in a way that takes into consideration the fact
that the primary data located in international digital archives is not as accessible
to speakers as might be thought at first glance. All of this is addressed taking into
consideration the specific situations that linguists encounter while working with
members of indigenous communities in Mexico.
Addressing the issue of data accessibility plans that are useful for speaker
communities is of particular concern in Mexico. This is due to the fact that many
indigenous languages that are still spoken face some level of endangerment of
no longer being spoken in the coming generations. Additionally, there are an
increasing number of current projects directed at language documentation and
description of indigenous languages of Mexico (e.g., Chamoreau 2009; Levy and
Beck 2012; Palancar 2009; Romero Mendez 2013; inter alia). In other words, the
timing appears to be right to begin to think of developing, implementing and dis-
cussing such accessibility plans while the documentation projects are still active
in order to promote the use of such materials in language maintenance and revi-
talization plans.
In order to put this problem into perspective, we look at some examples
that have been successful outside of and within Mexico regarding ways in which
speakers can access data collected as part of a linguistic study. One has to do with
the implementation and use of a “jukebox archive”, a computer or hard drive
that functions as a standalone archive inside a cultural center. Speakers use the
computer to play and copy recordings for their own use and do not rely on an
Internet connection. The jukebox archive has been very successful with speakers
of indigenous languages living in rural areas of Australia (Jeff Good, personal
communication). The other example has to do with the development of Informa-
tion and Communication Technology (ICT) to use as an interface to primary data
(Nathan and Csató 2006), in particular, using social networks and other forms
of multimedia that are known by the community. We discuss our experiences
in trying to implement such an interface with an indigenous community in the
U.S. and its relevance to indigenous communities in Mexico, as well as some of
our experiences in providing members of communities of speakers of indigenous
languages in Mexico with data that has resulted from our linguistic studies. We
also present some of the difficulties that linguists face in the context of providing
access to data that derives from our documentation and description projects.
This paper is not meant to provide definitive solutions to data accessibility
plans in Mexico, but rather, it is aimed at promoting the discussion of this issue
and possible solutions that could be relevant to the local contexts in Mexico.
This is particularly relevant since it does not appear to be the case that national
funding organizations which have contributed to language documentation and
description projects require researchers in Mexico to archive their data. As such,
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   61

this seems to be an area that is still under development within the local context
of Mexican linguistic research.

2 Case studies
This section presents various case studies outside of Mexico which highlight
possible methods for sharing primary data and products of research projects in
speaker communities. Later we consider some of the potential advantages and
disadvantages of these methods for the Mexican context. This section is not
aimed to be an exhaustive list of all possible forms of primary data sharing and
accessibility strategies, but rather, a survey of various options we have consid-
ered and in some cases tried.

2.1 Northeastern North American Languages Archive (NNAILA)

The Northeastern North American Languages Archive, or NNAILA, was a pilot

project funded by the University at Buffalo to determine if it would be feasible
to create a digital archive for native languages spoken in northeastern North
America (see O’Meara and Good 2010 for additional discussion). For the initial
phase, we focused on recordings made with Onondaga speakers in New York
State,2 digitizing a large collection of analogue legacy material from Iroquoian
languages that had been collected by various linguists and compiling the associ-
ated metadata as part of the process. The ultimate goal of the pilot project was to
create an interactive digital archive whose use was targeted at speakers, heritage
learners, and researchers.
Due to historical and political concerns regarding research conducted in
collaboration with these speaker communities, we were very careful to take into
full consideration all of the interests and concerns of the various individuals
involved, including speakers, their families, linguists and also the collaborators
at the University at Buffalo. The primary interests of the pilot project included:
the preservation of the material that had been collected as part of the long-term
linguistic collaborations with Onondaga speakers and linguists, and in one case,

2 The three-letter ISO code for Onondaga is [ono]. It is the language of the Onondaga First Nation
and is classified as an Iroquoian language. It is spoken both in central New York State in the Unit-
ed States of America as well as in Ontario, Canada, near Brantford at the Six Nations Reserve.
62   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

the work of a native-speaker linguist, as well as the dissemination of the archived

material. Additionally, the location of the University at Buffalo as the archive’s
home seemed particularly convenient due to its proximity to both of the areas
where Onondaga is spoken today. It was also of particular concern that it has
been reported that there are fewer than one hundred fluent speakers of Onondaga
remaining (Mithun 1999: 423).
In order to design the interface that would provide access to the archived
material, we worked in collaboration with some members of the Onondaga
speaker community and the linguists who had contributed material to the archive.
The interface was modeled on social media interaction, requiring a username and
password to access, based on principles of crowd-sourcing material  – the goal
was to improve and expand the material in the archive with contributions from
speakers, heritage learners, teachers, linguists and other interested researchers
in the form of comments, transcriptions, new recordings, etc. As such, we would
not only be preserving previously collected language material, but also creating
new potentially archivable material in order to enhance and potentially improve
the legacy recordings and their associated material. This interaction and comple-
mentation of the archived material can be a way for interested parties to respond
to what has been called the retrieval problem (Holton 2011: 158), which has to
do with various types of failures in which results from language documentation
efforts are never made accessible to stakeholders in such projects, especially
members of speaker communities.
When we began to pilot the portal with speakers, heritage learners, and teach-
ers in the state of New York, the response was very positive. They seemed to be
able to navigate throughout the portal with ease (given that they had experience
using Internet browsers in the past) and were very excited to listen to recordings
and discuss their content. Many of the individuals with whom we worked during
the pilot phase had not previously heard the recordings that we had digitized and
seemed to thoroughly enjoy the idea of having access to such material.
Nevertheless, we ran into some hurdles during the process of turning the
digital archive portal from a pilot into a live portal. The issues that we faced came
from various sources, which are discussed in more detail in O’Meara and Good
(2010) and Good (2012). However, the original concept of NNAILA was to offer a
community portal, as depicted in Figure 1, to access and disseminate language-re-
lated material, in this case, from native languages of northeastern North America.
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   63

Fig. 1: Community portal diagram from Good (2012)

In this model, you can have diverse experts as well as community experts con-
tributing to the community portal. The information deposited in the community
portal can then be examined and potentially curated and subsequently upgraded
to be incorporated into the long-term archive.
This particular model is a good fit for speaker communities where there is
reasonably good access to Internet for a large percentage of the population and
where people are familiar with using the Internet and have the equipment nec-
essary to access the Internet, like laptops and computers. It is also suitable for
language communities where there exists legacy language material that has not
been made readily accessible to interested parties, such as teachers and heritage
learners.

2.2 Information communication technology (ICT)

One way in which linguists and language documentation advocates have made
material from documentation projects available is through its transformation into
multimedia formats that are pedagogically relevant to the speaker community.
This has been described as part of the implementation of Information Commu-
nication Technology or ICT (Nathan and Csató 2006). The larger premise behind
ICT is delivering fieldwork to a language community, as opposed to with or for a
language community, following Grinevald’s (2003: 58) terminology, but adding a
twist to it. Under this idea, there is a priority given to promoting and mobilizing
relationships between stakeholders in language documentation projects in a way
that the resources are delivered directly to the speaker communities, eliminating
the need for formal resource delivery plans. While this is not directly related to
archiving, it is a way in which researchers can design their documentation pro-
jects to create nearly instant deliverables to interested parties in speaker commu-
nities.
64   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

This approach presupposes that language is a part of larger social processes

within a speaker community. As such, providing speakers with printouts of texts,
one standard data dissemination method, may not be sufficient in trying to
capture the quality of actual linguistic practice, especially as it pertains to com-
munities where the transmission of language is predominantly, if not exclusively,
oral. In comparison, multimedia products can do a much better job at replicating
and maintaining some level of fidelity with linguistic interaction, performance
and everyday usage of language. Multimedia products capture a common thread
between members of a speaker community and the various roles they play in this
product, as well as a link to the product itself.
Multimedia products can not only strengthen relationships and understand-
ings between non-community member linguists and speakers, but they can
also be a way to bring younger and older people together – the younger people
can facilitate the use of the multimedia material and the older generations can
help the youngsters understand the content better. This type of social interac-
tion between different generations can also be promoted during the creation of
the multimedia products. Additionally, this type of interaction can lead to new
directions in the presentation of the data. As Nathan and Csató (2006) mention,
this occurred when an elder suggested implementing a multimedia comic book in
order to capture the interest of members of the younger generation of speakers.
In general, an ICT approach requires the linguist to ask what language speak-
ers want from a documentation project. The obligation is to deliver linguistically
and culturally relevant material to other speakers in the community, using the
speakers as the guiding force of what it is that should be recorded and presented
in the multimedia material. This can include everyday linguistic practices like
greetings, culturally significant items like stories and songs, as well as more
inventive formats like comic books or cartoons. While there is a definite invest-
ment of time and to some extent money, the potential outcome could be worth it.
Particularly considering that the linguist will likely be documenting this type of
information no matter what and the cost might just be some compact discs or a
memory stick to transfer the files.

2.3 Local archives in South America

In Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, there are a group of local language
archives whose goal it is to make primary language data available to members
of local speaker communities (see Moore and Galucio this volume for more infor-
mation regarding the Brazilian case). Seifart et al. (2008) note the importance
that the material located in local language archives can have in an indigenous
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   65

community. For example, topics like intellectual property rights and control of
access to data that gets published has been a motivating factor for the people of
these South American communities to participate in local archiving efforts. This
has been particularly important when it comes to data resulting from research on
the traditional knowledge of local communities.
In Peru, a DOBES project focused on documenting the languages spoken by
the people known as the “People of the Centre.” Part of the focus of the project
was to document and make accessible to these people the documentation of
rituals, songs, stories and other types of linguistic practices. Seifart et al. (2008)
indicate that due to the geographical distance and international borders that
exist between speakers of these languages, there is a real need to find ways to
document and subsequently make accessible the culturally relevant linguistic
practices of these groups. For instance, one goal was to facilitate access to lan-
guage recordings for the Bora people who live in Colombia and the Bora people
who live in Peru so that regardless of their location, they could have access to
recordings made in either community at a local language archive. As Seifart et
al. (2008: 132) mention, “[…] one of the aims of the archive in Iquitos [Peru] is
to contribute to changing the tendency of exporting objects and data towards a
culture of sharing data with the national institutions of the countries where these
data were collected.”
Given that documenting and archiving the data collected in documentation
projects of indigenous languages of South America and in general throughout
the Americas is a particularly urgent task (Seifart et al. 2008: 134), it is relevant
that researchers and speakers share their success stories. However, archiving lan-
guage material is not particularly useful if the language archives are not acces-
sible or not consulted – the acceptance and success of a local language archive
depends on its use. As such, the new generations of stakeholders in language
documentation projects must be open-minded enough to recognize the benefits
in sharing their preliminary results and their raw data with speakers and the sci-
entific community (Seifart et al. 2008: 137), as well as discussing the issues rele-
vant to successful access plans and presentation of data.
In the case of the local archives that were created in South America, it
is important to note that they function as part of a larger network of language
archives (Seifart et al. 2008: 138). In particular, these archives were supported by
larger language archiving efforts in place by The Language Archive group at the
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics located in the Netherlands. This group
provides basic infrastructure and server mirroring of the local archive servers with
the servers run by The Language Archive, as well as training in order to provide
security in the content of the language archives and to promote best practices
in language archiving. Additionally, the local archives set up in South America
66   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

form their own network of small local archives. This type of set up is a model that
could potentially work in Mexico to provide access to language material in local
settings, but still adhere to international archiving standards, including a com-
mitment to preservation and migration of digital language material. However, in
order for this to be successful, some investment needs to be made to provide the
proper infrastructure needed.

2.4 Jukebox archive model in Australia

The jukebox archive model is one that has been implemented in cultural centers
in parts of rural Australia. In contrast with the community portal design of
NNAILA, this model does not require Internet access at the point of installation.
In fact, this model excels in its technological simplicity given that it consists of, in
its most basic format, a computer that contains easily movable files (generally in
.mp3 format) of language related materials, including narratives, stories, songs,
conversations, among other possible items. It can additionally contain tran-
scribed versions of the recordings and other information relevant to the language
material. The computer can optionally be connected to the Internet if that is avail-
able in order for items to be added from a language archive or from researchers
and for items that are added by speakers or singers to then be safeguarded in an
archive. This format allows speakers and learners to come to the cultural center
and download recordings onto an .mp3 player or burn a compact disc of record-
ings to then take with them. It also allows speakers to contribute to the jukebox
archive with their own recordings.
As mentioned, this type of model has been reported to be highly successful
in cultural centers in rural parts of Australia were there is oftentimes no access or
limited access to the Internet (Jeff Good, personal communication). However, this
model can only be successfully implemented in places where there are cultural
centers or some kind of equivalent (ideally politically neutral) location where
a computer can be safeguarded and made available to interested parties. This
type of model can also be used for researchers from other disciplines and local
researchers who would like to share and have access to the outputs of research
projects being conducted in their region.
The ideal case of local archiving efforts would be something closer to what
has recently been implemented in Alaska, with the Ahtna Regional Linguis-
tic and Ethnographic archive (Berez, Finnesand, and Linnell 2012), where the
local community manages and implements its archive under international best
practice archiving standards. This local archive is located in the Ahtna cultural
center, similar to the jukebox archives being located in cultural centers within
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   67

remote parts of Australia. However, the Ahtna case is exceptional for the time
being, considering that many rural communities where indigenous languages are
spoken do not have the infrastructure to maintain such an archive, nor are there
mechanisms in place to provide training and jobs to individuals to maintain such
archives. Nevertheless, the model should be considered as a potential goal in the
appropriate contexts and a model to aspire to in the future.

3 Archiving efforts in Mexico – a first approach

Taking into consideration the previous discussion of the three methods of pro-
viding access to data collected as part of language documentation and descrip-
tion projects in international contexts, we now turn to similar efforts in Mexico.
In particular, we discuss personal experiences in indigenous communities and
institutional efforts to archive language data. We also discuss some of the com-
plications specific to Mexican contexts regarding dissemination and access to
language data.

3.1 Providing access in the community of San Mateo

Almomoloa

The community of San Mateo Almomoloa, a community of Nahuatl speakers, is

located in the municipality of Temascaltepec in the state of Mexico. The village
is divided into various neighborhoods: La Mesa, San Mateo Centro (downtown),
La Comunidad, El Coporito and El Potrero, where each neighborhood has its own
schools. However, the teachers responsible for the education of the Nahuatl lan-
guage do not speak the language variety that is spoken in the town of San Mateo
Almomoloa, but rather, they speak another variant of Nahuatl that is spoken in
the state of Guerrero. This has proven to be a factor in the ways that certain com-
munity members have perceived certain activities related to language learning
and documentation.
At one point, one of the teachers at the bilingual school in San Mateo Almo-
moloa gave the students a homework assignment where he handed out a wordlist
in Spanish and the students were supposed to write out the words in their lan-
guage with help from their parents. This task was negatively perceived by some
community members: some of the people in the village began a rumor that the
teacher was selling every word at fifty cents each and, thus, would become rich
with the students’ homework. As a result, some people put enough pressure on
68   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

the teacher that he was eventually fired. Similarly, the Nahuatl speakers in the
community hired a teacher to provide language lessons. The various political
groups in the town encouraged the people to attend the Nahuatl lessons, but the
response was poor. The few participants who attended the lessons were faced
with a problem: the teacher did not speak the local variety. As a consequence, the
project failed.
González Guadarrama and colleagues3 faced similar challenges while con-
ducting language documentation fieldwork in this community. Similar to what
happened to the local teacher, it was also rumored that the members of the lan-
guage description group were selling each word collected in the project for fifty
cents each, and as such, becoming rich in the process. However, the individu-
als who are directly involved in the project, both native speaker consultants and
other linguists, know that these rumors are false. As the project has been pro-
gressing, collaborators have received copies of the audio and video recordings
and in the beginning phase of the project, they were fully informed of the nature
of the project.
Our main collaborator in the project is Mrs. Guillermina Ríos Palma, a native
speaker of the variety of Nahuatl spoken in the village. Mrs. Guillermina Ríos has
played a key role as the intermediary in the dialogue established with the ele-
mentary school “Lic. Benito Juárez”, located in the neighborhood of San Mateo
Center. The dialogue with the local authorities and the teachers was a success
and a linguistic archive is currently being developed inside the school, providing
enough space to accommodate the language archive. As part of this first phase,
we are archiving the primary data that we have obtained from our first stay in
2010 with plans to continue adding to the language archive over time. In a second
phase of the project, we will create a dictionary in collaboration with Mrs. Guiller-
mina Ríos and her husband, Mr. Antonio Salazar Santana. The dictionary will be
a useful tool for school teachers and students who are bilingual and also for those
who are not. Finally, in a third phase of the project, we will make a grammatical
sketch of this variant of the Nahuatl language.
The current challenge is to convince the townspeople that this project is
transparent and not for profit. We have worked with the delegates of the previ-
ous local administration, and were well received. Given that there was a recent
change in the town’s administration, we are working with the new delegates. Up
until now we have had little dialogue with them and are currently working to
improve the situation. Nevertheless, the advances we have made in making the
primary data available to the local community have been a big step forward in

3 Collaborators include Guillermina Ríos Palma, Antonio Salazar Santana and Santín Ríos.
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   69

this process. Although the school at first seemed a non-neutral place4 to locate a
language archive, with the assistance of Mrs. Guillermina Ríos, the possibilities
of using the school as the location of the language archive have really changed.
However, we are still struggling with local political issues that prevent a smooth
process of access and information dissemination regarding the language docu-
mentation program.

3.2 Local archiving attempts in Seriland

In the case of the Seri5 speaking community of El Desemboque (del Río San
Ignacio), Sonora, Mexico where O’Meara collaborates with Seri speakers, the
only location where there is Internet (and not always reliably) is at the telese-
cundaria (the telelearning middle school). To be more specific, the connection is
frequently not working and when it is, it is extremely slow, to the extent that it
is nearly impossible to download files from the Internet. There is no cell phone
coverage and phone lines are only available by prohibitively expensive satellite
connection. As such, access to language archive material via an Internet connec-
tion is not ideal and certainly not something that is accessible to all, especially to
those without any electronic device to permit access to the Internet. In this case,
a jukebox archive approach is much more suitable given the connectivity issues
and given that since around 2004 El Desemboque has access to electricity (previ-
ously electricity was provided with solar panels or generators).
Nevertheless, finding a neutral place where such a jukebox archive could be
placed remains an issue. The elementary school and the middle school are both
part of the indigenous education department of the state of Sonora and as such,
the teachers are assigned at the state level. For the most part, the teachers are not
Seri speakers, but speakers of other indigenous languages of Sonora. This creates
issues regarding the status of the school and how neutral of a place it is perceived
to be by Seri speakers. Additionally, if a jukebox archive were to be placed in an
individual’s home, culturally specific issues would likely arise between certain

4 For us, a neutral place to locate a language archive or house language documentation material
is one that is as free from political, religious and governmental control as possible (keeping in
mind that this is very hard to achieve). It should be a place where members of the community
have access without having to pertain to a particular group (religious, political, etc.). In some
cases schools are not neutral due to the fact that they are run by the government and frequently
the teachers in so-called bilingual schools are not from the local community and are speakers or
different indigenous languages (not the one spoken locally).
5 The three-letter ISO code for this language is [sei].
70   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

families or certain individuals. For now, in this context the most efficient way of
sharing and providing access to primary data and material derived from primary
data is through sharing it with individuals who are interested or directly related
with the language description project. This is less than ideal, but O’Meara does
not see any immediate remedy to the current data dissemination plan.

3.3 Institutional archives in Mexico

There are a few institutional archive projects located in Mexico that are worth
noting, especially those with a focus on archiving data from indigenous lan-
guages. One of those archive projects is the Acervo Digital de Lenguas Indígenas
“Víctor Franco Pellotier” housed at the central offices of the Centro de Investiga-
ciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS, Center of Research
and Superior Studies in Social Anthropology) in Mexico City. The digital archive’s
website indicates that it produces materials that allow for the collection, safekeep-
ing and systematization of data from indigenous languages of Mexico. It further
mentions that one of its primary goals is to work against the situation of endan-
germent in which many indigenous languages find themselves by promoting the
revitalization of these languages. The website features pages for twelve different
indigenous languages of Mexico. Additionally, the archive benefits from a server
that was provided to them several years back by the Language Archive Group at
the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, as part of their local archives initi-
ative, akin to the previous discussion of local archives in South America.
While on the surface the digital archive at CIESAS appears to be one of the
few institutional archives in Mexico dedicated to archiving indigenous language
data, on closer inspection, it is not clear if this is actually a language archive. The
website does not contain any information on how to deposit language data in the
archive, nor does it provide any material regarding protocol of how to prepare
deposits, rights of collaborators who are featured in the language data, among
other important items usually present in language archives. There is a link on
the website to browse the IMDI database of metadata, housed at the Max Planck
Institute, but it does not appear to be functioning at the time of preparing this
chapter. As a result, it remains quite difficult to understand what kinds of lan-
guage data are housed in the archive, except for the games, children’s books,
songs, and didactic videos of documentation workshops, among other items that
are featured on the website. In summary, this does not appear to be a typical lan-
guage archive, if an archive at all, in comparison to other international language
archives. However, comparing the web presence of the CIESAS archive with the
Iquitos archive in Peru and the Argentinian one, we see that they are not too dif-
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   71

ferent in terms of the information that is accessible on the web, but in the case of
the Argentinian archive, the IMDI browser works.
Another archiving project that took place in Mexico is the Archivo de los
idiomas indígenas de Chiapas (Archive of indigenous languages of Chiapas),
created by John Haviland in collaboration with the Centro de Investigaciones y
Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) located in San Cristobal de
las Casas, Chiapas. This project seems to be associated with a larger language
documentation project of indigenous languages of Chiapas. The idea was to
present the results of the project on the archive’s website in order to provide
direct access to them by speakers, researchers and other interested parties. The
website primarily features work of a linguistic nature, including articles, theses,
presentations, as well as general descriptions of discoveries made as part of the
project. As such, this very project-specific “archive” is designed to disseminate
the results of the documentation project. In fact, it seems to outside eyes that the
archive is currently dormant, without much activity since the project itself was
being funded. Given these observations, this archive, just like the digital archive
previously mentioned, does not seem to function like a typical language archive,
but rather addresses specific needs of a project. Additionally, it is not clear if the
material available on the website is also housed in an actual archive dedicated to
long term preservation.

3.4 The Nenek Project

The Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi recently designed a multimedia

project focused on the indigenous language Teenek (also known as Huastec6),
which is called “Nenek: Documentación lingüística colaborativa en Internet”.
This project consists of an online collaborative platform that is a nearly monolin-
gual social network in Teenek, designed for Teenek speakers. The platform is in
some ways similar to the design described for NNAILA, as described in section 2.1,
where speakers can share and discuss content of any type, like audios, videos and
text, the difference being that the base information is not derived from archived
language data. Users can also upload existing materials in and about the Teenek
language and related cultural items that are from publications and manuscripts.
Nenek organizes the content and presents it to its users in the form of materials
like multimedia dictionaries, cultural repositories and a spell-checker. As such,
the construction of the base material is made between speakers, indigenous asso-

6 The three-letter ISO code for this language is [hus].

72   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

ciations that promote language use, government agencies focused on indigenous

groups, and the project facilitators (Van’t Hooft and González Compeán 2013).
In their recent presentation of the social media platform, Van’t Hooft and
González Compeán (2013) indicated that they have generated quite a bit of inter-
est among young speakers of Teenek with the social media platform. This success
seems to be related to one of the goals of the project, which is to find and create
new spaces in which speakers can use their language. In this case, the new space
has to do with using language in the context of the Internet and digital technol-
ogy. One way in which this project is helping speakers write and share texts in
Teenek on the platform has been the creation and implementation of a spell-
checker in Teenek. Time will tell how successful this effort ends up being for the
Teenek speaker community and the role that primary data from language descrip-
tion projects play in the social media platform.

3.5 Complications in providing local access

While working in indigenous communities in Mexico and working for academic

institutions in Mexico that oftentimes have less funding and less technological
infrastructure than institutions in non-developing countries, we have identified
some complications associated with archiving language data in both areas. One of
the most common complications we have run into in our work and have observed
in the work of others is the fact that in many communities where indigenous lan-
guages are spoken the conditions are not apt for installing a local archive or a
jukebox archive. This issue can arise due to various factors, including things as
basic as connectivity issues, problems with electrical installations and, of course,
the lack of an appropriate space to locate the local archive. In cases where it is
pertinent, researchers have to turn to institutional offices like schools and county
or municipal offices in order to try to establish a local archive in these facilities.
This does not always lead to the desired results given that sometimes the local
authorities are not completely convinced of how such a local archive could be
useful to them, as is the case in San Mateo Almomoloa. In other cases, the appro-
priate physical space just does not exist, as is the case in the Seri speaking com-
munities.
As has been discussed in the case studies, although many field linguists make
their research objectives clear and discuss the details of their research projects
with community members, it is oftentimes inevitable that rumors begin to surface
among community members, especially those who are not directly involved in
the project. Such rumors are frequently skeptical of the research project and can
even be directed at particular participants or collaborators in the project. The
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   73

prevalence of rumors and gossip within small communities around the world is
nothing new, nor is it something particular to the type of fieldwork that linguists
conduct. Additionally, the linguist has little control over the internal politics
that exist within the community at a social level and also at a political level with
the individuals who work in the local municipal or county offices. In attempt-
ing to collaborate with individuals in these offices or with school teachers, the
researcher, willingly or unwillingly, enters another arena of social interaction,
namely that of government entities. In many cases, this can lead to a negative
association being brought upon the researcher by association.
Finally, while many manuals on how to conduct linguistic fieldwork describe
ideal conditions, the reality is that local conditions vary quite a bit from speaker
community to speaker community. One example that is particularly relevant to
the context of Mexico has to do with the increasing prevalence or in some cases
the movements of criminal groups, such as drug traffickers. This type of activity
has at times forced linguists and anthropologists to leave and stop going to certain
areas where they had longstanding ties with community members. Linguists that
continue to work in areas that are affected by these types of groups do so with
quite a few safety risks. Given this reality in various parts of Mexico, the linguist
can ask herself if the creation and maintenance of a local language archive or
even the language documentation project is of the highest priority when they are
dealing with larger security threats. It is, of course, important to mention that this
type of activity is not present in the entire country, but it has been moving to parts
of the country where it was previously not an issue.

3.6 Relevant applications for contexts in Mexico

Taking into account the previously discussed case studies within and outside of
Mexico, we see various areas in which documentation projects that are taking
place in Mexico can promote and facilitate access to the primary data collected
as part of such projects. One area for consideration has to do with rethinking
plans within local language communities as it pertains to data collection and the
local needs of speakers, as well as the facilitation of access to the data (see Yáñez
Rosales et al., this volume, for an example of particular needs of a community of
language “rememberers” in a formerly Nahuatl speaking community in Mexico).
Another area of consideration has to do with the centralization and coordination
between researchers, universities and other academic institutions that promote
language archiving in order to comply with language archiving standards and to
concentrate our efforts within Mexico.
74   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

In terms of adapting language documentation projects in Mexico to better

promote access to data from such projects, the local language community’s spe-
cific needs must be taken into consideration (see Pérez Báez, this volume, for dis-
cussion of this in the case of San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec and also Villard and Sul-
livant for a Chatino case). Many rural communities where indigenous languages
are spoken in Mexico do not have reliable connections to the Internet (including
via landlines or cell towers) and many homes and schools have limited access to
such items as computers and other means in which they could easily connect to
the Internet, let alone via smart phones. As such, making primary data available
via an Internet portal, such as that previously described with NNAILA and Nenek,
is not a viable solution in many locations. Nevertheless, indigenous speaker
communities located in more urban areas where Internet access is more readily
available might be able to take advantage of an Internet archive web portal. It
is, however, important to keep in mind that Internet service in Mexico is one of
the most expensively priced services with one of the slowest speeds in the world
(Hussain et al. 2013). In that sense, while there may be access to Internet services
in urban areas, the price for the service is higher than better services offered in
other countries, making it a prohibitive form to provide access to language mate-
rial.
As a result of some of the technological drawbacks that might exist in some
communities of speakers of indigenous languages in Mexico, it is perhaps better
to seek a more low-tech approach to making primary data available. In the case
of the community of San Mateo Almomoloa, inhabitants at first suggested safe-
guarding the primary data collected from the language documentation project in
a certain location and later reconsidered and suggested keeping it in the school
located in the San Mateo Centro neighborhood. At first the school was thought
of as a non-neutral area by many community members due to the fact that the
teachers are not necessarily from the village, but it currently seems to be the best
place to keep the CDs and DVDs that hold the primary language data. On the
other hand, O’Meara has had less success in leaving CDs and DVDs in the school,
as the teachers at the primary and secondary level in Desemboque are not Seri
speakers and are not necessarily interested in this type of material. Printed mate-
rial, however, seems to be in the school years after distribution and in some cases
seems to be used by teachers, at least at the kindergarten level where teachers are
native speakers.
One promising approach that has potential in many rural communities where
indigenous languages are spoken in Mexico is that of addressing more directly
the needs of the speakers by changing the format of the primary data. In particu-
lar, by using basic multimedia approaches to transforming primary data in such
ways that respond to the pedagogical needs of the speaker community. This type
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   75

of planning of language documentation and description projects can prevent the

potential issues raised by data accessibility plans that are created for data that
has already been captured. However, this type of approach would require train-
ing for linguists in order to create basic multimedia material, as well as training
for members of speaker communities to use such material. In comparison with
the infrastructural needs of some of the other options, the multimedia approach,
at least at a very basic level, seems to be the easiest to put into practice. Nev-
ertheless, this should be conducted in collaboration with linguistic experts of
the language in question. As has been observed in the case of the Seri language,
multimedia and written items produced as part of the previously discussed insti-
tutional archive in CIESAS have not necessarily been received positively by speak-
ers, as much of the material was created without consulting linguists who have
considerable experience working on the language, nor was the material prop-
erly presented to native speaker experts before their production for revision and
input.
As for the coordination of linguists, academic institutions and funding insti-
tutions in Mexico, in terms of best practices regarding what is to be done with the
results of primary data from language documentation and description projects,
the path is still under construction. However, there has been a recent effort to
create a network for language archives in Mexico, under the name RALMEX (Red
de Archivos de Lenguas de México). The basic idea behind RALMEX is to coordi-
nate our efforts as individuals and as small language archives to be able to have
a one stop shopping experience to discover what kinds of language materials
exist and where they are located by sharing metadata of the available language
materials. Additionally, RALMEX aims to coordinate efforts in implementing
best practices in language archiving in the participating language archives and
among linguists and interested language communities. Finally, another area that
RALMEX is exploring is facilitating support and cooperation with The Archive of
the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA), located in the Libraries of
the University of Texas at Austin.

4 Discussion
We hope that the issues presented in this chapter make it clear how necessary it is
to continue discussing and exploring the various options that exist for returning
and providing access to original data to members of speaker communities. This
discussion is important not only to understand what is working and what is not
working in particular speaker communities, but also to disseminate information
76   Carolyn O’Meara and Octavio Alonso González Guadarrama

regarding innovative ways in which to promote and streamline data accessibility

plans. These types of issues need to be addressed in order to also ensure that lan-
guage archives or local archives are utilized and utilizable, especially by members
of speaker communities. As Seifart et al. (2008) emphasize, the true measure of
success of a language archive is if it is being used and the interest of native speak-
ers should not be discarded. As Garrett (2008) has shown, 90 % of the users of
the Berkeley Language Archive are individuals from speaker communities, either
speakers or heritage learners, and not researchers.
Considering the fact that many indigenous languages of Mexico are currently
in decline or are at least facing struggles with respect to appropriate spaces of
use in comparison with Spanish, the dominant language, it is imperative to con-
sider how to design and plan language documentation and description projects
in order to address the needs of the speaker community. For instance, we should
consider how to design access points to language archives or local archives in
such a way as to facilitate access by speakers and heritage learners. Or consider
how to receive evaluations from native speakers, teachers of indigenous lan-
guages and heritage learners regarding the ways in which language materials are
being made accessible to them. It is relevant to also consider the fact that many
linguists do not live full-time in speaker communities and we must ask ourselves
how to manage these types of plans when our presence is not permanent.
Additionally, we wonder if we should reconsider what has been taken as the
standard definition of primary data in linguistics, as it pertains to language docu-
mentation: “The primary data which constitute the core of a language documen-
tation include audio or video recordings of a communicative event (a narrative, a
conversation, etc.), but also the notes taken in an elicitation session, or a geneal-
ogy written down by a literate native speaker. These primary data are compiled in
a structured corpus and have to be made accessible by various types of annota-
tions and commentary, here summarily referred to as the ‘apparatus’” (Himmel-
mann 2006: 1). This definition seems to pertain particularly to the needs of the
linguist, but does not necessarily address the needs or interests of a speaker com-
munity. Suppose we make this type of primary data directly available to speakers
via the web portal of an archive, but the speakers only have access to the Internet
via a satellite connection with a smartphone. In this case, the speakers will likely
not have easy access to these materials and the materials might not be of any use
to them.
However, with a smartphone, speakers might be able to access social media
sites, like the recently created Nenek and the original plan for NNAILA. Then,
would the new data generated by these sites also be considered primary data or
would it be excluded from the realm of data types that are part of a documen-
tary linguistics project? Would it be data we should archive? If so, what would be
 Accessibility to results and primary data of research on indigenous languages   77

the procedure for archiving this type of material? In fact, given that many speak-
ers are using their language in social media platforms in general, it should be
considered a space where language can be used and can be shared with other
speakers. Yet, how do we reconcile this type of data as a researcher? Can this
spontaneous data be used as part of a linguistics study?7 Should it be saved for a
linguistic archive? Yet, social media is not the only answer to language documen-
tation concerns, given that it seems to be much more frequently used by younger
individuals. How can social media platforms be made useful or relevant to older
individuals who are part of speaker communities? Will this require various data
accessibility methods – one for older speakers and one for younger speakers? So
many important questions arise that deserve a response from speaker collabora-
tors and linguists.
These questions, and many others, are highly pertinent to the success or lack
of success of the language documentation and description projects in which lin-
guists participate. As such, we feel the need to continue this discussion in the
academic realm, as well as with other stakeholders in these types of projects,
namely the speakers and heritage learners, in order to arrive at data dissemi-
nation and accessibility plans that take into consideration the local needs and
resources available in a particular speech community.

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Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and
Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

4 The revitalization of Wixárika:

A community project in the midwest
region of Mexico

1 Introduction
The Huichol people have historically lived in the Sierra Madre Occidental range, in
the midwest region of Mexico. Their language, Wixárika (ISO 639-3 hch), belongs
to the Uto-Aztecan language family and according to the 2010 census report, there
are 47,625 speakers of Wixárika that are 3 years of age or older (INEGI 2011). The
level of bilingualism, however, varies and there is a strong tendency for younger
people to be increasingly proficient in Spanish, at the expense of Wixárika.
Both language vitality and language shift depend, to a great extent, on
the specific circumstances of the communities in which a language is spoken
(Fishman 1984; Díaz-Couder 1997; Moctezuma 2001; Hamel 2003); that is to say,
the processes of language shift are not uniform in all communities that share a
given language. Consequently, any action intended to promote the maintenance
of a language should be based on a detailed knowledge of the specific socio-cul-
tural context in which the process of language shift is taking place. With this in
mind, a research group based at the State University of Nayarit (Mexico) initiated
a research project in 2010 to ascertain the degree of Wixárika language vitality in
Huichol communities of the state of Nayarit,1 taking the degree of accessibility as
a defining factor. Our hypothesis regarding this factor was that the degree of iso-

1 This project is part of a larger study that started in 2006 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma
de México and was originally named La vitalidad de las lenguas indígenas de México: un estudio
en tres contextos [The vitality of the indigenous languages of Mexico: a study in three contexts].
The objective of the project was to analyze the process of indigenous language shift in communi-
ties with different socio-geographic contexts in Mexico. Over the years the project has incorpo-
rated new communities. The research team in Nayarit became involved in 2010.

Saul Santos García, Tutpika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro (Universidad
Autónoma de Nayarit)
82   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

lation of a community has an effect on the pressures that result in language shift
or language maintenance. Initially, we worked with two communities: El Colorín
(easily accessible) and El Sauz (difficult to access). Our research confirmed that
there is a higher degree of displacement of Wixárika by Spanish at El Colorín than
at El Sauz. The aim of our project was to identify the pressures that the Huichol
people face and that lead them to adopt strategies that favor the use of Wixárika
or the use of Spanish. The data collection consisted in the administration of a
questionnaire and extensive in-depth interviews with different age groups.
During the data collection process, the interviews raised awareness among
El Colorín community members regarding their own linguistic situation and its
implications for the future of their language. This prepared the ground for the
establishment of a participatory (i.e. community-research team) revitalization
project.
In this chapter we intend to share the revitalization strategies that the com-
munity of El Colorín has adopted over the past three years. The chapter starts
with a reflection of language revitalization in Mexico. It follows with a brief
description of the linguistic situation of the community and the pressures that
have made people drift towards the current state of affairs. It ends with a descrip-
tion of the different actions in which the researchers and the community have
been engaged as part of the language revitalization process.

2 Language revitalization in Mexico

In Mexico, official policies that were in existence since after the independence
movement (1810) until practically the second half of the twentieth century openly
sought the assimilation of the indigenous population into mainstream society.
The teaching of Spanish in public schools in indigenous communities played an
important role in the assimilation of these communities; this caused a dramatic
decrease of the population that self-identified as indigenous alongside a decrease
in the use of indigenous languages (Zimmermann 2010: 904).
Recently, census figures have shown that there is a slight increase in the
numbers of indigenous people, that is, people who self-identify as indigenous
(INEGI 2011). Paradoxically, political, social and economic factors impede
an accompanying increase of the number of actual speakers of indigenous
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   83

l� anguages;2 thus, it is commonplace to find indigenous communities with a

mixture of monolinguals in an indigenous language (elders), bilinguals Span-
ish-indigenous language (adults) and Spanish monolinguals (younger popula-
tion). In other words, the system is promoting a replacive bilingualism (Fishman
and García 2010: 181), where bilingualism is a transitional stage between mono-
lingualism in an indigenous language and monolingualism in Spanish (see for
example Villard and Sullivant, this volume).
Such is the case for many indigenous communities in the midwest region in
Mexico: young people speak Spanish as a first language and barely speak the
indigenous language3 (Santos García 2014). The situation is reaching a critical
point, for Spanish is the language that these young people will use with their
children when they become parents.
However, it is not just the case that the community is shifting from one lan-
guage to another. In addition to being an instrument of communication, language
carries a heavy load of cultural values; these cultural values are of paramount
importance in the development of the self, identity, and interpersonal relation-
ships within the community (Scollon and Scollon 1981: 37). That is to say, the
norms governing behavior (linguistic and non-linguistic) for a particular commu-
nicative situation vary (sometimes radically) from culture to culture. The rules
governing those behaviors are not explicit; they are learned along with language,
during the first stages of language development (Reyhner and Tennant 1995: 280).
Then, when a child is forced to use a language containing cultural values that
are different from those of the culture in which their parents and grandparents
grew up, he or she is being deprived of the possibility of learning those norms:
the child is being forced to ‘walk among several worlds’ with a single language
(Henze and Vanett 1993: 124–125).
It was not until the decade of the 1930s that both governmental and edu-
cational institutions systematically acknowledged the existence of indigenous
people and their languages in Mexico. Governmental institutions, on the one
hand, showed a prevailing interest in indigenous affairs in general, and educa-
tional institutions, on the other, showed an interest in indigenous languages,
although initially not necessarily from a sociolinguistic point of view (Nava 2011:

2 Although identification as indigenous in Mexico is tightly associated with proficiency in the

relevant indigenous language, official figures should be taken with a grain of salt; for example,
according to the population census (INEGI 2011) in El Colorín, 72 out of 142 inhabitants are speak-
ers of Wixárika; however, our own data shows that in reality there are only 37 speakers.
3 Four indigenous groups dwell in this region: Náayeri (Cora), Wixárika (Huichol), Au’dam
(�Tepehuano) and Mexikan (Nahuatl).
84   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

88–89). In recent years, the attention of some scholars has shifted to the sociolin-
guistic dimension of indigenous languages, with a special interest in endangered
languages. Nonetheless, at present in Mexico we know more about the causes of
language shift than we know about effective ways of reversing this shift (Flores
2011a: 211). In other words, although the revitalization of endangered indigenous
languages is accorded an official status, in reality the implementation of official
actions is extremely limited.
From the official governmental side, the right of indigenous peoples to use
and preserve their languages was institutionalized at the dawn of this century,
with the adoption of the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indí-
genas4 (General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous People). A necessary con-
dition for a language that is in danger of extinction to become a vital language is
the existence of legal conditions for this to happen. In Mexico, this necessary con-
dition exists; furthermore, a special official institution in charge of making sure
that the law is observed was created: the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
(INALI, National Institute for Indigenous Languages).
Despite the important contributions of INALI, it cannot be said that there is a
national policy aimed at revitalization of indigenous languages in Mexico. What
does exist however are community-based efforts. At times indigenous commu-
nities have been able to find ways of resisting the effects of linguistic assimila-
tion to mainstream society on their own, but more often revitalization processes
are fostered by research teams in educational institutions. Some languages have
received more attention than others. The languages that have received the most
attention both in terms of study and maintenance are Nahuatl (mainly in the
central region of Mexico, but also in different regions of the country, including the
western region) and the languages of the Mayan family (in the southeast region
of Mexico) (see, for example, Flores 2007). These two language families inciden-
tally constitute the two indigenous language families with the largest number of
speakers in the country (INEGI 2011). But what is the situation of all other minor-
ity languages in Mexico? The following is the account of the first attempts at revi-
talizing Wixárika in a Huichol community: El Colorín.

4 This law, which was passed in 2003, gives all indigenous languages spoken in Mexico the same
status as Spanish: national languages.
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   85

3 The Huichol people and Wixárika, their

language
The Huichol people are one of the 600 (or more) indigenous groups who live in
Latin America. They dwell on both sides of the river Chapalagana in the southern
portion of the Sierra Madre Occidental in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit,
Durango and Zacatecas (Neurath 2003; Gutiérrez del Ángel 2010), one of the most
isolated areas of the country (see map 1). Their region is about 10,000 km2 (Acosta
2008). The Huichol people, like other indigenous ethnic groups in Mexico, are
socioeconomically disadvantaged, have low levels of education, and live in areas
where there are great environmental hazards. It is an isolated region due to the
rough and mountainous landscape which has complicated the construction of
roads. Although more roads are being built to connect larger communities to each
other, access to smaller, more remote communities still depends on dirt roads
which often wash out after heavy rains and mudslides (Raujsbaum 1994: 54).

Map 1: Wixárika region (Verdín Amaro 2013:27)

86   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

Map 2 shows the communities that have traditionally been associated with the
Huichol territory. These are mainly located in the state of Jalisco; however, in
recent times (the second half of last century) there has been a series of migrations
of the Huichol people to the valley and coast of Nayarit, and several new commu-
nities have emerged, mainly along the Santiago River. In fact, at present, most of
the Huichol population lives in the state of Nayarit (INEGI 2011).

Map 2: Locations of the Huichol

civil-religious hierarchy (Téllez
2005, cited in Verdín Amaro
2013: 34)

Huichol activities, whether of the individual or the group, are considered to be

closely related to their way of seeing the world (Verdín Amaro 2013). Their reli-
gion forms the basis for everything they do, even their economic activities, which
include agriculture and gathering, fishing, hunting, selling crafts and seasonal
wage labor. Most of these activities are for subsistence (Rajsbaum 1992: 4; Acosta
2008: 19; Romero 2008: 30; Neurath 2003: 9; Gutiérrez del Ángel 2010: 31).
According to the 2010 census report, there are 47,625 Wixárika speakers5
representing 0.69 % of the total indigenous population of Mexico (6,913,362).
However, communities are becoming less and less Wixárika monolingual. It is
considered that of the 47,625 Wixárika speakers, only 16 % are monolingual, and
that the level of bilingualism among them varies widely (INEGI 2011), as shown
in Table 1 below.

5 Official figures in Mexico concerning indigenous population are determined by the number of
speakers of indigenous languages, as reported in the national census.
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   87

Tab. 1: Huichol population of 3 years of age or older (based on data from INEGI 2011).6

Speak Wixárika Speak Spanish Do not speak Spanish Unspecified

Total 47,625 39,097 7,748 780

Male 23,519 20,240 2,880 399
Female 24,106 18,857 4,868 381

The Wixárika language belongs to the Uto-Aztecan family. The issue of dialec-
tal variation has been a source of controversy. Officially, INALI (2008: 7–9, 2nd
section) recognizes the existence of four varieties of Wixárika: Northern Â�Wixárika,
Southern Wixárika, Eastern Wixárika and Western Wixárika. According to this
classification, there is only one variety in the state of Nayarit: Northern Wixárika.
However, our own experience working with Huichol communities in the state of
Nayarit, along with the perception of native speakers to whom we have talked,
leads to a different opinion. Firstly, people do not seem to perceive great differ-
ences in the speech of people from different regions, hence these differences do
not seem to cause problems of intelligibility. Secondly, the distinctions Huichols
make between those living in one region and those living in another have to do
more with cultural features, rather than language variation, such as clothing and
the way certain ceremonies are carried out. In this sense, we have stated else-
where (Santos García, Carrillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro 2012: 19) that an
alternative way of grouping Huichols is following the criteria of cultural traits and
their self-identification with ancient tribes:
– Tuapuritari-Wautiari: Tuxpan de Bolaños, San Sebastián and Ocotán de la
Sierra, as well as communities in the municipality of Bolaños and Mesquitic,
in the state of Jalisco, as well as communities in the north of Nayarit.
– Tateikietari: San Andrés Coamiata, San Miguel Huaixtita, las Guayabas,
Coamiata in the state of Jalisco, and communities in the state of Durango.
– Xatsietsarie-Puwarikatia: Guadalupe Ocotán, and all communities dispersed
in the direction of Santa María del Oro, in the state of Nayarit, families in
most of them are originally from Guadalupe Ocotán.
– Aguamilpa: Communities settled around the Aguamilpa dam, in the state of
Nayarit. All these communities, as mentioned before, are of recent foundation
and are composed of people coming from different communities (families) in
the state of Jalisco. El Colorín, the community presented in this report, is one
of the communities settled around the Aguamilpa dam (see Map 2 above).

6 Although these figures are important, one should be careful about their interpretation, be-
cause for people who take the census it is not really clear what it means ‘to speak the language’.
88   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

4 Language vitality at El Colorín7

El Colorín is a community situated in the state of Nayarit, Mexico, along the Santi-
ago River and can be accessed via a secondary paved road 55 kms long. According
to the most recent population census (INEGI 2011), there are 142 inhabitants in the
community, most of whom are Huichol, although there are some non indigenous
Spanish speakers living in El Colorín. Table 2 shows more specific demographic
information:

Tab. 2: Information about inhabitants in El Colorín (data source: INEGI 2011).

Population Total 3 years of age and more

Total 142 126

Male 66 56
Female 76 70

Language (3 years of Monolingual Bilingual Monolingual

age and more) Wixárika Spanish

Total 1 71 54
Male 0 37 19
Female 1 34 35

Education Age group

3–5 6–11 12–14 15–17 18–24 8–14 15 + 18 +

Population 14 19 9 11 21 21 84 73

Do not attend school 6 0 1

Attend school 3 3

Do not read and write 2 19

Never went to school 21

Finished primary ed. (k-6) 13

Finished secondary ed. (7–9) 18

Further education 4

7 In this section it is our intention to present a brief description of the situation of Wixárika
and Spanish in El Colorín, as background information for the description of the revitalization
process. For a full report on the study of vitality, see Santos García (2014).
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   89

Originally, El Colorín was located further up the mountain, but with the construc-
tion of a dam on the Santiago River, the people from El Colorín petitioned the
government for a piece of land next to the dam that had been used by the con-
struction workers. The community’s change of location transformed their lives
dramatically: in their previous location the only economic activity was domestic
agriculture, now their main activity is fishing (Figure 1).

Fig. 1: El Colorín (photo by Tutupika Carrillo).

The study of language vitality was carried out in two stages: the first one, quanti-
tative in nature, consisted in the use of a questionnaire which was administered
house by house. The questionnaire was administered orally and in principle, one
person in each house, an adult, responded in the name of those living in the same
house, in the way the census is collected. In some cases, when other members of
the house were available and willing to participate, they provided information
about themselves. This first stage seeks to capture the individual’s perception
of proficiency in Wixárika and Spanish, the perception of possibilities for use of
Wixárika, and the perception of use in different communicative domains within
the community and at home. Data collection for this stage excluded children
younger than 3 years old. In total, responses about 97 people were collected. For
the analysis of this data, the population was divided into four age groups: chil-
dren, most of whom attend elementary school (3–12 years of age); youngsters,
90   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

most of whom are already working (13–20 years of age); young adults, most of
whom are already married with a family (21–45 years of age); and senior adults (46
and older). These groupings respond to the perceptions that people in El Colorín
and in general in other Huichol communities have of the social roles community
members have as they grow.
The second stage, more qualitative in nature, aimed at identifying the factors
that have forced the Huichol people to adopt strategies that favor the use of
Â�Wixárika or the use of Spanish. This particular project in El Colorín is part of a
larger study (See Bermeo 2007; Trujillo 2007; Velázquez 2008; Trujillo and Terborg
2009; Santos García 2011; as well as those reported in Terborg and García Landa
2011). Data for this second stage was collected through in-depth semi-structured
interviews and ethnographic notes. Fourteen people were formally interviewed,
but informally, we talked to practically everyone in the community about lan-
guage issues.
The analysis of language vitality for El Colorín shows a strong shift from Wix-
árika to Spanish. Only 38 % of the population responded that they felt they had
high proficiency of Wixárika, whereas 88 % declared having high proficiency in
Spanish.8 Forty-four percent of children, 35 % of young adults, 15 % of adults and
8 % of elders do not speak Wixárika at all. The rest either reported speaking a
little Wixárika or that they only understood a few words. An analysis was carried
out on this data to find out possibilities of use of Wixárika. Data was arranged as
follows: those who responded ‘yes’ to the question ‘Do you speak Wixárika?’ were
labeled under the category podría usarlo ‘I could use it’. Those who responded
‘only a little’ or ‘understand a few words’ were labeled under podría usarlo de
forma pasiva ‘I could use it passively’ and those who said ‘no’ under no podría
usarlo ‘I could not use it’. Results of this analysis are shown in Figure 2, which
confirms that the likelihood that the younger generations are or will be speaking
Wixárika in a number of domains or that they will transmit the language, is very
small.

8 As can be seen, some of these respondents are highly proficient in both languages, hence
figures do not add up to 100 %.
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   91

100
90
80
70
60
I could use it
50
I could use it passively
40
I could not use it
30
20
10
0
Children Youngsters Young adults Senior adults

Fig. 2: Possibility of use of Wixárika, according to perceived competence.

As for the current use of Wixárika within the community, although the data
revealed that Wixárika is still used in the community, it is only used among elders
and to a certain extent by younger adults. Children and youngsters use Spanish
systematically. The research also showed that the relocation of El Colorín contrib-
uted to this process of language shift.9
In the original location, all inhabitants were Huichols. It was not until they
moved to the new location that mixed marriages were observed, specifically with
Spanish speaking individuals. Spanish is the mother tongue of all children of
mixed families.
The children that were born in the new location of El Colorín grew up in an
environment that is radically different from that of their parents. As mentioned
before, in the original location the main economic activity was domestic agri-
culture, they produced what they needed to survive, and contact with outsiders
was minimal. In the new location the main activity is fishing and they no longer
engage in domestic agriculture. They are forced to sell fish to outsiders (Spanish
speakers) in order to buy other subsistence products. The pressure under which
they are to sell is stronger than the pressure under which the buyer is, especially
because they also have to compete with fishermen from nearby communities,
who are Spanish speakers.

9 The mention of relocation is important because in recent times many indigenous communities
in the region are being relocated because of the construction of dams.
92   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

Fishing only takes place during a few months of the year; hence, they have
been forced to develop other economic activities such as the production of hand-
icrafts which are also sold to outsiders. In addition, the community has become
a tourist attraction for camping and sport fishing. These activities have forced
community members to establish greater contact with Spanish speakers.
Other factors that have contributed to language shift are the insertion of
schools and the distribution of the houses within the community.
The school has played a role of paramount importance in this language shift.
Although the General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous People acknowl-
edges the right to the use of indigenous languages as a means of instruction in
indigenous communities, it does not enforce it. Similarly, the Mexican Ministry of
Education, through the office of Dirección General de Educación Indígena ‘General
Office of Indigenous Education’, promotes a bilingual and bicultural education.
However, instruction in most elementary schools in indigenous communities in
Nayarit, and perhaps in Mexico, is not bilingual or bicultural (Pacheco 2002).
There are a number of reasons for this: 1) speaking indigenous languages is seen
as a sign of backwardness by many school teachers and authorities, 2) teachers
who work for the indigenous bilingual education system are often not indigenous
and do not speak an indigenous language, 3) frequently teachers who are speak-
ers of one indigenous language are assigned to communities where a different
indigenous language is spoken, 4) there are no written materials in indigenous
languages (textbooks) to cover the whole elementary syllabus; and 5) teachers
who do not speak the relevant indigenous language are not able to use the few
materials printed in that language (Pacheco 2002: 234–235). Teachers in elemen-
tary education in El Colorín should be using Wixárika as a language of instruc-
tion, given that the community is registered as an indigenous community in the
inventory of the Ministry of Education. However, during the years that we have
been working in the community (since August 2011), all teachers we have met are
non-indigenous speakers of Spanish and do not speak Wixárika; only one of them
has shown interest in learning the language while he was assigned in the com-
munity, but did not reach a level of proficiency high enough to conduct a class in
the target language. Consequently, Spanish has been the medium of instruction.
The mention of the distribution of houses is important from a cultural point
of view. Traditionally, in Huichol communities houses are built around a central
area or ‘patio’ where all traditional ceremonies take place. And, as mentioned
before, the whole life of Huichols  – including traditional rituals  – gravitates
around the agricultural cycle. The patio is of paramount importance: no patio,
no ceremonies. In the new location of El Colorín, houses were built following
the lead of western culture and the way the dam workers built their temporary
homes. Thus, people from El Colorín have to use other communities’ ‘patios’ in
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   93

order to celebrate their rituals and when there is no patio available, some families
have decided not to celebrate them at all. The use of Wixárika is compulsory in
these celebrations and a natural arena for younger generations to speak it; but
if their families are not carrying out the ceremonies anymore, there is one less
reason to learn it.

5 Language revitalization in El Colorín: working

from within the community
As mentioned in the introduction of this chapter, language revitalization in El
Colorín was not the objective of the project, it was a fortunate consequence. The
original aim was to identify the pressures that the Huichol people face which
have caused them to adopt strategies that favor the use of Wixárika or the use of
Spanish. Although we were aware that the data obtained from the survey (quan-
titative data) would only be taken as an indicator of the linguistic situation, the
administration of the survey in fact turned out to be beneficial in ways that we
did not expect.

5.1 The emergence of a community-based project

Regarding the situation of Wixárika in El Colorín, some first reactions from people
included indifference and even agreement with the use of Spanish at the expense
of Wixárika. This is not an isolated case. There are other communities in Latin
America “where the process of language shift that favors the socially dominant
language is welcome by most members of the community and for whom language
identity is not necessarily part of their self-perception” (Sánchez, this volume:
199). Initial responses from people in El Colorín showed us that they saw lan-
guage shift as something inevitable, even desirable: they believed that Spanish
would guarantee their children a better life, as shown in the following segment of
an interview with a 38-year-old male.

Entrevistador: “¿Tus hijos hablan [wixárika]?”

Entrevistado: “Mis hijos hablan muy poco ¿Por qué? Porque… en… desde lejos se ven las
cosas que yo siempre, pues, veo diferente a la gente pues, mira aquel trae su computadora,
aquel gana su dinero y yo estoy donde mismo y mis hijos se van a quedar donde mismo.
Cuando haya esta posibilidad [de aprender español], como que nos vamos por ahí. […] Por
eso ya la gente busca otra forma…”
Entrevistador: “Otra forma de salir adelante”
94   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

Entrevistado: “…de salir así, y este… ahí es a donde ya estamos llevando a nuestra familia
a donde habla español.”

Interviewer: “Do your children speak [Wixárika]?”

Interviewee: “My children speak a little. Why? Because… in… from afar you can see the
things that I always, well, I see people differently; look at that guy, he is carrying a com-
puter, he makes good money and I am here in the same place, and my children will be in the
same place. So, when there is this possibility [of learning Spanish], we take that path […]
That’s why people look for other ways…”
Interviewer: “Another way to get ahead?”
Interviewee: “Yes, and… that’s where we are taking our family, to where they can speak
Spanish”.

However, through the process of talking to people as they answered the ques-
tionnaire and having the chance to visit every single home in the community,
members were able to get to know us and our concerns regarding the status of
their ancestral language. Not only that, but as they were given the chance to think
and talk about the issues in the questionnaire, and especially during the inter-
views, people began to show an interest in our original concerns and to appro-
priate them: they made the language issue their issue, to the point that the initi-
ative to organize a general meeting with the community10 in order to talk about
the language situation came from some of the older women in the community.
The recognition that research methods do have impacts upon the communities
within which we work irrespective of whether such impacts are an intentional
part of our research designs have been documented before (Guba and Lincoln
1989; Kingry-Westergaar and Kelly 1990). However, what excited us about the
response observed among community members was the opportunity to turn this
unplanned outcome into the possibility of engaging in an intended form of inter-
vention within an agenda of community involvement. In other words, we saw this
opportunity to move from a linguist-focused model of research (research on social
actors) to a more participatory, community engagement model (research on, for,
with and by community members; see Czaykowska-Higgins 2009: 22–24).11
During the first general meeting, we gave the floor to the community
members to express their concerns. From the beginning, we avoided establishing
a system or an agenda for the meetings with the intention of promoting commu-

10 ‘Community’ here refers to all members of the community, that is, people living in El Colorín,
regardless of whether they are speakers or non speakers of Wixárika.
11 See Pérez Báez (this volume) for a discussion on ethical aspects regarding the researcher’s
response to situations where the community is not aware of the endangered status of their lan-
guage.
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   95

nity members’ ownership and control over the process. The meetings followed
the course that the participants wanted to establish. Participants expressed that
they really cared about the future of their language. But in that first meeting, they
also revealed that they assumed that the school had played an important role;
hence, the solution should come from school teachers or someone from outside
the community (the government, for example).
These first general meetings where people started showing a common inter-
est, need, and concern were crucial because, as a research group, they gave us
the opportunity of moving from working in the community to working with the
community. It took us several general meetings to create a common language,
so to speak, and to establish a horizontal dialogue with the community. In the
words of Czaykowska-Higgins (2009: 25) “collaboration ideally […] involve[s] rec-
iprocity and sharing in the creation of knowledge”: As a result of those meetings,
attended by at least one or often two people in representation of each of the 27
households, the following insights, which have become pivotal in the develop-
ment of further actions, became clear to all participants:
– The process of language shift is, in part, the result of their own actions and
decisions;
– Adults play a role of paramount importance by passing on the language to
their children and by promoting its use on an intergenerational basis, both
inside and outside their homes;
– Consequently, language revitalization is the responsibility of all community
members; and
– The process of language revitalization must be accompanied by more general
processes of revalorization and revival of other cultural practices.

As we continued working with the community, they began to ask important ques-
tions: How do we start? What can I particularly do? I do not speak the language,
how can I contribute? First we tried to elicit ideas from them to address those
questions, but not much came, thus we (the research team) decided to share with
them some experiences of what is happening elsewhere around the world, how
other languages are being revitalized.
From the different projects we presented, they particularly liked the idea
of a linguistic landscape, thus we all decided to start with that. Linguistic land-
scape concerns the written form of languages in public space (Gorter 2006: 2) and
is defined as “the language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street
names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government
buildings” (Landry and Bourhis 1997: 25). The enhancement of the linguistic land-
scape in endangered indigenous languages may foster a positive shift of roles and
functions of those languages (Salo 2012: 256). It took several sessions to organize
96   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

the activity but everyone in the community became involved: those who do not
speak Wixárika with ideas and with work, and those who speak it with the lan-
guage needed. First, they had to decide what streets and buildings they wanted to
label. As for the streets, people sharing the same street discussed and decided on
the name they would give their street. For some of the names for buildings, such
as ‘school’, ‘grocery store’, ‘nursery’ and ‘medical dispensary’, there was unan-
imous agreement on how to name them in Wixárika; with other places, such as
‘basketball court’, ‘assembly hall’ they sought advice from the elders. Once they
had decided on the words for the signs, the second stage was to decide on the
supplies for sign making: what they would need and how they would get them.
Finally, when everything was ready, a small workshop was organized with the
collaboration of a local artist (from Tepic), and the signs were made and posted
(see set of Figures 3–6).

Fig. 3–6: Revitalization of linguistic landscape. These pictures show how different members of
the community became engaged in this project: while mostly women prepare and write the
signs (top pictures), men do ‘the hard work’ (bottom pictures) (photos by Saul García).

As a research team, we did not want to impose a way of organizing the emerging
work; therefore, all throughout this process our role was to orient as requested,
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   97

help, and sensitize newcomers, that is, community members who integrated in
later sessions. Little by little, a pattern of work emerged: women would make the
decisions, men would execute them. This pattern of work is interesting, because,
as Pharao Hansen et al. claim (this volume: 238), it is often the case that “there
may be powerful social constraints on women when working together with men
in a revitalization project…”; but just like Doña Trinidad, in Acazulco, women
at El Colorín did not seem to feel restrained in their participation. Rather, their
participation was socially dominant. We also noticed how time takes a differ-
ent dimension within their culture. Silence, for example, or long periods where
nobody speaks, is a constant during general meetings. We have come to under-
stand that silence means that whatever the issue under discussion is, it means
much to them; a hasty response means that the issue is not important, and can be
given a quick solution (cf. Saville-Troike 1992: 151–152). When an issue is brought
to the table, they think, talk among themselves, and then someone takes the floor.
With time, we discovered that the people with whom they talked were members
of their family: in reality the community was composed of three extended fami-
lies, and those who took the floor were actually representing each family.
After the completion of the linguistic landscape project a new sense of com-
munity integration could be perceived. People felt better about being able to do
something about the situation of Wixárika and realized that they were partici-
pants, both in decision making and execution. This first stage of empowerment
was an important step in the process of moving towards a participatory, commu-
nity engagement model.

5.2 Language teaching

At this point the elderly were very enthusiastic about the real possibility of every-
one in the community being interested in Wixárika. They were eager to teach
the language to younger generations,12 but there was a problem: they did not
know how to read and write, and wanted to learn in order to be able to teach.
Although we believe that they could actually teach the language without reading
and writing, we seized the idea of literacy because we also believe that writing
plays a role in language revitalization. For example, the identity of Chicanos and
Afro-Americans in the United States has been legitimated through the support of
teaching and production of literature in their own varieties (Flores 2007: 181). A

12 Notice that at this point it was no longer the responsibility of the schoolteacher to teach the
language.
98   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

workshop on reading and writing (adult literacy) in Wixárika was established.

The set of Figures 7 and 8 show some of the participants in this workshop.

Fig. 7–8: Literacy workshop. Left picture shows the stage when participants were learning to
identify letters and to combine them to make words; right picture shows participants engaged
in sentence production, a more advanced stage of the workshop (photos by Saul Santos
García).

The workshop is ongoing, but the intention is that the participants (who are all
elder members of the community and speakers of Wixárika) write their own mate-
rials, which could take the form of written stories that are already part of the cul-
tural heritage or their own stories, poems, etc. These resources can subsequently
be used as language teaching resources. We have already collected and published
some materials that can be used as examples (See Santos García, Carrillo de la
Cruz, and Carrillo 2012; Santos García 2013; Santos García et al. 2014). By pro-
moting this kind of participation, the community members are empowered in the
sense that they are assuming an agentive role in the process of language docu-
mentation and materials development as an essential part of language revitaliza-
tion. In addition, we have all come to recognize that the knowledge community
members have, or that they can produce, is essential in the process of materi-
als development. All this, in turn, promotes an egalitarian relationship between
community members and the research team (cf. Benedicto et al. 2007: 2).
From the members of the community who are non-speakers of Wixárika,
there was a request for language courses. Those were originally organized by
the research team in a formal scheme of ‘classroom lessons’, with the support
of a textbook for learning Wixárika as a second language (Santos García et al.
2008) and a student’s dictionary Spanish-Wixárika (Conti and Guerrero 2009).
Classes took place once a week, three hours on average. Although these mate-
rials were not developed using the local linguistic variety (they were developed
earlier), they have been accepted by the student participants. Perhaps one reason
 The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   99

for this is that, as mentioned before, differences between varieties are not overtly
evident; another reason may be that the materials were developed by the research
team, and a good level of empathy between the team members and the commu-
nity has been established. In addition, the fact that the families in the community
originally came from different places in the state of Jalisco may be a contributing
factor. But more importantly, the textbook that is being used is not grammar ori-
ented, it has been designed to develop communicative competence in the lan-
guage; hence students can use what they learn outside the classroom with a com-
municative purpose.
As shown in Figure 9 below, originally, students were young adults, some of
them single, some others already married and with children. These were members
of the community who had previously participated in the linguistic landscape
project and many of them were respondents of the survey or people interviewed
in the original study of language vitality.

Fig. 9: Course of Wixárika as a second

language for adults (photo by Saul Santos
García)

A couple of weeks after we had started the language course the primary school
teacher13 joined the course, and along with him came almost all of the primary
school students, children between 7 and 11 years of age. Many of these kids were
the children of some of the parents attending the courses. The class became
very large, but we kept working with everyone together. At this point there were
two courses running at the same time: the adult literacy course for speakers of
Â�Wixárika, mainly the elders; and the course of Wixárika as a second language. A
large proportion of the population was busy studying Wixárika once a week, as
can be seen in Figures 10 and 11.

13 The primary school in El Colorín (and most of primary schools in indigenous communities)
has only one teacher. This teacher works with students in grades 1 to 6, all together in one class-
room.
100   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

Fig. 10–11: Left picture shows students taking the course of Wixárika as a second language; the
right picture shows both groups: in the first plane the students of the literacy course and at the
far end the students of the course of Wixárika as a second language (photos by Saul Santos
García)

While these members of the community were taking Wixárika classes, their
younger kids, those who still do not go to school, would play outside the class-
room, waiting for their parents to finish. A decision was made to invite those kids
to join us in play to learn Wixárika. Thus, a new course was opened for those kids.
The activities took place at the same time as the formal language course, but the
content was more lexically oriented: the use of pictures, games, and all sorts of
game-based activities prevailed. All this was carried out on the basketball court,
next to the classroom, as shown in Figures 12–13.

Fig. 12–13: Children learning Wixárika as a second language (photos by Saul Santos García)

Initially, these language courses were taught by members of the research team;
it should be noted that only one of the teachers is a native speaker of Wixárika,
although from a different region (presumably a different language variety). He is
The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   101

in charge of the course of Wixárika as a second language while the other courses
(adult literacy and the course for children) are taught by non-native speakers of
the language but who have some knowledge of the language. From our experience
working with other indigenous languages in the region, language variety tends to
be an issue when it comes to the teaching of language as a second language,
even in cases when there are no speakers of the language in the community: it
is as if they have an idealized version of the language that was used in the past;
however, interestingly, and fortunately, the fact that the research team speaks a
different variety has not been an issue so far. Perhaps people in El Colorín look
well upon the fact that we make an effort to speak the language, for, as Dobrin
points out, speaking the local language may “indicate to the local interlocutors
that outsiders not only have things to say to them, but that they are also capable
of listening to them” (Dobrin 2008: 318).
In accordance with the idea that community members should be the main
agent of transformation, we are at present trying to find ways for members of the
community to become involved in the teaching. This, evidently, presupposes a
shift in the teaching approach. This has been discussed with some community
members and a number of decisions have been made:
– Peer teaching would be less threatening for those who participate as teach-
ers.
– Teams will be composed of two members of the community: an elder who is
a speaker of Wixárika and a younger member of the community who is not
necessarily a speaker of the language but is literate.
– Initial training with them will be focused around techniques that lend them-
selves to a communicative use of language, and that do not require literacy
skills, based on:
– Total Physical Response
– Whole language teaching, using traditional stories as a frame
– The use of visuals such as pictures (taken in the community of people
doing everyday activities or something culturally related)
– Use of puppets (for dialogue representation, storytelling, etc.)

5.3 Further language revitalization actions

Another activity that we organized, originally created by Flores (2011b) is “taking

the main square”: it consists of coming to the community on a random afternoon,
preferably on a weekend, with no previous notice, with a microphone and a
speaker, and ‘taking’ the main square. The idea is to attract people in the commu-
nity with music or any other resources even if they are not language related, such
102   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

as Capoeira (see Figure 14), and once people are gathered around the square (in
our case, around a basketball court) we start performing different activities that
involve the use of Wixárika:14 poetry reading (and performing), singing, storytell-
ing, telling jokes or rhymes. After a couple of activities, people from the commu-
nity are invited to take the microphone and say something, anything in Wixárika.
It does not have to be something prepared; in fact, it is better if it is spontaneous.
Those who speak Wixárika actively participate; those who only understand the
language have a more passive participation (for example, they laugh with the
jokes); those who do not understand the language simply have fun.

Fig. 14: Children playing Capoeira during one of the ‘taking the main square’ sessions (photo by
Tutupika Carrillo).

An important outcome resulting from the ‘taking the main square’ sessions is that
as the afternoon comes to an end and the sun starts to go down, a fire is started in
the middle of the basketball court, someone brings out a violin and the traditional
drum and they all start singing and dancing traditional tunes (see Figure 15). All
these elements: the fire, the drum, the dancing are part of traditional rituals asso-

14 These initial activities are previously prepared.

The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   103

ciated with the agricultural cycle. As mentioned before, because of the lack of a
traditional patio, these rituals were not taking place in El Colorín anymore.

Fig. 15: People dancing to the tune of the

drum after one of the ‘taking the main square’
sessions (photo by Saul Santos García).

6 Some final reflections

Unlike other parts of the world, especially the postcolonial indigenous world,
where there are “strong and often passionate movements in Indigenous com-
munities towards making their languages fully alive again” (Czaykowska-Hig-
gins 2009: 31), this passion is not present in most indigenous communities in
the region of El Gran Nayar, either at a community level or at an institutional
level. Successful initiatives in other parts of the world, where the presence of the
target language (the indigenous language) is very strong, have benefited from full
support (both official as well as financial) from authorities and the passion of
communities; such is the case of the development of Maori language nests in New
Zealand (Fishman 2011) or the immersion schools and classrooms in the United
States reported in Hinton (2001). The fact that this kind of support is very diffi-
cult to achieve here in Mexico makes the consideration of our local context more
important. Instead of pursuing projects modeled on the initiatives mentioned
above, we decided to start with a less ambitious, more locally oriented approach.
Firstly, rather than coming with a pre-planned scheme of action, we imple-
mented activities as they emerged, mainly at the request of the community. Our
interaction with the community during the diagnostic stage allowed the commu-
nity to evaluate the vitality of Wixárika and raised interest in engaging in revitali-
zation actions. They also realized that deep inside they cared about the situation,
not only adults but also younger members of the community. They have had a
chance to reflect on what they were losing by losing the language. Consequently,
they demanded action and these activities were a first response to that demand.
104   Saul Santos García, Tutupika Carillo de la Cruz and Karina Ivett Verdín Amaro

These revitalization activities have helped maintain the initial motivation and
interest.
Secondly, because there is no institutional support in Mexico for immersion
schools and content based classes in indigenous languages, we opted for focused
language instruction (i.e., L2 language instruction). Although we are aware that
language teaching should be seen as only one component of a more general
project of language revitalization, we seized the chance to pursue it because lan-
guage teaching and teacher training is something in which we, at the university,
specialize. In retrospect, language classes have been important in many ways.
Although progress in language learning was (and still is) very slow, interesting
things are happening: in classes we often have a parent and their children sitting
side by side learning Wixárika. Some parents, who had not initially attended,
came to the class in later sessions because their children had come first and
started asking them questions about Wixárika, so they wanted to learn to be able
to help their children with homework. In this sense, even though the children do
not speak the language, they have been instrumental in the process of revitaliza-
tion. Every time we come to the community we hear people using the greetings
and basic expressions they have learnt, in a limited way. Most notably, children
are using those greetings and expressions.
Thirdly, there has been an interest in the revitalization of other cultural prac-
tices. At the time of this writing, people are getting organized to clear a space and
build a communal patio for the celebration of traditional rituals. The celebra-
tion of traditional rituals implies the use of the native language, which means an
eventual recuperation of domains for the use of Wixárika.
As we have stated before, our role as language teachers is meant to be tem-
porary. We have described how some members of the community are becoming
involved in teaching; however, additional members of the community can and
should become agents in this process. As mentioned before, at present we are
using a textbook to learn Wixárika as a second language (Santos García et al.
2008), which was written before our experience in El Colorín. There will be a
point where the contents of that textbook will be covered and a need for further
materials will arise. One possibility for community involvement both in language
documentation and the process of revitalization is in the creation of materials
to give continuity to the learning process in which they have been involved, for
example a more advanced level textbook to learn Wixárika. This textbook would
necessarily have to consider the community needs regarding language content,
derived from the social practices of language. Community involvement can be
fostered in different ways: elder native speakers may serve as language advisors,
middle-aged and younger non-speakers of Wixárika may become involved in doc-
umentation processes with ideas of curriculum content (communicative func-
The revitalization of Wixárika: A community project in the midwest region of Mexico   105

tions, contexts of language use, etc.). Younger members of the community who
are non-speakers of Wixárika but literate in Spanish may become an active part
in the materials development process. In fact, some complementary materials,
such as bingo and other boardgames and cards, are being developed at present,
for which the lexical content has been chosen by the community members. A
premise in these initiatives is that documentation should respond to revitaliza-
tion needs (see Yamada 2011).
One concern that we have at present is how to sustain the initial motivation
and interest of community members in language revitalization. We are fortunate
that our academic institution is within easy access of the community, so we have
ample opportunities to provide the necessary support in these initial stages,
before stepping aside. An important achievement is that they have become aware
of a problem, they are acting upon it, and some sort of transformation is begin-
ning to happen. We do not know whether El Colorín will one day be a commu-
nity where people fluently speak Wixárika and Spanish. We hope that these kids
who are very enthusiastically participating in the different language revitaliza-
tion activities will develop enough proficiency in Wixárika as to be able to pass it
on to their own children when they have them. The most important outcome of
the process that we have described here is the fact that community members are
now aware of their language situation and they have become participants, both in
decision making and the execution of any action towards language revitalization.
This process is prompting the beginning of a new kind of social cohesion, with
new responsibilities and goals: now they have come to understand that the future
of Wixárika in their community depends on them.

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Rosa Yáñez Rosales, Dana Kristine Nelson, Melissa Niño
Santana, Rodrigo Parra Gutiérrez, Paulina Lamas Oliva,
Agustín Vega Torres and Rocío Rojas Arias
5 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker
communities: The case of two Nahua
communities in the south of Jalisco State,
Mexico

For Oralio

1 Introduction
This paper reflects on the experiences related to language revitalization, recla-
mation, and documentation in two Mexican communities where, of the language
that was once spoken, only “rememberers”1 (Campbell and Muntzel 1989: 181)
remain. The discussion of these cases revolves around the question of how these
communities have come to the realization that it is important to return to the
native language despite the temporal distance (at least three generations) and the
difficulties associated with such a process.
By recounting the efforts in Tuxpan and Ayotitlán we hope to show how even
in cases of severe language shift and loss, a return to the language may still be
desired by community members and that, as Dorian (1987) argues, there is value
in carrying out revitalization initiatives even when circumstances would seem

1 Within this article, “rememberers” is used to denote those who may have achieved some level
of native fluency in their early years but at the time of the interviews presented signs of language
attrition (as with some interviewees in Tuxpan) but more often it is used for those where attrition
was not involved; such as when certain isolated elements of the language have been retained and
passed on through generations (as in Ayotitlán).

Rosa Yáñez Rosales (Universidad de Guadalajara)

Dana Kristine Nelson (Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit)
Melissa Niño Santana, Rodrigo Parra Gutiérrez (Universidad de Guadalajara)
Paulina Lamas Oliva, Agustín Vega Torres (Universidad de Guadalajara)
Rocío Rojas Arias (Universidad de Guadalajara)
110   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

to impede a full return to the indigenous language. By presenting the cases of

these two communities, we hope to shed light on the challenges that reclamation
initiatives face in situations of severe language loss, a state of affairs which is
on the rise in indigenous communities in Latin America and around the world.
Specifically we discuss issues associated with contexts where: 1) there are only
rememberers, 2) there is little to no documentation of the local variety/language,
3) the functions that the language retains in the community are predominately
“symbolic” (Madera 1999: 4) there is a lack of systematic experience in teaching
indigenous languages as second languages, and 5) perceived dialectal differences
between the local variety and outside varieties have been a stumbling block in
the road to recovery.
In extreme cases such as these, the obstacles may seem larger than any
perceived benefit. In the case of Tuxpan and Ayotitlán, because there are only
rememberers and the language is retained in primarily symbolic functions, it
is unlikely that the community members could regain full communicative and
linguistic competence in the language. In addition, because there is little to no
documentation, regaining the linguistic knowledge that has been lost would
be nearly impossible. Consequently, community based revitalization initiatives
(Czaykowska-Higgins 2009: 24) and efforts aimed at teaching the native language
as a second language (which are already at a disadvantage for the lack of national
recognition of the plight of indigenous communities who have experienced severe
language loss) are forced to use a patchwork of outside varieties in the construc-
tion of educational programs and language projects. This re-creation of the local
linguistic knowledge through the introduction of outside varieties runs the risk of
causing conflict and depends on acceptance from individual community groups.
Despite these apparent barriers to success, there have been clear accom-
plishments in both these communities. In Ayotitlán, for example, signage has
been created that allows the language to claim visual space in the community
and therefore reach a wider audience, students have had access to scholarships
as a result of recent Nahuatl as a second language classes, and youth have con-
fidently used the language in new spaces and public forums in representation of
their community. In Tuxpan, Nahuatl as a second language materials are being
developed to support ill-assisted federal teachers, and youth have self-directed
autonomous activities to reclaim their language and culture.
The chapter begins by presenting a timeline of the projects in which our
research teams have been involved as well as a brief description of the data collec-
tion that has been undertaken for each including reflections on methodological
considerations (Section 2). A community and sociolinguistic profile introduces
the two communities and is followed by the historical discussion of language
shift and early revitalization/reclamation efforts for both communities (Section
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   111

3). The presentation of current reclamation projects both describes what is cur-
rently being done in each community and identifies the value of these measures
within and for the community. The challenges in both communities are exam-
ined in order to identify best practices looking forward (Section 4). Finally, the
conclusion reviews the particularity of revitalization vs. reclamation, the specific
contexts and absence of policies for revitalization in Mexico, the roles documen-
tation can play in situations like ours, and the relevance of community engage-
ment (Section 5).

2 Projects and methods

The different stages of the fieldwork supporting the projects with which we deal
in this paper are a good example of the evolution linguistic fieldwork has experi-
enced during the last half century. Such changes are not methodological trends,
they respond to the rate at which languages have started to disappear or become
dormant. Not only the academic world but humanity in general is more aware
than ever of the danger that languages face in today’s neoliberal societies: com-
munities now play a central role in the definition of the kind of relationship that
can exist and develop among linguists/researchers and the members of a commu-
nity. Traditional linguist-focused models of documentation (Czaykowska-Higgins
2009: 20) are no longer enough. They were never meant to address the complex
situation involving language preservation and/or revitalization, thus they have
proven incapable of offering any insight towards setting priorities.
The first impetus for doing research in Tuxpan and Ayotitlán came from the
Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG University of Guadalajara). The authors met
through the MA in Applied Linguistics Program at the UDG: Lamas Oliva, Nelson,
Niño Santana, Parra Gutiérrez, Rojas Arias, and Vega Torres as students, and
Yáñez Rosales as a professor. They all became interested in topics related to lan-
guage contact and language maintenance and shift, and with this perspective
in mind, research groups for Tuxpan and Ayotitlán formed and the research dis-
cussed in this paper has taken place. This chapter is based on sociolinguistic data
collected using extensive interviews and participant observation. In addition, a
deeper understanding of the historical background of both regions was achieved
through consulting historical research which provided insightful information
about the past and helped us understand the present of the communities. The
goals of and research methods for work in each community have varied over the
years as involvement in the communities has developed and community needs
112   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

have been addressed. A general description of the goals and methods for both
Tuxpan and Ayotitlán follows.
The necessity to switch from linguist-focused models to community-based
frameworks or participatory research is a reality that we have witnessed first
hand. When Yáñez Rosales first started her eight years of fieldwork in Tuxpan
in 1988 the purpose was to document the local Nahuatl dialect. However, this
goal changed to documenting attitudes, in extensive audio recorded interviews,
in order to reconstruct how the language shift process took place. Interviews were
initially with three and later four generations of people who had witnessed the
language shift process across decades. The age groups for the interviewees can be
categorized as follows: generation #1, those born before 1920, includes Nahuatl
speakers or those who grew up within a Nahuatl speaking family environment;
generation #2, those born between 1921 and 1940; and generation #3, people born
between 1941 and 1960. The fourth group interviewed were the fueranos ‘outsid-
ers’ or quixtianos ‘Christians’ (as they were called by the local population), who
arrived in Tuxpan approximately between 1940 and 1960 to work in the new
industries of the region. The testimonies about how and why the process of lan-
guage shift took place were collected mainly during the celebration of Catholic
festivities in Tuxpan due to strong community participation during those times.
In 2002, Rojas Arias began her master’s degree thesis fieldwork in Tuxpan,
with the objective of documenting attitudes and language ideologies. Her inter-
viewees are the great grandchildren of generation #1 (see above), or those born
between 1960 and 1985. The interviews included questions about whether the
person was a Nahuatl speaker, how he or she had learned the language, the time
and context in which the language was heard, etc. Questions about whether the
interviewee was willing to visualize a scenario where Nahuatl would be spoken
again were asked, as well as the reasons for a positive or negative answer. The
script of the interview was slightly modified as it was applied to the different age
groups. However, the goal to obtain a representation of the process of language
shift along with language attitudes and linguistic ideologies remained as the
basic axis of the interview.
Although involvement with the community of Tuxpan began for each of the
authors in connection with their individual academic objectives, they have main-
tained involvement over the years and although there have been periods when
participation became less sustained, it has been continuous. In total over the
course of these projects, approximately one hundred and fifty sociolinguistic
interviews have been carried out across different age groups and social lines.
Our presence in Ayotitlán strictly speaking began in 2010, although in 1989
Yáñez Rosales interviewed the city mayor from Cuautitlán de García Barragán,
as well as a couple of Nahuatl speaking teachers who had arrived in Ayotitlán
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   113

shortly before, and who were already established in one of the bilingual-bicul-
tural schools in the Ayotitlán region. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic
research on language shift and loss, linguistic attitudes toward Nahuatl, or about
the symbolic presence of this language had been done in the region prior to 2010,
when we began our own research.
In early 2010, the Unidad de Apoyo a las Comunidades Indígenas (UACI,
Office for the Assistance of Indigenous Communities), an agency that deals with
indigenous affairs created in 1994 by the University of Guadalajara, reached out
to Yáñez Rosales in order to attend to the linguistic concerns that the commu-
nity had expressed, and Yáñez Rosales and Lamas Oliva, Nelson, Niño Santana,
Parra Gutiérrez (who were her students at the UDG at the time) were invited to
make a first visit to Ayotitlán. Our first step was to carry out an assessment of
the linguistic situation in the region, which included collecting information on
issues such as the degree of vitality of the language, and the historical process of
language shift, as well as on attitudes and community members’ expectations.
We conducted interviews with different (loosely-defined) age groups: young
adults, adults and elders. The information was collected using two sociolin-
guistic questionnaires, designed specifically for each group. The questionnaires
were answered in written form by about 50 young people and 30 adults. For the
elders, we carried out interviews addressing similar issues as in the question-
naires and focusing especially on their knowledge about the process of language
shift and loss. In the process, we discovered several rememberers of the indige-
nous language and were able to collect some data about Nahuatl. Although we
have only isolated words and a few prayers and salutations they have been useful
in studying some of the features of this variety and to tentatively compare it to
the general panorama of Nahuatl varieties. In addition, we carried out extensive
interviews with some teachers of the Sistema de Educación Bilingüe e Intercul-
tural2 (Bilingual-Intercultural Educational System) of the Secretaría de Educación
Pública (SEP, Mexican Secretariat of Public Education) who work in the region.
This has helped us understand the many challenges they face regarding teaching
the indigenous language in the region. In further stages, we have had the oppor-
tunity to work with the group of young people who are members of Telpochtin
Teyolehualistli (Youth in Motion), we have participated in various meetings of the

2 Within this article, we use distinct terms to refer to the indigenous education system. The term
“bilingual-bicultural” is used to refer to the system in place prior to 1999. The term “bilingual-in-
tercultural” is used to refer to the Bilingual and Intercultural Educational System which was
established in 1999 as part of new policies. See Dirección General de Educación Indígena (1999).
In order to speak of the history of these systems generally, we use “bilingual”.
114   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

Consejo de Mayores (Council of Elders), and we have mingled with members of

the communities. This has allowed us to carry out participant observation and to
enrich our initial data.
In terms of best practices for long term involvement with a community, we
saw both the assessment and the initial sociolinguistic interviews in both Tuxpan
and Ayotitlán as part of “doing our homework” (Rice 2011: 190). The diagnosis
and sociolinguistic research not only provided the basic information about the
community and the linguistic situation that would be crucial to subsequent
efforts, but it allowed community members and groups to learn about us as we
spent time interviewing different groups and individuals.
Community-based projects (Czaykowska-Higgins 2009: 24) began to develop
in both communities, and the activities that have since been carried out go beyond
the traditional linguist-focused research models (Czaykowska-Higgins 2009: 20).
In 2002, Rojas Arias and Yáñez Rosales, in response to the petition of the princi-
pal of one of the schools, began collaborating with one of the bilingual-intercul-
tural schools to design materials to teach Nahuatl as L2 to the children. In 2008,
Vega Torres also became interested in doing his master’s degree thesis in Tuxpan,
focusing on language policy, as manifested in the existing bilingual-intercultural
school system, and further activities related to the design of Nahuatl as L2 mate-
rials began to be undertaken due to his training and background as a French and
English L2 teacher. In 2011, in coordination with the Council of Elders, a small
resource library was created in Ayotitlán to support reclamation efforts that were
beginning to form as a result of the diagnosis work. Also in Ayotitlán, in 2012, a
linguistic landscape project was begun with the members of the Telpochtin Teyo-
leualiztli group, who have come to represent the heart of the linguistic initiatives
that have been undertaken there.
By examining the different stages of the fieldwork carried out by the authors,
one realizes the subtle changes the research model has undergone. It has gone
from the initial documenting efforts to community engagement and collabora-
tive work. Our work and relationship with both Tuxpan and Ayotitlán has fluc-
tuated between what has been called an “empowering research model” and
“community-based language research”. According to Czaykowska-Higgins (2009:
23), in the “empowering research model”, linguists “… work with members of
the language-using community to set the priorities of the research and to carry
out the research”. Along the same lines, taking a step further in breaking down
the boundary between linguists and members of the community, a “communi-
ty-based research model” is “research that is on a language and that is conducted
for, with, and by the language-speaking community within which the research
takes place and which it affects” (Czaykowska-Higgins 2009: 24, emphasis in the
original).
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   115

Czaykowska-Higgins (2009) states that these, along with other models,

represent a continuum of collaboration and partnership between linguists and
community members. Likewise, rather than being characterized as belonging
to a single model, our work is better characterized as moving between empow-
ering and community-based research in a continuous or dialogic construction.
Members of the communities have become more and more involved with working
with linguists in various tasks, as well as in learning Nahuatl as a second lan-
guage. Both of these activities lead to empowerment, mainly for the youth (see
section 4). Most likely our work will continue in such a collaborative and diverse
manner due to the different age groups interested and participating in language
reclamation, and due to the particular dynamics of collaboration between Tuxpan
and Ayotitlán, and linguists.

3 Community profiles
The communities of Ayotitlán and Tuxpan are both located in the south of Jalisco
State and share not only geographical but social and linguistic features that will
be addressed in the sections that follow in order to better understand the process
of language shift and its impact on current language attitudes in each of these
communities.

3.1 Location

Tuxpan is nestled in a valley surrounded by mountains. It is originally a pre-His-

panic indigenous community, founded by a Nahua group in the year 627 A.D.
The historical information available is based on the archaeological materials pre-
served in the area and on the chronicles written upon the arrival of the Spaniards.
By the time of the conquest, it was under the control of the Tarascan group, who
dominated a large part of what is now southern Jalisco. Its total population in
2009 was 33,462 inhabitants mostly concentrated in the municipal head, which is
also called Tuxpan. Today Tuxpan is easily accessible from 3 different roads and
highways. The inhabitants have all basic modern services and means of commu-
nication. Education is available from preschool through high school.
Ayotitlán, on the other hand, consists of upward of 25 scattered mountainous
settlements that can trace their land rights to the time of the conquest. These
settlements are mostly located in the municipality of Cuautitlán de García Bar-
ragán with some others in the neighboring state of Colima. In order to arrive to
116   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

the central communities (one of which is also named Ayotitlán) it is a six hour trip
from Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco; the last hour of which is over
rough dirt roads that communicate the region with Cuautitlán de García Barragán
in one direction and Colima, in the other. The area has few or no asphalt roads, no
telephone or cellular phone services (there are just a few parts of the sierra where
the satellite signal is available); the only medical services are ‘clinics’ or casas de
salud; there is only limited Internet service; and basic services, like shops, phar-
macies, and government offices, are in Cuautitlán.
The region of Ayotitlán is geographically and ecologically very diverse and is
part of the Reserva de la Biósfera de la Sierra de Manantlán (Manantlán Biosphere
Reserve), which was created in 1987, and comprises a region that includes more
than one hundred thousand hectares. The natural resources (plants, minerals,
animals, aquifers, etc.) of the region have turned the area into a point of dispute
for several groups vying for power throughout different historical periods. Edu-
cation is available from preschool through high school in the area, although not
all levels are present in each community meaning children must travel long dis-
tances, and job opportunities are scarce. The people with rights to the land cul-
tivate them, whereas the younger generations with no land of their own have to
temporarily or permanently migrate to the surrounding regions where they get
hired during the harvest season.

3.2 Sociolinguistic profile

In this paper we refer to the dialects of Ayotitlán and Tuxpan with the broader
name of Nahuatl because of its use in academic papers that deal with Nahuatl
dialectology and because although, according to our experience, elders in these
communities refer to the language with the more traditional name of Mexicano,
the teenagers and young adults that have taken direct action in the language
projects discussed herein have turned to calling it Nahuatl. Although the term
Nahua is used at times as an adjective and Mexicano is used in some of the data
we present, the terms all refer to the same thing – the language and culture of
Ayotitlán and Tuxpan.
As one of the languages belonging to the southern sub-family of the Uto-Az-
tecan language family, Nahuatl can be found, in various levels of vitality, within
fifteen out of thirty one Mexican states, as well as in Mexico City (INALI 2006).
Within Nahuatl dialectology it is generally accepted that Nahuatl can be clas-
sified as having either three (Canger 1988) or four (Lastra 1986, 2010) major
subgroups. Utilizing both synchronic and diachronic data, Canger (1988) clas-
sified the documented Nahuatl dialects into three main subgroups: Nahuatl of
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   117

the Western Periphery, the Central dialects, and Nahuatl of the Eastern Periph-
ery. Our interest in these groupings is linked to the current situation of vitality
of Nahuatl of the Western Periphery, the dialectal subgrouping corresponding to
Ayotitlán and Tuxpan.
Nahuatl of the Western Periphery, as represented by the individual com-
munities that are included within it, appears to be the most endangered of the
major subgroupings. The only two Nahua communities in Jalisco, for example,
no longer have speakers (although there are rememberers) and would be cate-
gorized as dormant according to the EGIDS scale of endangerment (Lewis and
Simons 2010). Those speakers that were interviewed in the 1970s as part of Las-
tra’s survey (1986) represented the last native speakers in the region. In addition,
as attested in recent fieldwork carried out by some of the authors in the primary
Nahua community in the neighboring state of Nayarit, there are only a handful of
native speakers left and they are all of advanced age (Nelson, Parra and Gutiérrez
2014). Although additional fieldwork is needed to confirm the realities, Nahuatl
in Colima may also be in a severely threatened state, leaving only communities
in Michoacán and Durango as possibly the last holdouts of what has been called
Nahuatl of the Western Periphery.
Regarding documentation of the variety(ies) for Tuxpan and Ayotitlán, a
great deal of information is lacking from the historical record: there are numerous
towns from which there is practically no record at all. This is basically the case
for Ayotitlán. We have found very little historical documentation to be available
or to have been collected there before we started our fieldwork in 2010: by the
time we arrived, we found only rememberers, mostly elders who remember brief
prayers or words (Lamas Oliva et al. 2013). For Tuxpan, on the other hand, we
have had access to a larger amount of data which includes some extant colonial
documents, as well as prayers, greetings, brief conversations and vocabulary lists
which were collected during the twentieth century (see Arreola 1934; Ruvalcaba
1935; Valiñas 1979, 1982; Yáñez Rosales 1994).
The lack of sufficient historical documentation of the local variety combined
with the current linguistic situation in both Tuxpan and Ayotitlán means that
present day documentation efforts with a view to revitalize the local variety are
severely hampered. The results of documentation that could be carried out today
would entail recreating the local variety to some extent. The extent of the lin-
guistic diversity still present in Mexico can have important effects on projects in
communities where the local variety has been lost.
118   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

3.3 History of language shift

How did language shift take place in the Nahua communities of southern Jalisco?
The answer to this question highlights the similarities and the subtle differences
between the communities that are of import for our language reclamation pro-
jects.
Ayotitlán and Tuxpan follow a similar pattern of language shift, in the sense
that although by the beginning of the twentieth century Nahuatl was still in use
for communicative purposes, people in both communities stopped transmitting
it to their children during the first half of the century. Two historical events that
took place consecutively are crucial to understanding the shift: the Mexican
Revolution and the Cristero War. The Mexican Revolution was a major national
armed conflict that started in 1910, with an uprising against longtime autocrat
Porfirio Díaz. It lasted for almost a decade until around 1920 with Díaz no longer
in the presidency. Subsequently, the new ruling Mexican government tried to
hinder the influence of the Roman Catholic Church prompting the Cristero War,
a counter-revolution against governmental anti-clericalism in western Mexico,
particularly in the state of Jalisco.
The violence that both political events entailed caused internal fractions in
Ayotitlán and Tuxpan and speaks to the nature of the oppression that has been
cited in these communities as a key element in language shift: “Mi abuela me
decía que su mamá hablaba Mexicano […] pero que cuando llegaron los cristeros
los amenazaron, además cuando salían a trabajar los trataban de locos y los
encarcelaban [My grandma used to tell me her mother spoke Mexicano (…) but
when the cristeros arrived they threatened them, also, when they went to work
they were treated as crazy and were jailed].” (Woman, 36 years old, Lagunillas
de Ayotitlán)
Thus oppression not only affected the language, but the overall social struc-
tures, motivating the locals to separate themselves from things that marked them
as indigenous in an attempt to avoid not only oppression and violence, but dis-
crimination from the mestizo (a term typically used to describe non-indigenous
Mexicans) society and the government. In both communities there was fear to
continue speaking the language, wear the traditional clothes, or keep objects that
could connect them to Nahuatl (in Ayotitlán). As a consequence of this oppres-
sion, the decision was made, consciously or unconsciously, to stop transmitting
the language.
Other matters of social, economic and cultural relevance have had their
impact on language transmission and language shift. The role of industrializa-
tion has come to play a similar threatening role in both communities. In Ayotitlán
it mostly entails institutional violence or neglect against the locals who are left
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   119

alone to defend their natural resources (for a more detailed historical discussion
see Mejía 2008). In Tuxpan it represented the arrival of the quixtianos ‘christians’
or fueranos ‘outsiders’ who migrated to the area once the paper industry was
established. This meant the original inhabitants, the Tuxpanenses, were slowly
marginalized from the central spaces in the locality, moved to the outskirts, and
forced to create new spaces where they could continue to reproduce their culture,
as shown by Rojas Arias and Yáñez Rosales (2005). Ayotitlán, for instance, still
suffers the sometimes violent persecution and disappearance of its leaders, for
reasons connected to the economic interests of the logging and mining indus-
tries that operate in the region. The reality of violence related to local land dis-
putes, illegal logging and mining, and drug related violence in Ayotitlán not only
takes a toll on the community, but impacts reclamation efforts as the community
becomes more unstable due to these activities (for further discussion of the com-
plications of local access in Mexico see O’Meara and González Guadarrama, this
volume).
With the arrival of these industries (mainly logging, mining, sugar, paper,
and textiles), renewed and intensified contact between Nahuatl and Spanish
occurred. The arrival of the mestizo society to Tuxpan and Ayotitlán negatively
affected the indigenous language. In Ayotitlán, school authorities and priests
prohibited its use. In Tuxpan, classism brought about by the arrival of an outside
work force who filled the jobs in the new paper mills played a decisive role.
Both communities have responded to the exposure to the mestizo influ-
ence in similar but different ways. The pursuit and maintenance of indigenous
symbols has led Tuxpan to have lively and vivid religious festivities with dancers
and traditional attire. Ayotitlán, on the other hand, has experienced a harsher
erosion of its cultural traits, which they have been trying to overcome by bringing
back the traditional calzón de manta (a pair of pants made of natural fabric), the
art of embroidery, and the Consejo de Mayores (Council of Elders), a form of gov-
ernment that in the last several years has played an important role in the political
life of the region.

3.4 Symbolic memory

One of the elements that have functioned as a foundation for the return of the
language is its symbolic presence at various levels in the communities (in spite of
the loss of its communicative functions). Symbolic memory is defined by Madera
as a “symbol of the heritage and ethnicity of a group and of those things that are
essential for the group’s existence including its origin, inherited ways of living
or the identity shared by its members” (Madera 1999: 137). In our experience
120   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

with these communities, we have encountered that symbolic memory is one of

the ways in which the process of language shift is recorded by the inhabitants of
Ayotitlán and Tuxpan: the symbolic presence of the language endures as a way of
remembering the ancestors, and it is also attestable in current cultural practices.
Earlier we asked how it is that a community can come to the realization that
it is important to return to the native language despite the temporal distance (at
least three generations). The answer for the communities of Ayotitlán and Tuxpan
lies, in part, in the memories and symbolic function of the language. When a lan-
guage is no longer in use, it may undergo a switch from performing mainly com-
municative to symbolic functions within the community (Madera 1999: 141). This
has been the case in Tuxpan and Ayotitlán where the communicative function
has not been maintained but where the elders have a vivid memory of their ances-
tors as Nahuatl speakers. Even if they did not acquire the language, they heard
their parents, grandparents or other close relatives speak it and they remem-
ber the people who spoke it. This memory has been transferred successfully, in
general, to the younger generations (adults and young people) and consequently
the memory of Nahuatl speakers in the region remains present. Overall, in both
communities, a collective memory has been maintained of their linguistic legacy
and its uniqueness in regards to other varieties of Nahuatl.
In Tuxpan and Ayotitlán, Nahuatl continues to exist in the repertoire and
memory of the people who take part in cultural traditions, as well as in the rela-
tionship people have with certain places. In addition to being considered the
language of their ancestors, Nahuatl is present in both communities in particu-
lar ways. Nahuatl in Ayotitlán is reflected in the toponymy, the preservation of
healing practices conducted in the dialect, the use of everyday vocabulary derived
from Nahuatl, and the presence of bilingual schools and Nahuatl-Spanish teach-
ers; all of which have fostered positive attitudes towards the language projects
carried out by community members (for further examples of how symbolic use
of language has been an asset in other communities see Vallejos, this volume).
In Tuxpan we have seen that those with a direct or indirect relationship or inter-
action with Nahuatl speakers, and those who currently participate in Tuxpan’s
traditions, harbor potential that can be harnessed for language initiatives. Some
of these social actors are dancers, sponsors or patrons of the image of a saint,
organizers of feasts for the many celebrations, musicians, and women that attend
to other women and wear the sabanilla (a long piece of cloth that goes around
the women’s waist as a skirt). Rojas Arias and Yáñez Rosales (2005) list tokens
of Nahuatl vocabulary they have found: the matzahui ‘hairdo that women use
when wearing the sabanilla’, paixtles ‘Spanish moss’, chayacates ‘a traditional
mask’, cogoyo ‘maguey used for making decorative flowers’,and patoles a term
that refers to ‘game’ in general. These are all samples of Nahuatl vocabulary still
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   121

in use. Language is also related to certain political events where the greeting or
welcoming phrases were given in Nahuatl.
These examples have led us to assert that the symbolic function of Nahuatl is
present and strongly related to identity in current cultural manifestations as well
as in community members’ discourse.

4 Reclamation: History of initiatives

Early initiatives in both Tuxpan and Ayotitlán were focused mostly on efforts to
incorporate Nahuatl into the official education system. Below we detail the par-
ticular circumstances of each community by looking at the past and present of
the revitalization and reclamation initiatives.

4.1 History of initiatives in Tuxpan

In the 1980’s, the community group Tlayacanque huey Tochpan (The Leaders of
Great Tuxpan) requested that Nahuatl-speaking teachers be brought to Tuxpan.
The members of the group included young adults and elders who were concerned
with the fact that Nahuatl was evidently in a process of language shift. Their orig-
inal idea regarding the teaching of Nahuatl to children was to have the teachers
go from school to school and dedicate themselves exclusively to teaching the lan-
guage. However, this project was inappropriate from the perspective of the SEP.
The solution then was to establish a new primary school, whose teachers would
be bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish speakers, but who would be teaching all subjects
and would not be focused exclusively on teaching the language. The first bilin-
gual-bicultural school in Tuxpan, named Kalmekak, was opened in 1988 with
three bilingual teachers. By the beginning of the following school year, 1989–1990,
the personnel were complete. There were six Nahuatl speakers who were in the
process of completing a bachelors’ degree in “Indigenous Education”. Years later,
in 2000, under the new system of bilingual-intercultural education, Acolmiztli,
the second school with bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish teachers was established. By
this year, the number of Nahuatl speaking teachers had increased although some
individuals originally from Tuxpan, who have Spanish as their mother tongue,
had also found a position in the schools.
Notwithstanding the obvious effort that establishing new schools involves,
the SEP underestimated the fact that although Tuxpan had been a Nahuatl speak-
ing community several generations prior, school children today have Spanish as
122   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

their mother tongue. This short-sightedness meant that the SEP did not provide
the teachers either with training for teaching Nahuatl as L2 or appropriate Nahuatl
L2 materials. The failure of such a program was evident. Any class work aimed at
teaching Nahuatl was based on traditional translation methods and individually
developed by each teacher with no communication or coordination taking place
with other colleagues. Despite the inadequate conditions for creating competence
in a second language, at the end of six years in elementary school, the children
could generally produce a few memorized phrases, texts (songs, the national
anthem, poems) and isolated vocabulary.
In addition to the incongruence of providing materials not suitable for the
particular linguistic situation of children in Tuxpan, the SEP did not take into
account the fact that the teachers do not speak the Nahuatl dialect from Tuxpan.
The teachers were from the La Huasteca, the Nahua region in the states of Hidalgo
and Veracruz. This situation caused rejection from the people towards the teach-
ers, at least during the first years of their presence in the community. At that time,
the late eighties and nineties, there were still some people who had grown up
speaking Nahuatl and there were many who had at least heard the language.
They felt knowledgeable enough to say that the teachers did not speak the mera
lengua mexicana, the “true” or “indisputable” Nahuatl language. As years have
gone by, such rejection has lessened with the passing of generations. Nonethe-
less, people know that the variant spoken by the teachers is not the local one, and
that the variant spoken by their ancestors is hardly accessible.

4.2 History of initiatives in Ayotitlán

Faced with the loss of their language and other cultural traits throughout the
twentieth century, the Nahua communities of the Sierra de Manantlán followed a
path similar to that of Tuxpan in early efforts at revitalization of Nahuatl, focus-
ing efforts in the teaching of the language in the official school system.
The same year that the first bilingual-bicultural school in Tuxpan was
founded, a first group of 27 Nahuatl speaking teachers arrived in Ayotitlán. Like
those who arrived in Tuxpan, these teachers came from La Huasteca, the Nahua
region in the states of Hidalgo and Veracruz. In 1989, the mayor of Cuautitlán,
the town head of the municipality, told Yáñez Rosales that he had requested that
the SEP send teachers for the many small locations that did not have teachers.
He proudly mentioned that he did not request just “any” teachers, he requested
Nahuatl speaking teachers. He was aware of the fact that the Nahuatl language
was no longer spoken and in his words, the teachers would be charged with resu-
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   123

citar un muerto, or ‘resurrecting the dead’. The “dead” was the Nahuatl language,
and they were brought in to bring about a resuscitation.
In Ayotitlán, the SEP established new schools, as it had in Tuxpan, which
belonged to the bilingual-bicultural system, in the settlements where there were
previously no schools. However, the SEP did not change the pre-existing school
system. Thus the situation has come to be very complex, with two coexisting
school systems, a circumstance which is occasionally problematic. Several com-
munities of the region have bilingual-intercultural schools corresponding to one
or a combination of the basic levels of education recognized by SEP in Mexico:
initial, preschool, and elementary. Some of the teachers in these schools are
native speakers of Nahuatl, while others are not and therefore the possibilities
for them to teach the language are very limited. Unfortunately, this is a wide-
spread problem in the bilingual-intercultural system in Mexico, see O’Meara and
González Guadarrama (this volume) and Pérez Báez (this volume) for similar sit-
uations. As has been mentioned for the situation in Tuxpan, these teachers speak
a variety of Nahuatl that is not native to the area, which has also caused rejection
from elders and some adults, because they want children to learn the region’s
original variety. The teachers do not speak la lengua de aquí ‘the language from
here’. Another problem highlighted by members of the communities is that the
bilingual education covers the basic levels, but has no continuity into middle
school and high school, which effectively means that any progress achieved in
basic education is lost in the next levels. In due course, the community expressed
their disapproval and conflict between the teachers and some in the community
is evident. The bilingual education program that has been introduced by the SEP
has mostly been deemed unsuccessful and the community complains about the
schools’ unsatisfactory results.

4.3 Current reclamation projects in Tuxpan

This section presents the evolution of the bilingual education project in Kalmekak
and Acolmiztli Elementary Schools, followed by the introduction of new inde-
pendent initiatives carried out by a group of young community activists.
During a visit to the Kalmekak school in 2003, the principal approached Yáñez
Rosales and Rojas Arias asking for help in designing Nahuatl as L2 materials for
use in his school. As has been mentioned, although schools are officially bilin-
gual, any materials that are provided for language instruction or use are meant
for children who have Nahuatl as their mother tongue. Because the students at
Kalmekak speak Spanish as their mother tongue and would be learning Nahuatl
as an L2, the teachers in Tuxpan needed materials designed for that purpose.
124   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

The first project that was undertaken was the production of a bilingual dic-
tionary, and it was the first by-product of the collaboration among the teachers
of both Kalmekak and Acolmiztli, and the researchers from the UDG. The teach-
ers who were native speakers themselves served as the source for the majority
of the lexical content of the dictionary and because it was a product of speakers
whose variety was distinct from that of the local variety and even distinct from
each other, it combines lexical forms from several Huastecan dialects and other
sources. The dictionary is still used in both elementary bilingual-intercultural
schools (Cortés Vite et al. 2007).
In 2008, a second project was undertaken with the aim of creating more
materials and training the teachers in the development and use of the elements
of an L2 program and methodology. Unfortunately, this time the principal of
Kalmekak did not agree to participate or even let his teachers do so, and therefore
it was developed exclusively by the Acolmiztli school staff and the research team
which now included Vega Torres, who became involved due to his training in L2
teaching. This project promoted an action plan that directly involved the teachers
and began with a theoretical course in communicative language teaching meth-
odology meant to provide the basis for an updated and more effective approach
to teaching Nahuatl as a L2.
At the outset of this new project, one of the first and most important obstacles
was to counter the teacher’s skepticism regarding its viability. For instance, while
it is true that not all teachers spoke Nahuatl (two of them are monolingual in
Spanish and another is bilingual in Spanish and Huasteco), those who did speak
a variety of the language questioned their own language proficiency as well as
their ability to teach it despite being native speakers. Furthermore, they consid-
ered the Nahuatl course as unrealistic and without any chance of success due to
the present situation of Nahuatl as a language that has lost all of its communica-
tive functions in the community.
In light of the above skepticism, the research team considered that it would
be beneficial to discuss the concept of bilingualism with the teachers in order
to clarify that bilingualism does not necessarily mean complete mastery of two
linguistic codes (which seemed to be the general conception among the teachers,
thereby justifying the skepticism) but that it actually describes a continuum of
linguistic ability ranging from the limited use of an L2 to a communicative compe-
tence comparable to that of the mother tongue. To better illustrate this point Vega
Torres presented the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages3
and its six levels of language proficiency, underlining the fact that because of

3 http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Cadre1_en.asp (accessed 14 November 2015)

 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   125

the adversity of conditions (linguistic, political, economic, etc.) and limited

resources, the objective of the new program would simply be to take students
somewhere between the first two levels (A1 and A2), which would be by itself a
great achievement.
With renewed confidence and support from the school’s staff, we were able
to continue with the main part of this intensive teacher training course which
involved explaining the organization of each learning unit. These activities took
place during 2008 and 2009 and required a large time investment on the part of
the researchers who agreed to travel from Guadalajara to Tuxpan for each of the
monthly or bimonthly meetings. The meetings were held in the classrooms of the
Acolmiztli school and exclusively within the work schedule of the teachers.
The second stage of the action plan took place around the year 2010 and it
consisted in the material development stage of the project: designing the syllabus
and classroom materials for first grade. For this specific stage of the project the
school got official financing to buy video equipment. The research team designed
short conversations in Spanish based on the communicative goals of the learning
units which would cover one school year which were adapted and translated to
Nahuatl by the teachers and then recorded in video starring themselves and their
students. Afterwards, the researchers designed the classroom activities (listen-
ing comprehension, vocabulary presentation, grammar observation, grammar
practice and speaking) for the first learning unit. Then this whole unit would be
piloted in a class with real students and recorded in video, in order to be observed
and discussed afterwards by all the teachers. Then they had to present feedback
to the research team, to work on corrections and suggest activities for the rest of
the units for first grade. This is effectively training the community members to
become agents in their own right in the style of action oriented research where
both the process and results are beneficial to community members in “positive
social change” (Rice 2011: 190).
As in the work compiling the dictionary, the project used the linguistic knowl-
edge of the different teachers at the school and was therefore a combination of
mostly Huasteca varieties. The value of these efforts lies primarily in the empow-
erment of the teachers who gain the tools necessary to carry out more effective L2
educational efforts. The materials that were developed (Vega Torres 2009) were
used to various extents in the classroom and provided students with new educa-
tional experiences that would have been impossible otherwise.
However, there have been challenges as well. After a certain point some
teachers expressed that they would rather get the materials from the research-
ers instead of participating in their preparation, and it was ultimately the princi-
pal who had to do all the translations into Nahuatl. Even though some teachers
seemed enthusiastic when they were involved in the video recording of the con-
126   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

versations with their students, they did not like the idea of being recorded and
observed teaching the class. In the end, nobody volunteered to take charge of this
activity which was postponed for months and became a roadblock that did not
allow the project to go any further.
Then, in November 2013, a new federal education policy was established
which directly affected the Acolmiztli School by increasing the number of school
hours and officially declaring the need to teach the indigenous language during
these extra hours. For the first time (26 years after the implementation of a Span-
ish-Nahuatl bilingual education system in Tuxpan) the teachers felt real pressure
to use the very few materials available for this purpose. This situation finally
lead them to re-establish communication with the research team in order to con-
tinue working on the design of a more complete syllabus and to develop further
Nahuatl teaching materials.
A second group in Tuxpan that has carried out important activities for the
reinforcement of the traditional culture and Nahuatl language is the Yaoxocoyome
Nahuatl (Young Nahuatl Warriors). This is an independent association of indige-
nous youth from Tuxpan. It was created in 2004 by 17 young activists interested
in developing autonomous cultural initiatives for their community. Some of their
specific goals are to reclaim their indigenous identity, to discover and share the
history of their community, to rescue material cultural heritage, to reacquire the
language of their ancestors by learning it by themselves without a teacher, and
to gather periodically with indigenous peoples from other states of the country.
They began collecting individual pieces of Pre-Hispanic art that had been
previously found and kept by their families and neighbors in order to create a
public museum for the whole community. This project was installed in a public
building across from the city’s main square and admission was free. It presented
a very interesting and well organized variety of household objects, clay work, tra-
ditional everyday and celebratory attire, etc., all with detailed descriptions and
explanations which had been prepared and provided by the members of Yaoxo-
coyome Nahuatl. Regrettably the local authorities did not consider this museum
among their priorities and removed the exhibit, keeping all of the objects which
had been provided by the young activists and reclaiming the building for the City
Hall. These arbitrary actions have left the community without a museum of any
sort since. And sadly, today the fate of all of these priceless historical and cultural
materials is unknown.
Today, besides the periodical meetings dedicated to the study of Nahuatl, the
members of this association organize activities to celebrate International Mother
Language Day and yearly cultural gatherings with young people of other Indig-
enous groups from the states of Michoacán, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí, Chiapas
and Oaxaca where they participate in forums, workshops, sports competitions,
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   127

presentations of traditional dress, dances, songs and poetry. They also distrib-
ute toys to the children of their community during Christmas and Children’s Day.
The enthusiasm which they manifest during these events has become a powerful
influence over younger members of their own community and other indigenous
people they meet: other people from Tuxpan have also started to value their cul-
tural heritage.

4.4 Current reclamation projects in Ayotitlán

In this section we discuss the recent reclamation activities in Ayotitlán: the crea-
tion of a small library of Nahuatl materials, the free Nahuatl as a second language
courses, the linguistic landscape project, as well as a discussion of the positive
effects these activities have reaped. On numerous occasions over the course of
their years of involvement in the community, the UACI received and heard con-
cerns from community members about Nahuatl. In response to the community’s
growing consciousness of and concern for the recovery and reinforcement of their
indigenous identity,4 the UACI initiated the first L2 Nahuatl course, which would
last one month during summer break and be taught by Nahuatl speaking stu-
dents from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN National Pedagogic Uni-
versity) from the state of Morelos.5 There have been two such courses: the first one
during the summer of 2010 and the second one during the summer of 2011. While
the classes were well attended, there were some basic problems: the first was the
lack of continuity throughout the year for they were only one month long; and the
second was that because the teachers came from another state, the sustainability
of such endeavors was limited. Nevertheless, it was the first time that Nahuatl
had been taught as a second language to a general audience in the area by teach-
ers trained to do so, outside the realm of the official school system, and therefore,
this initiative provided a positive precedent for further action in the community.
The first real undertaking for our group apart from the diagnostic was the
creation of a small library collection in coordination with the Council of Elders.
This collection was called Amoxcalli Nahuatlahtolli (Nahuatl Language Library).
The collection is specialized in Nahua language and culture and is composed of
a diverse mix of materials including grammars, dictionaries, stories, historical

4 This circumstance can be linked to the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) upris-
ing and the resulting national environment.
5 One of whom later published a Nahuatl as L2 book which has been used in subsequent classes
in Ayotitlán (Calderón Avilés 2011).
128   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

texts, compact discs, and videos, all of which are in Nahuatl or in bilingual edi-
tions and which have been used in subsequent projects. By means of the decision
of the Council of Elders, the collection has been housed in the Casa de la Cultura
(installed in September 2011), and is freely accessible to everyone in the commu-
nity. It was created thanks to funding from the Consejo Estatal para la Cultura
y las Artes (CECA State Council for Arts and Culture). The general goal for this
project was to provide an archive of resources and materials for use inside the
community and it was proposed in response to the repeated mentions of lack of
materials in Nahuatl that, in the diagnostic phase, we heard from teachers and
other interested members of the community. As a consequence of the fact that the
materials include representations of several different varieties of Nahuatl, none
of which are the local variety, awareness has been raised at least among the youth
group regarding the issue of dialectal variation.
The next project proposal came from within the community: in September
of 2011 the aforementioned Telpochtin Teyoleualiztli (Youth in Motion) proposed
to create bilingual signs in Nahuatl and Spanish for public spaces, such as the
schools, the grocery stores, entrances to each of the communities, etc. This group
is nutured by María Magdalena Flores Salvatierra, a community leader who has
long worked for the promotion of Ayotitlán’s traditions and youth. Thus, the
project Recuperación de Espacios para la Lengua Náhuatl o Mexicana en Ayo-
titlán: Paisaje Lingüístico6 ‘Recovery of Language Domains for the Nahuatl or
Mexican Language: Linguistic Landscape’ was undertaken (see Santos García,
Carrillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro, this volume, for a similar linguistic land-
scape project). The Telpochtin Teyoleualiztli decided the contents, design and
format of the signs; they determined where they would be placed and procured
the necessary permissions to install them; and they sourced the wood used to
construct the signs. Our role included finding funding for the project, providing
guidance and assistance when required, in particular regarding issues of orthog-
raphy and the acquisition of materials and tools unavailable in the community
such as drills, paint, sand paper, etc. The messages they choose to use included
short and simple phrases such as “Do not litter”, “Do not kill animals”, “Welcome
to Ayotitlán”, or the names of important buildings, landmarks, and rivers in the
region. The translations of the Spanish phrases into Nahuatl were accomplished
by consulting the bilingual teachers that live in the area, or by the students them-
selves consulting the books of the collection Amoxcalli Nahuatlahtolli or the Inter-
net. The young people have been, without a doubt, the motor of this project since,
in addition to deciding on and translating the content, they also engaged the rest

6 This project was funded by CONACULTA (National Council for Culture and Arts).
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   129

of the community in order to communicate the work plan and to ask for the nec-
essary authorization to mount or set up the signs.

Fig. 1: Production (photo taken by Rosa Yáñez Fig. 2: The signs in progress (photo taken by
Rosales) Rosa Yáñez Rosales)

Fig. 3: Installation (photo taken by Rosa Yáñez Fig. 4: Final product (photo taken by Rosa
Rosales) Yáñez Rosales)

As a result of the project there have been many achievements that are of value to
reclamation in the region. With the project, the group members actively recreated
the linguistic knowledge of their ancestors and took ownership of what was being
produced in the signs. Perhaps even more importantly, the workshops provided a
space for Nahuatl to be used. Throughout the process the group members began
using the phrases and thus the language itself: while painting the signs, they
could be heard practicing the phrases as well as greetings, short conversations,
and other things they had learned in the concurrent Nahuatl classes (see below).
Apart from this, the language has been made accessible to the community at
large, beyond the small group of youth. As a result of this project the language is
in the public line of sight and visible to all.
130   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

Notwithstanding these achievements, various aspects of the project have not

been easy. For example, the distances and the lack of means of transportation
between communities have slowed down the pace of the project. In addition, dif-
ficulties in communication between the research team and the local participants
often delays the scheduling of workshops and installation. A further problem has
been the protection of the signs which have in some cases disappeared causing
the participants in the project to have to request the local authorities of each
community to watch out for and protect the signs, so they are not taken away or
destroyed.
One of the most fruitful of the recent reclamation activities has been a
revamped version of the Nahuatl as a second language classes. Due to the fact
that the first courses of L2 Nahuatl that were discussed above were suspended as
a result of the logistical and funding issues of bringing someone from so far away,
we collaborated with the UACI to find a more cost-effective and sustainable solu-
tion. This was found in a native Nahuatl speaker who is a local professor affiliated
with the bilingual-intercultural school system and who was interested in the pro-
jects of language reclamation. Although he is originally from the state of Hidalgo
which is in the Huasteca region and therefore he speaks a variety of Huastecan
Nahuatl (an outside variety) he has lived in the Sierra de Manantlán for many
years and was, therefore, invited to teach a more regular course once a week,
year round. The classes are free of charge and aimed at all audiences. The advan-
tages of this change include having a teacher who lives in the area, having an
L2 Nahuatl class with regular continuity, and allowing both children and adults
the opportunity to study the language outside official education. Nevertheless,
there have been challenges, including the fact that, as the classes are given in the
central settlement of Ayotitlán, the distances and difficulties of communication
among communities make the attendance of the interested individuals irregular.
This, in addition to the fact that new students can arrive at any time, results in
issues regarding the consistency and development of contents. Still, it has proved
to be an excellent means of diffusion and of initial interaction with the language
for all audiences.
The value of this undertaking is also clear: these classes are helping to build
the knowledge that is used in the linguistic landscape project and are the basis for
continued reclamation efforts. In addition, it has provided a space for language
acquisition outside the contentious environment of official bilingual education
in the school system. At one point, one of the elementary school teachers began
to bring her class to the course. This in itself speaks to the value of providing
accessible language classes but one realizes the significance of the achieve-
ment even more when one takes into account that these classes take place on
the weekend outside of classroom hours. Accordingly, when the students speak
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   131

in Nahuatl with each other, it is a direct result of this and the previous summer
classes, and when they do so publicly, others in the community take notice. For
example, after being overheard speaking Nahuatl by their high school teacher,
two of the students were given the opportunity (and took it!) of teaching what
they had learned of the language to their classmates once a week for the rest of
the class that semester. The value of the teaching and learning opportunity that
the teacher allowed the students (both the student-teachers and their classmates)
is significant. Finally, these Nahuatl as L2 classes have played a role in access
to scholarships and continued education: two students passed a test of Nahuatl
proficiency as part of a process to prove their indigenous identity and in this way
have access to a scholarship in the Universidad Intercultural del Estado de México
(Intercultural University of the state of Mexico) (see Sánchez, this volume and
Pharao Hansen et al., this volume for additional mentions of indigenous self per-
ception, identification and recognition of “indigenous” status). Although none of
these outcomes are equal to having a fluent Nahuatl speaking population, they
do show the desire for and the value and practical importance of the language
inside the community.
An additional result of these initiatives was seen on the occasion of a yearly
festival organized by the authors on International Mother Tongue Day in 2013
(celebrated at the University of Guadalajara). Two of the members of Telpoch-
tin Teyoleualiztli participated in a panel with representatives of other indigenous
cultures of Mexico (Wixárika, Mixteco, and Purepecha) all of whom did grow up
speaking their language. Each representative began their participation in the
panel with a greeting and an introduction in their native tongue: the two young
men from Ayotitlán were able to follow suit and greet the audience and introduce
themselves in Nahuatl. The significance of this lies in the fact that they had the
tools to be on (more) equal linguistic terms with other indigenous young people
like them. The importance of this outcome for us was tied to the fact that one of
the things that was mentioned by several interviewees in the young adult group
in the diagnostic stage was a reference to feeling that they were somehow less
indigenous than many Wixárika speaking acquaintances for example, due to the
absence of the language in their community: they were embarrassed when going
to indigenous youth meetings and conferences because they could not speak
Nahuatl. The experience certainly had a positive impact on their self-esteem and
strengthened elements of their identity and sense of belonging.
As we can see, in these projects the youth have played a main role: they have
a voice, they have proposed and made decisions regarding their language, they
are involved in all parts of the process and have made these reclamation pro-
jects possible. We have come to realize however that, without the elders, perhaps
these activities would not have seen the same success. The elders and the youth
132   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

represent two very important types of forces in these language initiatives: while
the youth have been on the front lines carrying out the activities, the elders have
played a different kind of role. They (especially those of the Council of Elders
in Ayotitlán) have been mainly responsible for maintaining and transmitting the
memory of their past as Nahuatl speaking people and the importance and value
of the language among the communities.

4.5 Challenges and future

As we move forward with the current reclamation initiatives and look towards
future projects in these communities, it is important to take note of the obsta-
cles and challenges that we have experienced. We hope to improve our future
approaches and outcomes by analyzing the issues we have had.
One of the first obstacles with which we were confronted in both communities
was the lack of historical documentation and the corresponding non-existence of
present day speakers of the local variety. The situation we encountered ultimately
led to a theoretical discussion concerning what was being revitalized or whether
it was even revitalization. As Grenoble and Whaley (2006) note, in language revi-
talization one still has the possibility of the support of native speakers who may
serve to document, teach and consult on the language. In situations of reclama-
tion however, they note that “one is forced to rely on whatever documentation of
the language remains” (Grenoble and Whaley 2006: 64). But in our situation we
had to ask ourselves, how can a language be reclaimed and documented if it is
no longer spoken and there is no record of what was? Moreover, what drives the
reclamation process in these situations?
As was mentioned, in both Tuxpan and Ayotitlán early research objectives
included efforts towards documentation of the local variety, but once it became
apparent that the situation of language loss prevented original expectations of
documentation, objectives shifted to sociolinguistic/ethno-linguistic research
aims. In Tuxpan for example, Yáñez Rosales’s original fieldwork proposal was
for documentation of the local variety, but in 1988 there were no speakers left
with whom to work towards documentation efforts, a fact that was not discovered
until the initial stages of fieldwork were undertaken. The same circumstances
have hampered documentation efforts that were part of the initial diagnostic
project in Ayotitlán.
Fortunately, the limited nature of the current and historical linguistic sources
for the local variety and the shift towards sociolinguistic research aims led us
to discover another important resource for language reclamation; one that has
undoubtedly served as the motor for the reclamation initiatives in both commu-
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   133

nities. Thanks to the diagnostic and sociolinguistic phases of our involvement in

both communities, we have come to the conclusion that perhaps the most impor-
tant assets that are available for those involved in language reclamation is not the
amount of documentation available, but the symbolic presence and memory the
community holds of their ancestors’ indigenous language on the one hand, and
the rememberers themselves with the linguistic information that they preserve
on the other. In both Tuxpan and Ayotitlán the memory that youth, adults, and
elders have of their grandparents speaking Nahuatl has been an important factor
in community member’s determination to implement language reclamation initi-
atives and has driven the process in the absence of other elements such as speak-
ers and documentation.
The question of how a language can be reclaimed and documented if it is
no longer spoken and there is no record of what was hinges on issues related
to dialectology and community perception and understanding of linguistic vari-
eties. As has been mentioned throughout this paper, certain members of these
communities perceive the local variety of Nahuatl to be different from the vari-
eties spoken by teachers, who have come from distinct communities in Verac-
ruz, Hidalgo, and Morelos. In general dialectal terms, the varieties spoken by the
teachers on the one hand and the local variety on the other belong to distinct
dialectal subgroups. Following the standard categorization of Nahuatl dialectol-
ogists, the local variety of Tuxpan and Ayotitlán would pertain to the dialectal
subgroup Nahuatl of the Western Periphery (Canger 1988; Lastra 1986, 2010)
while the dialects of the teachers in both communities would pertain to either the
subgroup Central Dialects (Canger 1988) or to the Huasteca subgrouping (Lastra
1986, 2010). While these subgroupings do share linguistic features between them,
other features are distinctive. One of the key differences which we have been able
to determine with the limited documentation available regards the presence of -l
as the absolutive suffix of nouns (instead of –tl or -t).
Nevertheless, our experience in these communities leads us to believe that
the perceived differences between or among these varieties does not seem to be
based on a recognition of a distinctive dialectal feature, but rather on a gener-
alized idea of difference based on the comparison of a few lexical items and the
testimony of rememberers. In essence, any objections which we have witnessed
have not been in reaction to a particular feature of the teacher’s variety, but to the
variety itself. Thus, it is important to note that, perhaps due to community mem-
ber’s relative inexperience with the linguistic features relevant to the dialectal
differences, their reaction to the use of outside varieties in the phases of recla-
mation projects has been inconstant. By and large, reactions can be categorized
along generational lines. The elders object to the introduction of the teacher’s
varieties in the schools, insisting that they do not speak the true language of the
134   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

community; while the young adults have been willing to appropriate the dialects
of their teachers and of the materials.
The consequence of severe language loss and lack of documentation means
that all or nothing attitudes towards revitalization of the local variety are unten-
able. The challenge to document a language that only remains in rememberers
is manifold. To begin with, any documentation that is carried out can only hope
to document individual lexical items or perhaps short incantations or greetings.
Nevertheless, documentation should not be discarded as impossible. Reclama-
tion can still happen in contexts like these if there is a willingness to consider rec-
reating Nahuatl in Tuxpan and Ayotitlán through other varieties. Efforts towards
documenting what can be found and using it in subsequent efforts could serve to
reinforce community ownership and involvement in revitalization efforts. Thus,
taking advantage of the existence of other varieties and working with the availa-
ble documentation of the local variety are viable strategies for working with the
communities in the future. Likewise, in Ayotitlán, in order to address the elder’s
tendency towards dismissal of outside varieties it will be important to continue
working with the community in order to raise awareness of the features involved
in dialectal similarities and differences.
Examples of how this may play out in the future can be found in the recent
discussions regarding subsequent reclamation projects in Ayotitlán. Now that
the signage project has begun, the young people have discussed attempting to
do some local documentation by speaking with the elders to see what they may
know. Our own interviews with rememberers during the diagnostic stage pro-
vided only a handful of individual lexical items, short prayers and incantations,
and an alleged written document, but more ostensibly we observed reluctance
on the part of some of those interviewed to share linguistic information. This was
at the initial stages of the diagnostic and thus no real relationships had been
formed yet, but nevertheless, having the young people attempt further documen-
tation may be more fruitful both for them and for linguistic purposes. In order to
carry this out, we have discussed training the participants in basic audio skills
and interview methods and acquiring audio recorders for them to interview their
family members and elders in their communities.
Any documentation that can be carried out as part of the project with the
youth in Ayotitlán will serve to provide a better understanding of the local variety
but also will provide the youth themselves with a better understanding of the
language and their cultural heritage (Rice 2011). In this case, the hope is that
community based language research would lead to the kind of information that
we were unable to access on our own in the diagnostic stage and has the added
benefit of providing an opportunity for them to learn and take ownership of the
knowledge that they are creating.
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   135

Finally, another major obstacle for future projects includes issues around
how language policy in Mexico leaves communities with severe language loss
like Ayotitlán and Tuxpan out in the cold. These communities have to fight for
recognition as indigenous, mainly because the language is no longer available to
be used as a defining factor. This myopia in Mexican language policy affects our
efforts at reclamation because language policy is inextricably linked to revitali-
zation and reclamation, and in Mexico the focus of those language policies that
do exist is detrimentally narrow in scope. In particular, because the institutional
support from government programs does not recognize, or is simply not aware of
the extreme situation of language loss that these communities have experienced,
there is no legal framework for reclamation efforts. The Ley General de Derechos
Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law on Linguistic Rights of Indige-
nous People) is of no help in these cases as it concerns exclusively the languages
“spoken” in the country and the speakers of those languages, thus discriminating
members of communities who have lost their original languages. In practice it is
very difficult for a person to be officially recognized as indigenous and to claim
his/her rights as such, especially if he/she does not speak an indigenous lan-
guage. The obstacles that we have witnessed in this respect through our contact
with these communities has led us to the conclusion that in order to address the
fulfillment of these community’s linguistic rights, the challenge for the future is
to highlight the existence of these communities and the lack of a corresponding
legal framework for situations of reclamation so that the shortcomings in current
policy can be remedied.
In a similar vein, we have seen firsthand how the official language policies
are in general only partially implemented or implemented in a manner that pre-
cludes success. For example, the basic instructional training program for teach-
ers in the bilingual-intercultural system does not include any training for ele-
mentary teachers in foreign or second language teaching, apparently assuming
that if teachers are native speakers, they automatically know how to teach the
language. More specifically, although they are trained to develop the students’
mother tongues, whether that is an indigenous language or Spanish, they lack the
tools to lead the acquisition of a second language. Likewise, we have witnessed
teachers assigned to bilingual schools in these communities who do not speak
an indigenous language or who do speak one but not the one that is spoken in
the particular community where they are sent to work. In Mexico, teachers are
assigned to a school by a centralized human resource system that disallows local
hiring decisions and therefore contributes to the failure of the bilingual-intercul-
tural education program. How can a teacher teach a language they do not speak
or when they have not even been trained to do so? With the renewed interest
for material development in Tuxpan, we hope to continue supporting the teach-
136   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

er’s efforts in providing a deliberate and considered Nahuatl as an L2 language

program for the children.

5 Conclusions
As we have seen, the cases of Tuxpan and Ayotitlán are closer to what has been
called “linguistic reclamation” than to “linguistic revitalization” (Grenoble and
Whaley 2006: 64). Although there are a great variety of situations of reclamation
and revitalization, perhaps the basic difference between them is that, in the first
case, the language is now dormant and there are no speakers left, while in the
second case there are still native speakers to consult. This difference has impor-
tant consequences in what can be done for recovering the language. In a scenario
of revitalization, speakers have a central role in documenting and teaching the
language, assisting in conversation clubs, designing materials (for multiple pur-
poses), and so on. In reclamation scenarios this is not possible, and the road to
language recovery must be traveled without this support: other resources must
be sought.
In fact, that the native variants of Nahuatl of Ayotitlán and Tuxpan have been
all but lost does not necessarily imply that they are dead: we have learned that
even when there are no longer speakers and the language has ceased to be used
for communicative purposes, the language continues to exist in the symbolic
memory of the communities. Although many linguists tend to overlook the role
that the symbolic memory of a language plays; in Tuxpan and Ayotitlán, we have
found that it has been the foundation on which these community-based recla-
mation efforts are based, is at the heart of the desire for language return, and
has been the sine qua non element for the continuation and development of the
various reclamation initiatives over the last few decades. Hence, the process of
language shift is not complete when the last speaker dies, since language remains
a part of the community’s collective memory.
There are, however, other elements in addition to symbolic memory that
determine the outcomes that language reclamation efforts can have in the
Mexican context. One of the most detrimental elements to reclamation outcomes
is the lack of an appropriate recognition and understanding to the specificities of
language reclamation contexts from a legislative standpoint. The consequence
of this kind of short sighted legislation is that reclamation initiatives, and the
linguistic rights for these indigenous communities where the language no longer
retains communicative functions, are left without a legal framework to support
them and therefore, in order to keep these reclamation initiatives moving forward,
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   137

a web of solidarities and mutual support with other institutions has to be pains-
takingly built and negotiated.
One of the contexts exemplifying this state of affairs lies where one would
perhaps least expect it: the bilingual-intercultural education system. Here again
we find the blurred vision that federal institutions have of reclamation situations.
Populations like Ayotitlán and Tuxpan are deemed the same as other communi-
ties where the language, though endangered, is still used and revitalization is
therefore possible. When the indigenous language is assumed to be the L1 for
children that have Spanish as their mother tongue, teachers are at a disadvantage
by not being trained to teach language as an L2 and, thus, when parents expect
their children to learn to speak Nahuatl a problem arises. Parents often end up
feeling deceived by those who they are certain could play a key role in the return
of language, not understanding that the particularities of their situation have not
been recognized and addressed from the beginning by the official institutions
directly responsible for promoting the respect and application of linguistic rights.
The blame for the failure of the bilingual-intercultural schools is often placed
solely on the shoulders of the teachers, and the larger responsibility of the federal
institutions is forgotten or ignored causing rifts between teachers and parents
that impede other reclamation efforts. Moving forward, it is imperative to address
the issue by considering indigenous languages from the L2 standpoint and pro-
viding the teachers with the training and resources required to be successful.
In dealing with the adversities that poor legislation and deficient educational
policies cause, we have learned that for reclamation initiatives to have a chance
of succeeding, a community must use the elements in their environment in a crea-
tive and positive manner. The reclamation projects discussed in this chapter have
involved Nahuatl speaking teachers making a positive use of their knowledge of
other Nahuatl variants as a substitute for the local dialects in an exchange that
very few acknowledge. For example, the independent Nahuatl courses in Ayo-
titlán represent an alternative to the official schools and were taught by one of
the local school teachers. The design of materials for teaching Nahuatl as an L2
in Tuxpan makes the most of the competence of the Nahuatl speaking teachers
that work in the community; thus proving that, with the appropriate mediation,
a dialogue can be established that will further allow for such initiatives to be
continued.
Even though in the scenario described in the sections above language doc-
umentation plays a less than stellar role, we do want to highlight its role as a
means for strengthening community networks, legitimizing the youth’s projects,
and informing the community. On one hand, it has fostered discussion, allowing
a dialogue to emerge that did not exist before: in their search for vocabulary and
stories, the youth have started consulting local Nahuatl speaking teachers and
138   Rosa Yáñez Rosales, et al.

rememberers, and to investigate by themselves in written sources. In this way

they are overcoming the fact that these two groups, the elders and the teachers,
have not always agreed on what should be taught and how it should be taught. An
unexpected result of the dialogue has been the legitimization of the reclamation
projects in the eyes of the elders because the youth not only exhibit a progressive
mastery of the language, but they can and do manipulate the “books” where the
language lives; and it also has set the teachers closer to the community. In some
ways language documentation, therefore, has become one of the paths towards
something that they have long considered their own: the language of their grand-
parents.
Through this process of becoming involved with the language of their ances-
tors, it is apparent that youth draw from both internal and external criteria,
making the language their own. Thus, the scope of these language reclamation
projects transcends the linguistic level and becomes a re-signifying movement
transforming the role the youth play within their communities. It is them, the
next generations who will turn into parents, who for the first time have had the
opportunity, long demanded, of learning the language and taking it beyond the
constraints of the school. The contact with the language and the knowledge of
Nahuatl that they have gained not only expands their opportunities and is a ful-
fillment of the community’s desire for language reclamation, but it also empow-
ers them.
However, for this positive scenario of language reclamation projects to be
maintained, community engagement must be sustained. Rice rightly defines a
community as having complex structures and to be composed of many other
smaller communities within it, meaning that the community that is engaged in
community based research can be a very small core group within a larger com-
munity (Rice 2011: 191). In the language reclamation projects discussed in this
chapter the people who are prone to get involved and actively collaborate to
achieve the goals of a project form the community. With the time spent in the
communities of Ayotitlán and Tuxpan, it is evident that the youth, although
not the only group involved, are those who have made possible the shift from
linguist-centered research methods to the empowering and community-based
research that fosters empowerment and strengthens engagement. Unlike other
segments of the community that show an array of attitudes from indifference
to support for language reclamation without personal action; the youth have
become socially visible and keep up with an agenda revolving around the lan-
guage and the indigenous culture. They help promote the dances, the religious
festivities, the return of the traditional attire, and even the archaeological rescue,
resilient in the face of setbacks.
 Reclamation initiatives in non-speaker communities   139

Confronted with a long list of shortcomings and setbacks, the groups within
the community that are involved in the language reclamation projects thrive with
the resources at hand; they look for new ways of carrying out their projects and
promote the language aware of the urgency for immediate action. And this has
paid off; the language has penetrated community life in Ayotitlán and advanced
indigenous identity reassessment in Tuxpan. This community engagement
spearheaded by the youth of Yaoxocoyome Nahuatl and Telpochtin Teyoleual-
iztli together with the elders and groups of teachers or individuals has moved
language reclamation forward in the south of Jalisco, and it continues to be an
example of how the limitations of lacking a legal framework that would set the
elements needed in such circumstances can be overcome if community engage-
ment and the access to linguistic guidance exists.

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Rosa Vallejos
6 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and
revitalization: Documenting variation
among the Kukama-Kukamirias

1 Introduction
This paper takes the Kukama-Kukamiria language (Peruvian Amazon, ISO code:
cod)1 as a case in point to examine the relevance of documenting variation in
endangered language contexts.2 It will be argued that the documentation efforts
should not focus on fluent speakers alone as data from non-fluent speakers can
also make crucial contributions to both revitalization initiatives and linguistic
research. The Kukama-Kukamiria language (henceforth, KK) is seriously endan-
gered: most of the remaining fluent speakers are older than 60 years, and the
natural process of language transmission was interrupted about five decades ago.
Over the years, a growing concern with respect to the vitality of the language
has become evident within the speech community itself, which has resulted in
a number of revitalization initiatives (Vallejos 2014b). As a result, at present it is
possible to find a range of types of speakers of KK.
The documentation of the speech of different types of speakers of KK is
important for two reasons. First, current revitalization efforts are being imple-
mented mainly through formal education in elementary schools. These efforts are
being led by neo-speakers who have themselves learned or are learning KK fol-
lowing heritage language methodologies. In order to support these programs, it
is essential to document the patterns used by the neo-speakers – the teachers –,
because they are ultimately the ones to which the children are being exposed.

1 Previously known as Kokama-Kokamilla or Cocama-Cocamilla.

2 My deepest gratitude goes to each and every one of the Kukama-Kukamirias that have shared
their time and knowledge with me since 1997, especially to Rosa Amías Murayari, my long-time
friend and collaborator. This work was supported by the NSF Documenting Endangered Lan-
guages program (BCS #0965604) and a NEH-NSF Documenting Endangered Languages fellow-
ship (FN-50110-12). Although I am pleased to thank each of these persons and organizations, all
findings, conclusions, errors, and omissions in this paper are my own.

Rosa Vallejos, University of New Mexico

144   Rosa Vallejos

Equally important is the documentation of the latent-speakers – a category that

would include many parents – as the use of the language beyond the schools, but
particularly at home, is crucial if the maintenance of KK is to have any success.
Second, it is generally apparent that languages that are falling into disuse,
and in which the number of speakers is rapidly declining, undergo dramatic
structural changes. However, the mechanisms that are involved in such changes
are not yet clear. For instance, the extent to which the structural changes that
occur in dying languages are unique (Sasse 1992) or similar to other kinds of con-
tact-induced phenomena (Dorian 1993) is still an unsettled question. Contrary to
language endangerment scenarios where fluency is already a critical issue, the
KK case offers the possibility to document a wide variety of speakers and con-
tribute to the discussion about language change accelerated not only by obsoles-
cence but also by revitalization efforts.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 provides the local context;
Section 2 reviews existing typologies of speakers in endangered language con-
texts; Section 3 elaborates on the types of KK speakers with a focus on the linguis-
tic structures identified in their speech; Section 4 offers some discussion and the
overall conclusions are in Section 5.

2 The local context

The KK people live in the Peruvian Amazon. An estimated 120 KK villages are
located on the upper Amazon River and several of its major tributaries, including
the Huallaga, Marañón, Ucayali, Nanay, and Itaya rivers in the Peruvian depart-
ments of Loreto and Ucayali (See Map 1).
The total number of KKs is estimated at 20,000. A considerable number of
them now reside in cities such as Iquitos and Yurimaguas, and midsize towns like
Lagunas, Nauta, Requena, among others. During the rubber boom, towards the
end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, small
groups of KK migrated to Colombia and Brazil (Vallejos 2010b: 11).
The KK people have been interacting with the “national” society since the
early 1940’s; however, their cultural practices and their way of life are still tradi-
tional in many respects. The older generations, particularly, preserve vast knowl-
edge of the forest and of the aquatic environment. Younger generations have been
gradually abandoning some traditional practices, such as certain agricultural
and fishing techniques and traditional medicine, among others.
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   145

Map 1: Location of Kukama & Kukamiria communities in Peru (Vallejos 2014b: 46)

Based on the parameters provided by UNESCO (Moseley 2010), the KK language

is severely to critically endangered. First, children are no longer learning the
language, as natural processes of language transmission have been interrupted.
Second, only an estimated 1,000 individuals of the total population speaks the
language; the majority has already shifted to Spanish. Third, the remaining
speakers are elderly people spread across small villages. Fourth, the remain-
ing speakers use the language to speak amongst themselves, but only in very
restricted situations. As indicated earlier, despite the growing obsolescence,
there are revitalization efforts in place and, in the last two years, the language
has received considerable attention at the regional and national levels. This has
injected enthusiasm among language activists committed to the preservation of
KK (Vallejos 2014b).
The language has two dialects. Kukamiria is spoken basically in the upper
Huallaga River; Kukama, along the Marañón, Samiria, Ucayali, and Amazon
Rivers, towards the east. Only a few phonetic and lexical differences have been
found between these two dialects (Vallejos 2010a). It should be noted that speak-
ers are aware of the dialectal differences and are ready to point out how a specific
word is pronounced by the other group if a difference exists.
146   Rosa Vallejos

3 A typology of speakers in endangered language

situations
Dorian (1980, 1987), Grinevald (2003), Grinevald and Bert (2011), Hinton (2001),
and Tsunoda (2006), among others, have found a range of types of speakers in
endangered language situations. Relevant questions when working in contexts of
language obsolescence are: what does it mean to speak an endangered language?
What qualifies or disqualifies someone as a fluent speaker? The answers to these
questions often go beyond linguistic criteria (see also Pharao Hansen et al., this
volume). Thus, existing typologies of speakers combine a number of variables
including child language learning, past and present language use, language atti-
tudes, as well as adult language attrition and possible (re)learning (Grinevald
2003).
Grinevald and Bert (2011), building on Dorian (1980), suggest four interre-
lated clusters to identify types of speakers: (i) language competence cluster (level
of acquisition attained and degree of individual loss), (ii) sociolinguistic cluster
(vitality of language at time of acquisition and the age of the speaker at the time of
exposure to the language), (iii) performance cluster (level of use of the language
and the attitudes towards the language), (iv) self-evaluation of language skills
(which can range from under-evaluation, insecurity and self-denial to over-eval-
uation). Based on these four parameters, these authors propose seven types of
speakers. An adaptation of their proposal is presented in Table 1.3
Following Tsunoda (2006: 124), in this paper I use the term latent-speaker for
what other authors refer to as semi-speaker (Dorian 1977), and which has become
a representative category of endangered language contexts. Other terms used for
this type of speaker include passive speaker (Voegelin 1977), and rusty speaker
(Menn 1989). I adopt latent-speaker to highlight the fact that, in the KK scenario,
these speakers have retained knowledge of complex subsystems (i.e. genderlects),
although they may use these patterns at a lower rate compared to fluent speakers.
In the next section, the typology introduced here is applied to categorize the
speakers documented in the KK scenario. Particular attention is paid to the types
of structures found in the speech of the different types of speakers. This data
is key to support ongoing revitalization events involving the community (i.e.,
teacher training, creation of classroom materials), as well as to advance studies

3 Grinevald and Bert (2011)’s typology also includes Terminal Speakers, which they recognize is
a controversial category given its negative connotation.
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   147

on the mechanisms of change and linguistic outcomes of both language decay

and language revitalization.

Tab. 1: An adaptation of Grinevald and Bert (2011)’s typology of speakers

FLUENT SPEAKERS Also called traditional speakers, they have acquired the language fully
and are able to engage in spontaneous conversations. Such speakers are
able to provide narratives with very minimal use of borrowings.
LATENT-SPEAKERS They demonstrate receptive skills but with varying degrees of production.
They have not had regular conversation partners and display modified
patterns that can be considered mistakes by fluent speakers.
REMEMBERERS This category includes speakers with advanced level of attrition often
due to traumatic circumstances. They have passive knowledge and very
limited productive skills, which usually includes frozen expressions. They
may have regained or reacquired some partial use and could be at first
inhibited to get involved in revitalization efforts.
FORMER SPEAKERS They are also called ghost speakers, those who deny any knowledge of
the language. This denial is a consequence of strong negative attitudes
associated with speaking a language that is usually overpowered by a
national language.
NEO-SPEAKERS They are the product of revitalization initiatives. They have positive
attitudes towards the language and make conscious efforts to learn it.
They can achieve a range of proficiency levels and show signs of language
obsolescence.
LAST SPEAKER This may be a socio-political category; that is, public and social role
assigned by a community, or self-attributed.

4 Types of Kukama-Kukamiria speakers

Contrary to the general tendency to focus on the speech patterns produced by
fluent speakers, this paper argues that recording linguistic variation should
be central to any documentary effort. While documenting the KK language,
three clear types of speakers were found: fluent speakers, latent-speakers, and
neo-speakers. It should be noted that members of these three groups are self-iden-
tified or identified by others as speakers of the language. For instance, if asking
for references of KK speakers, one could be referred to any of the three types. In
addition, there are community members that make a symbolic use of the lan-
guage, but who would generally not be considered speakers of KK. This section
elaborates on all of them.
Assigning speakers to one category or the other was only possible because of
the involvement of community members in the documentation projects (Vallejos
148   Rosa Vallejos

2014b). Community members were in charge of conducting the interviews, and

at the end of each interview session speakers were classified into different cate-
gories. The judgments of the interviewers were based primarily on the speakers’
ability to interact and engage in spontaneous conversations with them (For alter-
native methodologies to recognize levels of fluency, see Moore and Galucio, this
volume). The categories that emerged from the community members judgments
were basically three: ‘s/he speaks well,’ ‘s/he knows but needs to practice,’ ‘s/he
is still learning.’ Additionally, they would make comments about other people
that we met, such as ‘s/he knows but feels embarrassed.’ Respectively, I translate
these categories as the following: fluent-speaker, latent-speaker, neo-speaker and
former-speaker. Data was collected from the first three groups (Vallejos 2014b).
An examination of the data collected from these three different types of
speakers reveals that each category could be associated with a set of linguistic
patterns. In other words, each type of speaker represents a prototype around
which particular speakers can be more or less located. In this paper, each type
will be characterized not only in terms of proficiency and attitudes but also in
terms of the presence or absence of specific structural parameters in their speech.

4.1 Fluent speakers

As indicated earlier, KK fluent speakers are mostly older than 60 and use the lan-
guage only occasionally. Not all fluent speakers have regular interlocutors; this
contributes to the deep feeling of nostalgia about their heritage language. These
speakers make minimal use of Spanish borrowings and have a vast specialized
vocabulary, particularly of flora and fauna (Vallejos and Amías 2015). A few struc-
tural patterns documented in the speech of fluent speakers are introduced below;
they will serve as the base line against which the structures found in the speech
of latent-speakers and neo-speakers will be discussed.
In KK, grammatical categories like person, number, tense, and modality are
conveyed by positionally fixed clitics. Five tense clitics encode three degrees of
distance into the past and two into the future, some of which are illustrated in
(1).4 There are also six epistemic modal clitics, which interact to create a four-way

4 Abbreviations: AFF=affective, AUG=augmentative, AUX= auxiliary, CAU=causative, CER=cer-

tainty, COM=comitative, COND=conditional, CPL=completive aspect, DAT=dative, DEM=demon-
strative, DER=derivation, DIM=diminutive, FOC=focus, INS=instrument, LOC=locative, MOD=-
modal, NEG=negation, NZR=nominalizer, N.PUR=negative purpose, PAS=past, PL.FS= plural
female speaker, 1PL.IN=first person plural exclusive, PL.MS=plural male speaker, 3PL.MS=third
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   149

modal system, as seen in (2). The language has also twelve suffixes, including -ta
‘causative,’ -ka ‘reiterative,’ -pa ‘completive,’ shown in (3). Although neither the
clitics nor the suffixes is obligatory, as many as four suffixes can occur together
on a single verb, followed by up to two clitics, as seen in (3).

(1) ene [erura ipira]=uy/=ikua/=tsuriai

2sg bring fish=pas1/=pas2/=pas3
‘You brought fish (recently/some time ago/long time ago)’

(2) ikun=taka/=tin/=ray/=ia ra chikuarata ini=utsu

today=unc/=cer/=spe/=rep 3sg.ms follow 1pl.in=fut1
‘Now, maybe/for sure/it seems/I’ve heard, he will follow us’

(3) upa ya=tsupara-ta-ka-pa=ini

aux 3sg.fs=be.lost-cau-rei-cpl=1pl.obj
‘He ends up making us totally lost’

Fluent speakers employ several strategies to combine clauses into more complex
sentences. Clause nominalization is a central subordination strategy, particularly
for relativization functions (4) (Vallejos 2009). The language has a set of subordi-
nators to express several logical relations, such as reason (5), condition (6), and
temporal simultaneity (7) (Vallejos 2010a, 2010b).

(4) tana erutsu-ka [rana yumi-n ] karamina

1pl.ms bring-rei 3pl.ms give-nzr corrugated.iron
‘We carry out the corrugated iron [that they have donated]’

(5) ay ikian awa ɨtsɨ-kaka [ni ra=purara pe]-ikua

already this person have.fear-rec neg 3sg.ms=find way-rsn
‘He is already scared because he doesn’t find the way’

person plural male speech, PROG=progressive, PROH=prohibitive, PRT=participle, PUR=pur-

pose postposition, PUR3=purpose subordinador, Q=Question, REC=reciprocal, REI=reitera-
tive, REL=relativizer, REP=reportative, RES=restrictive focus, RSN=reason, SPE=speculative,
�UNC=uncertainly, 1SG.FS= first person singular female speaker, 1SG.MS=first person singular
male speaker, 1PL.EX.MS=first person plural exclusive male speaker, 1PL.EX.FS=first person plu-
ral exclusive female speaker, 3SG.MS=third person singular male speaker, 3SG.OBJ=third person
singular object.
150   Rosa Vallejos

(6) [na-tiyupa=ka n=yuti]-ra yaepe y=eyu-pa=ene

2sg=nest=loc 2sg=stay-cond then 3sg.fs=eat-cpl=2sg.obj
‘If you stay in your tent, then he eats you up’

(7) [ra uwata]-puka chita awa=kana chikuara-ta=ura

3sg.ms walk-when too.much person=pl.ms buttock-cau=3sg.obj.ms
‘When she walks, a lot of people follow her.’

One of the language’s most salient typological features is the presence of gram-
maticalized gender indexicals (Vallejos 2015). KK does not have grammatical
gender; that is, it does not encode the gender of a referent. KK’s gender index-
icality is a categorical distinction that encodes the gender of the speaker. The
male and female speech is expressed in several categories, including pronouns,
demonstratives, number marking, and connectors, as shown in (8). Table 2 (from
Vallejos 2010b: 42) summarizes the gender indexicals documented so far in the
language.

(8) yaepe / raepe penu / tana katupe ajan / ikian uka-kɨra=nu/=kana

there.fs/ms 1pl.ex.fs/ms found this.fs/ms house-dim=pl.fs/ms
‘And then we find these small houses’

Tab. 2: Female speech (FS) vs. male speech (MS)

gloss fs ms

1 singular tsa, etse ta

1 plural exclusive penu tana
3 singular short form ya ra
3 singular long form ai uri
3 singular object ai ura
3 plural inu rana
plural clitic =kana =nu
proximal demonstrative ajan ikian
distal demonstrative yukun yukan
indefinite demonstrative yama/yamua rama/ramua
like this ajaya ikiara
like that ya ria
also yay riay
but iyan urian
there, then yaepe raepe
after that yaepetsui raepetsui
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   151

KK narratives and spontaneous conversations among fluent speakers are full of

direct reported speech constructions. In these constructions, the referents of the
gender indexicals (listed in Table 2) are refocused according to each narrated
speech event, as illustrated in (9). This excerpt is from a story by a male narra-
tor about some children that, while looking for work, got trapped by a lady with
cannibal sons. The pieces that index speaker’s gender are underlined. In (9a), the
quote is from male children, so the spatial demonstrative raepe is used (instead
of yaepe); the pronoun in the quotative construction encodes the gender of the
narrator, rana ‘they’ (if the narrator were a female it would be inu). Example (9b)
includes more than one speaker gender: the connector ria ‘like this’ (instead of
ya) has the male narrator as a referent, whereas the subject pronoun tsa ‘I’ is part
of the quote from the character ‘old lady.’ The quote continues in (9c), hence the
first person singular pronoun tsa and the plural marker =nu. Finally, examples
(9d) and (9e) do not include quotes, and so they index exclusively the narrator’s
gender. Fluent speakers view this dynamic use of the gender system as an impor-
tant indicator of linguistic competence in KK.

(9) a. maka-tipa ini puede kamata-ri raepe=nan rana kumitsa

where-q 1pl.in can work-prog there.ms=only 3pl.ms talk
“Where could we work by just being there?” they say.

b. ria awa maka-tin tsa yamimi epe eranan

like.this person where-mod 1sg.fs hide 2pl be.good
‘And this people, “where could I hide them well (so that they can’t escape)”

c. ikumenan tsa mɨmɨra=nu eyu-epe-uri

soon 1sg.ms son.female.ego=pl.fs eat-2pl-come
“Soon my sons will come to eat them”

d. ikian vieja=tu aytse chikari rana yamimi tupa=ra-n

this.ms old.lady=aug bad look.for 3pl.ms hide place=pur-nzr
‘This old and bad lady looks for a place to hide them;’

e. r=yamimi-tsen ɨkɨratsen=kana raepe

3sg.ms=hide-pur3 child=pl.ms there.ms
‘to hide the children there.’

A noteworthy point is that KK has multiple types of complex purpose clauses

which differ in terms of coreference, controlled by the matrix clause absolutive
argument rather than the subject, one of which is seen in (9e) (For more details,
152   Rosa Vallejos

see Vallejos 2014a). The final feature to mention here is the phonological distinc-
tion between/ɨ/vs./i/. It should be noted that the central high vowel is not only
very productive but also perceptualy salient in the speech of fluent speakers. As
will be discussed below, however, these vowels appear to be collapsing into a
single catergory in the speech of neo-speakers. Now the discussion turns to the
features found in the speech of non-fluent speakers.

4.2 Latent-speakers

Latent-speakers are those able to understand almost everything but with limited
production. They produce complex structures but use them at a low rate. The age
of the latent-speakers I have documented ranges between 42 and 60 years old.
They learned KK as children, growing up with their grandparents, but stopped
using it at an early age. Their attitudes towards KK range from indifference to a
genuine desire to re-learn and maintain their heritage language. The majority of
latent-speakers of KK I found have not had regular conversation partners. During
the interviews, both their eagerness to interact with other speakers and their frus-
tration with their limited ability to produce KK was evident.
Similarly to fluent speakers, latent-speakers retain the phonological oppo-
sition between ɨ/i. Also, they seem to have acquired the gender indexicals, as
seen in (10); however, they make limited use of direct reported speech compared
to fluent speakers. They use bound morphology, but very little clause combin-
ing strategies. Importantly, latentâ•‚speakers do not display many modified pat-
terns that could be considered mistakes compared to the patterns found in fluent
speakers. One feature unique to latent-speakers is codeâ•‚switching. Consider
the following passage from a conversation between a 54 year-old female latent-
speaker (SeS) and a 62 year-old female fluent-speaker (FlS). The portions in KK
are in italics, the portions in Spanish are in bold:

(10)
SeS a. tsa con mɨmɨra=kɨra-chasu, estoy alegre ta5
1sg.fs with son.female.ego-dim-aff be happy 1sg.ms
ukua-kuara-chasu
house-ineaff
‘With my dear son I’m happy in my house.’

5 Note here the use of the male pronoun ta, instead of tsa. This is the only instance in which this
latent speaker uses an incorrect indexical.
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   153

FlS b. na mɨmɨra=kɨra=muki=nan
2sg son.female.ego=dim=com=res
‘Only with your dear son.’

SeS c. tranquila con mis hijos, estoy diciendo

‘I’m fine with my sons, I’m saying.’

d. tsa mɨmɨra=kɨra ni wayna-kɨra-chasu, etse

1sg.fs son.female.ego=dim neg woman-dim-aff 1sg.fs

yamimi, di?
be.hidden right
‘My dear son doesn’t have a little woman, so I’m hidden, right?

FlS e. temente wayna=kɨra=nu?

no.exist woman=dim=pl.fs
‘There are no women?’

SeS f. temente, temente, yamimi, yo, yachu-yachu-n

no.exist no.exist be.hidden I cry-cry-nzr
‘There aren’t, there arent; hidden, I just cry and cry’

FlS g. umanu-pa-n mɨmɨrakunia=nu?

die-cpl-nzr daughter.female.ego=pl.fs?
‘Are your daughters dead?’

SeS h. pena pues, di? se tiene pena; bueno, entonces, acá a mi viejo
‘Sorrow, right? We feel sorrow; well, then, here (I say) to my old man.’

i. maka=tipa n=utsu, viejo; kuika=rupe.

where=q 2sg=go, old.man there=fin
‘“Where do you go, old man?” “Over there.”’

As seen in (10), latent-speakers make extensive use of both intersentential and

intrasentential codeâ•‚switching, as characterized by Poplack (1980) and Poplack
and Meechan (1998). Intersentential code-switching (i.e., the change of code
between clauses) is illustrated in (10c), (10d), and (10h), whereas intrasentential
codeâ•‚switching (i.e., the change of code between syntactic units within a single
clause) is shown in (10a), (10f), and (10i). As for the functions of code-switch-
154   Rosa Vallejos

ing, following Zentella (1997), KK/Spanish code-switching is used primarily for

crutching (i.e., when searching for a specific word, phrase or clause that they
cannot remember in the other language), as shown in (10a) and (10i), and to
check or seek the listener’s approval, as in (10c) and (10d). Code-switching can
be also used to indicate narrative frame breaks, as in (10f), and for quotation
purposes, as in (10i). As seen throughout these examples, codeâ•‚switching is not
random; it follows syntactic constraints.6 The efficient use of codeâ•‚switching
by latentâ•‚speakers demonstrates their knowledge of both codes. The data from
latent-speakers suggests that they have acquired KK at an early age; however, the
language underwent attrition because it has not been used for a long time. This
contrasts with the patterns found among neo-speakers.
The patterns displayed by latent-speakers are quite different than those found
not only among fluent speakers but also neo-speakers, as will become evident in
the next section.

4.3 Neo-speakers

Neo-speakers are the product of ongoing revitalization initiatives and their ages
range from 20 to 40. They are born and raised in KK villages, and given that most
of them have lived surrounded by relatives with some competence in the lan-
guage, they had some exposure to KK at an early age. For instance, the majority
of them declare that their grandparents know the language, but their parents do
not. Neo-speakers are the most aware of the disappearance of the language, and
language preservation is part of their discourse. They display positive attitudes
towards their KK identity and their heritage language, and some of them are
actively engaged in revitalization initiatives.
Despite hearing KK when they were kids, neo-speakers did not acquire any
speaking abilities in their heritage language. They are now learning KK through
second language and heritage language teaching methodologies. Most of the

6 Poplack (1980) proposes two constraints for code-switching. The free morpheme constraint
states that codes may be switched after any constituent in discourse, provided that constituent
is not a bound morpheme. The equivalence constraint states that code-switches tend to occur at
points in the discourse where the juxtaposition of the first and second language elements does
not violate any syntactic rules of either language. The Kukama-Kukamiria data seem to generally
comply with these constraints. One instance that could violate the first constraint is this:
(a) cuando ha umanu-do ya he sab-ido
when aux die-prt already aux know-prt
‘When he died I’ve learned’
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   155

neo-speakers have been or are being trained as bilingual teachers to teach KK

in elementary schools. The levels of fluency achieved by these speakers range
from minimal to somewhat competent. The most proficient neo-speakers are able
to follow conversations, but only some of them can actually produce connected
speech. Neo-speakers display some modified patterns that could be considered
mistakes by fluent speakers. The excerpts below are taken from interviews with
two neo-speakers that have achieved some of the highest levels of fluency. The
excerpt in (11) (from Vallejos 2014a) corresponds to a 34 yearâ•‚old male teacher.
In this passage, he is talking about how difficult and expensive it is to live in the
city of Nauta.

(11) a. yatsɨ-tsui ta kakɨrɨ uri nauta=ka, tɨma emete kuriki

month-abl 1sg.ms live come nauta=loc neg exist money
‘I came to live to Nauta a month ago, (but) there isn’t any money’

b. upi kuriki purepeta panara, ipira

all money buy banana fish
‘All is money, (to) buy banana, fish

c. tɨma emete kuriki, tɨma eyu

neg exist money neg eat
‘(if) there is no money, don’t eat.

d. tɨma emete kuriki, tɨma kurata uni […]

neg exist money neg drink water
‘(If) there is no money, (you) don’t drink water’

The speech of this neo-speaker differs from that of fluent-speakers and

latent-speakers, discussed above, in a number of respects. First, this speaker does
not make use of suffixes and clitics, except for one locative postposition in (11a).
Importantly, given that no suffix or clitic is obligatory in KK, the structures in
(11) would not necessarily be considered ungrammatical. Second, neo-speakers
know a few gender indexicals (see Table 2). For instance, they use the first person
pronouns (ta vs. tsa/etse) quite accurately; however, they have difficulties with
third person pronouns (uri/ra vs. ya/ai) and first person exclusive pronouns (tana
vs. penu). Third, latent-speakers do not incorporate direct quotations into their
speech avoiding entirely having to re-center the referents of the gender indexicals
for each speech event. Fourth, neo-speakers show no signs of clause combining
strategies. To link simple clauses, they make vast use of prosody: clauses are
produced within a single intonation contour and clausal relationships are left to
156   Rosa Vallejos

be inferred from context. For instance, (11c) and (11d) call for conditional clause
constructions. Although fluent speakers assert they understand the propositional
meaning conveyed by the above expressions, when I asked one of them for the
meaning of (11c), she provided the utterance in (12):

(12) temente kuriki-ra, tɨma=taka ene amatsika ey=utsu

there.is.not money-cond neg=unc 2sg can eat=fut
‘If there is no money, perhaps you won’t be able to eat’

Note in (12) that the fluent speaker added to (11c) several pieces of grammar,
including: the negative existential temente, the conditional subordinator -ra, the
uncertainty modal =taka, and the future =utsu. Neo-speakers use of sequences
of simple clauses reveals that perhaps they have not yet acquired complex con-
structions.
Additional examples are provided in (13). This excerpt is from a 38 yearâ•‚old
male teacher, where he expresses his attempts to teach KK to his students, but he
laments that other teachers do not always support his efforts:

(13) a. mari tseta tɨma eran, ta eran yumitawara,

thing want neg good 1sg.ms good teacher
‘(They) want nothing good, I am good teacher,’

b. ta tseta chita ikua-rin, ɨkɨratsen=kana,

1sg.ms want a.lot know-der kid=pl.ms

erapaka, tsarɨwa t=iya apuka

joyful, happy 1sg.ms=heart laugh
‘I want lots of students, children, happy, smiling’

c. por eso mari ta=tseta ɨmɨnua

for that thing 1sg.ms=want long.ago
‘That’s why I want something (like) long time ago’

d. na ikua uka kumitsa kukama

2sg know house speak Kukama

ikara kukama, yumatsarika chita kukama

sing Kukama, play a.lot Kukama
‘You knew how to speak Kukama at home, how to sing in Kukama, how
to play a lot in Kukama’
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   157

In (13) we see more varied vocabulary compared to (11), yet the structural patterns
are strikingly similar. Again, there is very little presence of bound morphology,
except the derivative -rin and the plural marker -kana in (13b). The passage con-
sists of a chain of simple clauses, with no use of clause combining strategies. As
for the gender system, this speaker also knows some forms that correspond to his
gender (e.g., the plural maker and the first person singular pronouns). However,
there are no attempts to employ the most common pattern among fluent speak-
ers; that is, switching gender indexicals for quotation purposes. In addition, simi-
larly to latent-speakers’ speech, note in (13c) the use of the Spanish connector por
eso ‘that’s why,’ instead of the KK equivalent rikua. A final point that needs to be
discussed has to do with the phonological opposition i/ɨ. All the examples reflect
the orthography of the language, not the actual production of the speakers. In
(11) and (13), the symbol /ɨ/ does not necessarily represent a high central vowel;
in fact, neo-speakers tend to produce this segment as a regular front high vowel
[i]. This suggests that the phonological distinction between /ɨ/ vs. /i/ seems to be
collapsing into a single phonemic category.

4.4 Symbolic use of Kukama-Kukamiria

In addition to the types of speakers described above, there are former speak-
ers, also known as ghost speakers (cf. Vallejos 2014a). This category comprises
those community members that seem to understand KK, but feel embarrassed
and deny any knowledge as a consequence of the negative attitudes associated
with speaking the language. In clear contrast to former speakers, there are com-
munity members who know little KK, but they use these pieces of the language
for symbolic purposes. These are typically leaders and community members who
generally know only isolated words, formulaic expressions, and greetings but use
them effectively to express their KK identity. This symbolic use of KK has proven
to be a valuable strategy, for instance, in meetings organized by local indigenous
federations and associations. At present, there are about six KK organizations,
and their heritage language is at the center of their discourse and their demands.
This symbolic use of KK can be also observed among children who are learning
words, songs and useful expressions in schools. They are now being invited to
participate in local and regional festivals (FORMABIAP 2012). All in all, knowing
some KK at least for symbolic purposes is becoming an important asset.
158   Rosa Vallejos

5 Summary and discussion

As demonstrated in the previous section, there is a range of types of speakers
within the KK context. Besides age, they differ in terms of their attitudes toward
KK, their commitment to (re)learn the language, but above all with respect to their
knowledge of certain linguistic structures and the effective use of them in com-
municative interactions. The structural patterns introduced in Section 3 are sum-
marized in Table 3. Note that while fluent-speakers and latent-speakers, on the
one hand, and latent-speakers and neo-speakers, on the other hand, share some
features, this is not the case for fluent-speakers and neo-speakers. This shows
that while the speech patterns of the three groups differ drammatically from one
another, neo-speakers’ speech is the most distant from that of fluent-speakers.

Tab. 3: Language patterns documented among fluent-/latent-/neo-speakers of KK

PATTERNS FLUENT- LATENT-� NEO-�

SPEAKER SPEAKERS SPEAKERS

Retain phonological opposition /ɨ/ vs. /i/ yes yes minimal

Use of gender indexicals yes yes minimal

Use of bound morphology yes yes minimal

Use of clause combining strategies yes minimal not

Use of the gender system in reported speech yes not not

Borrowing of inter-clausal connectors not yes yes

Knowledge of specialized vocabulary yes minimal not

Use of intra/inter-sentential code switching not yes not

One of the aims of this paper is to argue that documentation projects should
focus not only on the structural patterns of fluent speakers but should make
the effort to expand their attention to other types of speakers as well. While the
relevance of documenting the speech of fluent-speakers seems obvious, that of
latent-speakers and neo-speakers may not be. The claim is that acknowledging
the existence of these types of speakers and their role in efforts to preserve the
language is essential. For instance, in the KK case, one of the major revitalization
initiatives is to teach the language to children. In this process, latent-speakers
and neo-speakers are already engaged directly or indirectly, yet their role has
not been highlighted enough. Latent-speakers are the parents or grandparents
of those children; that is, they are the community members that would need to
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   159

promote the use of the language at home. Neo-speakers are in charge of teaching
the language in the schools. Thus, it is important to consider not only whether the
teachers have the training to teach the language, but also what their actual com-
municative competences are for implementing specific instructional programs.
Having available information about both the structures of fluent speakers and the
speech patterns of teachers would be important for two reasons. First, it will help
in the design of strategies to improve the teachers’ language skills in KK, if this
is a desired response. If teachers are not proficient beyond simple constructions,
children will be exposed to “pidginized” language, in the sense of Hinton (2001:
16). Second, it will help to develop teaching methodologies relevant for the target
language. Such initiatives are already being advanced in various places (see, for
instance, Holm et al. 2003 for a verb-centered approach to teaching situational
Navajo in elementary schools, or Peter et al. 2008 for an assessment of verb devel-
opment in Cherokee immersion programs), but have yet to gain ground in Latin
America.
A related issue has to do with the kind and extent of variation that can be toler-
ated in small language communities. Within the KK context, variation introduced
by neo-speakers seems more tolerated than variation introduced by latent-speak-
ers. Elder fluent speakers, and community members in general, have positive
attitudes towards neo-speakers and praise their efforts to learn a language with
little prestige that was practically abandoned for a few decades. This positive atti-
tude may also have to do with the fact that most neo-speakers are community
teachers, which in itself carries relative prestige and authority. Yet some ideolo-
gies commonly found in endangered languages settings have started to emerge.
In the KK scenario, ideas of indigenous authenticity and proper KK, attempts to
assign prestige to one variety, implicit allocation of authority to certain elders
might become points of potential conflicts among different types of speakers (see
the discussion in Rogers, this volume, on indigenous authenticity in a different
context). For instance, there is a group of elders which seem to resent the pro-
tagonist role that neo-speakers have taken in the revitalization movement. Some
elders express their concerns about the neo-speakers “changing” the language,
and neo-speakers indicate that the elders’ judgment impact their confidence to
speak KK. However, the majority understands that if perfectionism were to be the
bar to use and teach KK, they would have to wait for a while to hear their heritage
language being used again, if at all. Thus, efforts to work together are in place.
A third and related question is that, if KK is preserved, what type of features
will survive and what other features will emerge? As shown in section  3, the
patterns found particularly among neo-speakers are significantly different com-
pared to those of fluent speakers. However, this state of affairs is hardly unique
to KK as accelerated language change is expected in contexts of language endan-
160   Rosa Vallejos

germent (Hinton 2001). Speakers of Navajo (Athabaskan), for instance, recognize

themselves as traditionalist and non-traditionalist. While the traditional way of
speaking is associated with elders and with ceremonial settings, story telling, and
singing; non-traditional speaking is associated with adults, younger speakers
and second language learners. For example, the use of Navajo specialized vocab-
ulary as well as some structural features such as the hierarchy of classification
of nouns (Hale 1973) is very rare amongst non-traditional speakers (Holm et al.
2003). Another example comes from Blackfoot (Algonquian). Speakers are aware
that today’s Blackfoot is different from how it was spoken in the early 1900s. They
refer to these two versions as Old or High Blackfoot, spoken by elders, and New
or Modern Blackfoot, spoken by the new generations. Among the features found
in High Blackfoot is the extensive use of incorporation; however, this pattern is
no longer used by the Modern Blackfoot speakers (Miyashita and Crow 2006). The
impact of language decay has also been documented in Latin America. Danielsen
and Terhart (in prep.) report several structural innovations among latent-speak-
ers of Baure (Arawakan). In addition to code switching, these include the use
of preverbal particles instead of verbal base suffixes and of an isolated posses-
sive pronoun for oblique object reference instead of directly marking it on the
verb by a personal enclitic. The former feature can only be found in present-day
latent-speakers, whereas the latter is a well-established innovation used also by
fluent speakers. Data from KK shows that gender indexicals are the first candi-
date for undergoing obsolescence. This is not surprising as recent findings indi-
cate that the obsolescence of male and female dialects is a general trend (Aikhen-
vald forthcoming). In fact, genderlects seem to be much more sensitive to social
changes, compared to grammatical gender, for instance. These cases demon-
strate that language endangerment accelerates language change, and speakers
are generally aware of those changes.
Although there is a recognition that speech communities of endangered lan-
guages comprise speakers of different fluency levels (see, for instance, Dorian
1980; Grinevald 2003), the relevance of documenting beyond fluent speakers
needs to be underscored further. Data from nonâ•‚fluent speakers can make crucial
contributions to the discussion about the extent to which the structural changes
that occur in dying languages are unique (Sasse 1992) or similar to other kinds
of contact-induced phenomena (Dorian 1993); whether dying languages show
unequivocal reduction of one kind or another (Dorian 1978; Rice, Libben, and
Derwing 2002), and whether these processes show parallels with creole genesis
(Trudgill 1978), among other topics. Data from latent-speakers can contribute
to our understanding of code-switching in contact settings that have not been
heretofore examined. For instance, the data from latent-speakers of KK and Baure
 Structural outcomes of obsolescence and revitalization   161

could make it possible to test the hypotheses regarding syntactic constraints for
changing codes when the codes are two typological distant languages.

6 Conclusion
This paper demonstrates the remarkable structural differences across a range
of KK. These differences illustrate the importance for documentation projects of
broadening their focus from solely fluent speakers to other types of speakers as
well. Recording variation is essential for both revitalization initiatives and lin-
guistic research. Speakers are generally aware and sometimes concerned about
changes instigated by language decay and language revitalization; however, it
seems that, in the end, the structural differences can be overlooked if the creation
of new speakers and the preservation of their heritage language for communica-
tion is the ultimate goal. Besides the potential impact of documenting variation
in the revitalization of KK, I have shown here the relevance of collecting data from
non-fluent speakers to advance linguistic theory. Data from KK can contribute to
the examination of potential relationships between language decay and incom-
plete second language acquisition in revitalization processes.
Despite the recognition that speech communities of endangered languages
typically comprise speakers of different proficiencies, the need to document
beyond traditional, fluent speakers has not been highlighted enough. Language
revitalization initiatives have been taking place in Latin American for some time
now; however, the impact of such efforts in language variation and change has
not yet been documented thoroughly. While language change accelerated by
endangerment has received some attention, there is not yet enough discussion
of changes instigated by revitalization processes. This will be only possible if lan-
guage documentation projects not only acknowledge but also embrace different
types of speakers. In sum, by focusing our documentary efforts on fluent speak-
ers alone, we would be missing opportunities to contribute not only to revitaliza-
tion efforts but also to linguistic theory.
162   Rosa Vallejos

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Gabriela Pérez Báez
7 Addressing the gap between community
beliefs and priorities and researchers’
language maintenance interests

1 Introduction
San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (SLQZ)1 is spoken by around 3,000 speakers divided
between the home community in Oaxaca, Mexico, and a sister community in Los
Angeles, California. In San Lucas Quiaviní, the language continues to be learned
by children; in Los Angeles there is virtually no language transmission yielding
active child speakers. Migration is considered the greatest threat to the vitality of
SLQZ: it has resulted in a reduction of about half the speaker base in San Lucas,
including a 45 % reduction in the number of children under age 10 growing up in
San Lucas speaking SLQZ (Pérez Báez 2009, 2014).
Language maintenance is not a community concern in San Lucas for various
reasons. First, the reduction in the San Lucas population due to migration is
visible to the community but not in terms of it representing a reduction in speaker
base and a threat to the long-term survival of the language. Second, there is a
widely held belief that children are born speaking the language associated with
their place of birth. As such, language reproduction occurs naturally according to
the local vision, thereby making language maintenance unnecessary. Third, the
fact that children continue to acquire the language as L1 obscures the decline in
the number of SLQZ-speaking children due to migration. Finally, local priorities
such as parental demands for Spanish-only education may not be conducive to
the development of language maintenance efforts.
This paper recounts the community attitudes towards language endanger-
ment that I have encountered over more than 10 years of fieldwork in San Lucas.
I focus on the challenges they present for language maintenance in the context
of proposals made in the documentation and revitalization literature of the last
20 years or so. Within the community of academics concerned and committed

1 The language is lumped with San Juan Guelavía Zapotec under ISO 639-3 zab.

Gabriela Pérez Báez, Smithsonian Institution

166   Gabriela Pérez Báez

to sustaining the world’s linguistic diversity, the expectation is that any activi-
ties that a community-external researcher may want to carry out should be done
in a collaborative manner (cf. Czaykowska-Higgins 2009; Dobrin 2008; Dwyer
2006, 2010; Rice 2006, 2010, 2011 inter alia). However, it is also considered that
language maintenance and revitalization cannot succeed if these activities are
not initiated by members of the relevant community (Crystal 2000; Grenoble and
Whaley 2006; Nettle and Romaine 2000). Other more restricting positions overtly
state that community-external linguists are not to advocate for maintenance and
revitalization without the explicit invitation from a community to do so (Hinton
2002) or that community external linguists in fact have no place in these endeav-
ors (Kipp 2000). As a researcher interested in participating in the development of
strategies aimed at ensuring the survival of SLQZ, I have been faced with the need
to reconcile this theoretical background with the urgency to develop a language
maintenance strategy that can capitalize on the language’s still vital condition.
This paper explains the approach I have taken in response to this conun-
drum. I first expound in Section 2 on the rationale for the present study. Section 3
provides an ethnographic description of the San Lucas Quiaviní community as to
create the necessary context for an exposition, in Section 4, of the complexities
around language endangerment and maintenance in San Lucas. I then explain,
in Section 5, the approach I have taken and the ethnographic knowledge gained
over time, with the purpose of improving my understanding of the social priori-
ties of the community. This in turn becomes critical for the development of initi-
atives that respond to specific community priorities all the while opening spaces
for conversations about language maintenance. This approach is contextualized
in Section 6 within the literature on the recommended interactions between an
external linguist and a community. I focus on the problems posed by the passiv-
ity prescribed for linguists as it relates to language maintenance and argue that
such passivity is not appropriate to every context, following Dobrin (2008) and
Holton (2009). The hope is that the experience working with San Lucas Quiaviní
will contribute to what I consider to be a much needed and not yet robust number
of case studies in the literature that can inform the discipline as to the possi-
ble approaches one might take when working with a community in a language
endangerment situation.
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   167

2 Rationale
Much attention has been devoted in recent years to the need to improve the
interaction between field linguists/language documenters and the communities
where the work is carried out. This is considered especially important and deli-
cate in the context of endangered languages. Highly experienced and respected
field linguists have articulated proposals for ethical research and, more specifi-
cally and relevant to the topic at hand, for the role of the field linguist in language
documentation, maintenance and revitalization (cf. Hinton 2001, 2002; Grenoble
and Whaley 2006; Benedicto et al. 2007; Dobrin 2008; Czaykowska-Higgins 2009;
Rice 2006, 2011; Grenoble and Furbee (eds.) 2010; Yamada 2011, inter alia). The
primary concern, as was thoroughly described in Czaykowska-Higgins (2009)
which builds upon various works, notably Cameron et al. (1992), is for fostering
community-based language research, to mean research that is mindful of the lan-
guage communities’ interests and needs and that responds to such needs in a
manner that is collaborative. The collaboration is to be devoid of power relations
reminiscent of the social oppression to which so many endangered language com-
munities have been subjected throughout history. It is often considered, however,
that the collaboration is to be initiated by the language community. More specif-
ically, it is stated that it is not up to the linguist to advocate for maintenance and
revitalization without the explicit invitation from a community to do so (Hinton
2002: 151) and that these endeavors fall strictly under the purview of the relevant
language community, sometimes even to the exclusion of community-external
linguists (Kipp 2000). There are therefore a variety of statements now in the lit-
erature that can amount to sometimes contradictory or at least confusing recom-
mendations that make the task of developing a mutually gratifying interaction
between a community and an external linguist more daunting than it already is.
I was motivated to write this paper, and indeed to co-edit the volume in
which this paper appears, upon the realization that the experiences I had had
as an external linguist working with two different Zapotec languages could not
be comfortably placed within the aforementioned theoretical context. The first
reason for this was that my experiences were taking place in a context that is
different from those from which the aforementioned literature frequently draws,
Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand. The literature presenting
case studies of interactions between a community and a community-external
researcher in other parts of the world is scant and this has been widely acknowl-
edged. For instance, Hinton (2001) acknowledges that the focus of The green book
of language revitalization in practice (Hinton and Hale 2001) is North America.
So does Rice (2006). Penfield et al. (2008) specify as early as in its title that the
best practices proposed are for the North American indigenous language context.
168   Gabriela Pérez Báez

Rice (2011) specifically asks whether models and the basic definitions of concepts
such as community and active engagement are applicable or even appropriate
outside Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Dobrin (2008)
and Holton (2009) respond to this regional dominance by presenting two cases
outside these four geographic areas to show that flexibility and cultural sensitiv-
ity are primary over any attempts at making universal recommendations about
community interactions by external researchers. Crippen and Robinson (2013)
argue for acceptance of situations where collaboration is not viable or desirable.
It is with the hope to contribute to an expanding discussion around the concept of
collaboration in the context of linguistic research that I write this paper.
The case study presented in this paper is of interest because the cultural par-
ticulars in San Lucas Quiaviní, which I detail in Sections 3 and 4, are quite differ-
ent from those in the majority of the case studies reported in the literature. Quite
often, an endangered language community is reported as having recognized its
language’s endangered status and when collaborations are established with a lin-
guist, the community recognizes that a linguist may be able to contribute to the
community’s efforts. Neither of these conditions have been present in the case
described here. Upon introduction to San Lucas Quiaviní, one finds a community
where children continue to speak the local Zapotec language. However, within my
first field season in Summer 2002 it became evident that a community that had
maintained its language despite colonization, homogenizing nation-building pol-
icies, Spanish-only education and rampant discrimination could see the demise
of its language due to large-scale migration. The direct evidence I collected on the
matter through years of community visits and ensuing interviews with dozens of
community members both in San Lucas and in Los Angeles revealed a language
endangerment situation that was not visible to the community itself. To the topic
at hand, this raised for me questions about the responsibility I had towards the
community because making the research available to the community, as is rec-
ommended, amounted to advocating for language maintenance. Yet, the strong
positions articulated in the literature limiting the role of anyone external to the
community in revitalization presented a quandary. In order to explain this predic-
ament and the strategies I implemented in response to it, I provide in Section 3 a
detailed overview of the cultural context at play in San Lucas Quiaviní.

3 Ethnographic overview
The data presented in this section is drawn from field research grounded on the
Tripartite Model of Sociolinguistic Research (Wölck 1985). At the core are case
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   169

studies done both in San Lucas Quiaviní and in Los Angeles, California among
San Lucas immigrants, based on participant observation while residing in com-
munity homes for about a month at a time (Summer 2002, 2003, 2004, January
and October 2007, April and October 2008). Participant observation was comple-
mented by more targeted interviewing in order to develop community profiles fol-
lowing Wölck (1985), for both the home and the diaspora communities (Summer
2003, October 2007, April 2008). Subsequent spot checks in the form of targeted
interviews to fill data gaps were conducted also in both locales with the most
recent visits conducted between 2011 and 2013.

3.1 San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec

SLQZ is spoken by less than 3,000 speakers in San Lucas Quiaviní, Oaxaca,
Mexico, and a sister community in Los Angeles, California. In San Lucas, the lan-
guage continues to be learned by children. In contrast, in Los Angeles there is vir-
tually no language transmission yielding active child speakers. More importantly,
migration has resulted in a reduction in San Lucas of about half the speaker base,
including a reduction of about half the number of children under age 10. Further,
frequent travel and exchanges between the San Lucas and the Los Angeles com-
munities are visibly motivating a shift to Spanish among San Lucas-based speak-
ers of Zapotec.
SLQZ is a Zapotec (Otomanguean) language. It is spoken amidst numer-
ous Zapotec varieties located in and around the Tlacolula Valley in the Central
Valleys region of Oaxaca, Mexico. More specifically, it is considered to belong to
the Central branch of Core Zapotec as proposed in Smith-Stark (2007) and to the
Central language area of the language complex proposed by Kaufman (personal
communication).
Zapotec languages exhibit complex patterns of interaction between vowel
phonation, tone and stress for lexical contrast and grammatical marking. The pat-
terns that SLQZ exhibits are particularly complex. SLQZ is described to have four
vowel phonation types: modal, checked, creaky and breathy (Munro and Lopez
1999; Chávez Peón 2010). The complexities of the interaction between vowel pho-
nation and tone have led to debates about the contrastive nature of tone in SLQZ.
Munro and Lopez (1999) claim that tone is predictable from its interaction with
complex vowel patterns and need not be marked orthographically. Chávez Peón
(2010) provides evidence in support of considering tone as contrastive in SLQZ on
the basis that each of the four tones described for the language – high, low, rising
and falling – occur on modal vowels. The former analysis is at odds with what
170   Gabriela Pérez Báez

has been claimed for other Zapotec languages, while the latter is in line with the
general acknowledgment of tone as contrastive in these languages.
Other features of SLQZ are consistent with features in other Zapotec lan-
guages: VSO word order that can be modified in topic and focus constructions;
tense, aspect and mood marking through prefixes which find cognates across
Zapotec languages; valence changing prefixes that are reflexes from the pro-
to-language; frequent use of body part terms in locative constructions; among
other features (Lillehaugen 2006; Munro and Lopez 1999; Munro 2015; inter alia).
SLQZ also exhibits unique features such as a highly complex pronominal system
with 12 contrasts in the third person alone (Munro 2003). Compare this with
much shallower systems such as that in Juchitán (Isthmus) Zapotec, a related
Central Zapotec language which only features a three-way human-animal-inan-
imate contrast in the third person, and even with other pronominal systems in
closely related languages spoken in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca. Comprehen-
sive dialectology studies have not been conducted in the Central Valleys region.
However, mutual intelligibility reports by speakers of SLQZ suggest that the lan-
guage features enough differences that make it mutually intelligible only with a
handful of Tlacolula Valley varieties out of two dozen communities in the valley
(Pérez Báez 2009: 70–73).

3.2 Domains of SLQZ use

In San Lucas, children remain largely monolingual in Zapotec until their entry
in school. State-run schooling is offered in San Lucas from nursery school (pree-
scolar) through middle school (telesecundaria, a system in which instruction is
transmitted through TV broadcasts and is facilitated by a teacher). The language
of instruction is Spanish. In the nursery school, this has been the case until very
recently even though the school is officially a bilingual school. Through school-
ing, bilingualism rates in the population aged 5 and older have climbed from
41.6 % in 1970 to 82.5 % to 76.9 % in 2010 (INEGI 1970, 2010). The rate of SLQZ
speakers in the community, ages 5 and older, remains at 98 % since 1995 and
monolingualism is at 15 % (INEGI 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010).
Day-to-day social interaction within the home and the community constitutes
the primary domain of SLQZ use. Spanish is, however, present in an increasing
number of domains. In San Lucas itself, Spanish is the language of instruction in
the local schools. Spanish is dominant in the local state-run health clinic. Medical
doctors and nurses have been Spanish-speaking and from outside San Lucas,
and while volunteers from the community are assigned to the clinic, Spanish
is the dominant language in this domain. A cultural center was in operation in
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   171

San Lucas for some four years and constituted primarily a domain of Spanish. A
variety of courses from veterinary medicine to folk dance and music were taught
in the center, all by Spanish-speaking teachers from outside San Lucas. There is
an initiative to build a library in the center, which will be dominantly equipped
with books in Spanish as only a handful of publications exist in SLQZ. A com-
puting center with satellite Internet access and more recently a couple of com-
puter and Internet rental shops in addition to the now ubiquitous presence of
cell phones has made the domain of electronic written communication widely
available. This domain, however, is dominated by Spanish: written communica-
tion, for instance on Facebook, is in Spanish only, even between close relatives
such as siblings who would most likely speak to each other in Zapotec otherwise.
Social interaction outside San Lucas is also dominated by Spanish. San
Lucas residents commute to Tlacolula de Matamoros, the main commercial town
located 6 miles north of San Lucas. Tlacolula itself is originally a Zapotec town
where a shift to Spanish has left the town with very few elderly native speakers of
the local variety. As such, any interaction with Tlacolula residents is in Spanish.
This includes a large number of administrative dealings such as utility payments,
social welfare collection, processing of personal identification documents,
banking, etc. A very active market in Tlacolula attracts merchants from surround-
ing towns, many of which are speakers of Valley Zapotec varieties. Communica-
tion between these merchants and San Lucas residents is not always conducted in
Zapotec as only certain varieties such as that of San Bartolomé Quialana and San
Juan Guelavía are mutually intelligible with SLQZ.

3.3 Migration and language vitality

The increasing number of domains of Spanish use in the lives of San Lucas resi-
dents is of concern and indicative of current pressures to shift to Spanish placed
on SLQZ speakers. For an accurate vitality assessment, one must consider the
effects of the migratory patterns that this community has seen for over forty years.
Lopez and Runsten (2004) report that the first San Lucas men to emigrate to Los
Angeles did so in 1968. Over the next decade, the number of San Lucas migrants
in Los Angeles was comprised of some 80 individuals, all men with the excep-
tion of three women. In the 1980s the community of SLQ migrants in Los Angeles
had grown considerably. Women began to participate in migration more readily
then; children became more integrated into patterns of migration as of the nine-
ties. While there are no census data on migration for San Lucas, the town’s own
administrative records suggest that half the community of San Lucas now resides
172   Gabriela Pérez Báez

in Los Angeles (Lopez personal communication; Lopez and Runsten 2004; see
also Pérez Báez 2014 for an analysis of available census data).
The impact of migration on language vitality among communities of speak-
ers of endangered languages is receiving growing attention in the literature (see
for instance Falconi 2011 and 2013; Pérez Báez 2014, 2013a and 2013b). Consider
also the case of the Tataltepec and Zacatepec Chatino communities described in
Villard and Sullivant (this volume). The authors describe that in both commu-
nities, domestic and now transnational migration has resulted in emigration to
the United States of 9 % of the Tataltepec population and 6.4 % of the Zacate-
pec population. The reliance on migrants’ remittances as a form of community
income has given English an important place in the language inventory that com-
munity members would wish to attain. In this ideal language inventory, English
is considered a desirable second language to acquire, at the expense of Chatino,
thereby hampering Chatino revitalization prospects.
In San Lucas, the impact of migration on language vitality is two-fold. First,
once women began to emigrate, couples and subsequently families formed in
Los Angeles. Also, some families reunited as children began to participate in
migration. The result of this is a reduction in population in San Lucas Quiaviní,
which is especially marked in the child population. Mexican census data report a
population in San Lucas of 2,156 individuals in 1990. Twenty years later, in 2010,
the reported population was of 1,745 people (INEGI 1990, 2010). Among children,
census data also reveals a decline. Table 1 shows the four age groups relevant to
the child population, showing a steady decline between 1990 and 2010.2 As can
be seen in the rightmost column in Table 1, the child population had declined
significantly over the course of 20 years. Quite dramatically, the population under
the age of 10 has decreased by 49 %. In terms relevant to vitality assessment, this
means that the child speaker base in San Lucas has been reduced to almost half
in 20 years.

2 I provide four age groups as defined in Mexico’s national census reports. There is no intention
to make a claim here as to how a child is defined in legal Mexican terms and in San Lucas Quia-
viní cultural terms.
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   173

Tab. 1: Population decline in the child population

Age groups 1990 2005 2010 Decline

0–4 223 124 108 52 %

5–9 296 163 162 46 %
10–14 263 204 175 44 %
15–19 250 179 190 24 %

Sources: Archivo Histórico de Localidades, Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía

(http://mapserver.inegi.org.mx/AHL/realizaBusquedaurl.do?cvegeo=202330001); accessed
13 march 2014. Censo General de Población y Vivienda 1990 and 2010, Conteo de Población y
Vivienda 2005, Â�Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía.

Children who are being raised in Los Angeles, whether US- or Mexican-born,
generally do not maintain SLQZ as their primary language and exhibit, at most,
passive knowledge of it. Pérez Báez (2013b) provides a detailed analysis of the
language use patterns in the home among Los Angeles-based families, which is
not yielding active child speakers of SLQZ and in which native child speakers of
the language shift to Spanish and English sometimes within months of arrival
in Los Angeles and even in conversation with siblings and parents. As such, the
decline in the number of children growing up in San Lucas Quiaviní is a very close
reflection of the decline in the number of child speakers of SLQZ.
The second phenomenon affecting language vitality in San Lucas Quiaviní
relates to the frequent visits made by Los Angeles residents back to their home-
town. Those who emigrated to Los Angeles as adults and who return to San Lucas
for either long- or short-term visits generally make active use of SLQZ in their
interactions with San Lucas residents, notably with family members. However,
those raised in Los Angeles replicate their language use preferences when they
visit San Lucas, preferring the use of Spanish and English over SLQZ even with
close relatives. Those who have any active use of SLQZ may speak the language
with Zapotec monolinguals such as grandparents. However, those who have
nothing more than passive knowledge of the language turn the home where
they are hosted – an otherwise Zapotec-dominant household – into a domain of
Spanish. There are many nuances in how Spanish- and English-dominant return-
ees become agents of language shift in San Lucas Quiaviní but the point to make
is that the population residing in Los Angeles corresponds to the decline in the
speaker-base of SLQZ and also comprise a set of agents of language shift now
taking place in San Lucas itself (see Pérez Báez 2009 and 2014 for a detailed analyÂ�
sis). Given the reduction in an already small speaker base and in the domains of
use of SLQZ, as well as the active presence of agents of language shift in the com-
munity, I have argued that the language should be considered endangered (Pérez
174   Gabriela Pérez Báez

Báez 2009, 2014). My concerns for the vitality of SLQZ, however, are mostly not
shared in the community. I turn to the particulars of this in Section 4.

4 The gap between community and researcher

concerns about language vitality
Since 2002 when I visited San Lucas Quiaviní for the first time, I have been inter-
acting with numerous members of the San Lucas Quiaviní community and of
its sister community in Los Angeles. They include numerous families in both
locales, individuals across various age groups, parents as well as their children
and among children, those raised in San Lucas with and without migration expe-
rience as well as those raised in Los Angeles. As part of this, I have conducted
interviews with dozens of families in both locales. I have also interacted with
four San Lucas municipal presidents and their xtisy (‘town council’) and with
members of the various committees in charge of overseeing operations such as
schooling and health services. Equally, I have collaborated with teachers in the
preschool and the middle school as well as with doctors in the health clinic, all
of which are external to San Lucas but are heavily involved in all-important com-
munity matters.
The conversations with community members revealed from the beginning a
lack of concern about the survival of SLQZ. This is in contrast with numerous
case studies where the interest in revitalization or reclamation emerged from
within the community. These cases range from the widely known and established
large-scale revitalization efforts in Hawaii and New Zealand to emerging efforts
such as the reclamation work carried out by members of the Šmuwič (Barbareño
Chumash) as they reconstruct their heritage language’s lexicon through research
into the John P. Harrington collection at the National Anthropological Archives.
Yáñez Rosales et al. (this volume) describe the collaboration with two Nahua
speaking communities in the south of Jalisco where an interest for language rec-
lamation was already in place by the time the researchers began interacting with
the communities. Similarly, Pharao Hansen et al. (this volume) state that an inter-
est for revitalization of the local Otomí variety was already active in the commu-
nity of Acazulco, Queretaro.
The San Lucas Quiaviní context was significantly different. There are many
possible reasons for this. One possible reason is that SLQZ continues to be spoken
in San Lucas widely enough as to conceal any signs of language shift and the
factors behind it. Consider the comments in (1) and (2) which were offered by
interviewees in San Lucas Quiaviní in October 2007 in response to my question
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   175

regarding whether they thought that SLQZ could cease to be spoken one day. In
(1), the interviewee refers to the fact that there is still a portion of the San Lucas
population who is either SLQZ-monolingual or SLQZ-dominant and that is sizea-
ble enough as to maintain an active speech community and as a result, to main-
tain the language vital. In (2), the interviewee makes a similar point and suggests
that given that SLQZ is the primary language of caregivers, this ensures that chil-
dren are raised with SLQZ as their L1, with the introduction of Spanish as L2 only
in school. Do note that at the end of (2), the speaker suggests that the reason
why caregivers continue to speak SLQZ with children is because their Spanish
competence is not such as to allow them to raise their children in Spanish. This
invites the inference that if Spanish competence were higher or at least perceived
as higher by caregivers, they might choose to raise their children in Spanish.
This, in turn, suggests that as children grow up to be more confident speakers
of Spanish than their caregivers were, they may choose to raise their children in
Spanish. Certainly, the population of monolinguals which at the moment consti-
tutes 34 % of the population ages 15 and older (INEGI 2005) will eventually pass
away, leaving behind a bilingual population. In fact, this has begun to occur. The
population nowadays is 85 % bilingual (Pérez Báez 2009), and while ten years
ago Spanish was rarely heard in homes or on the streets of San Lucas, interac-
tions in Spanish nowadays abound and are heard regularly among children and
young adults.

(1) Yo creo que no…yo digo que no…ya es muy complicado porque…todos lo niños ahorita si
van a la escuela, o sea, no olvidan su zapoteco, solamente algunos así como que piensan
que es este…como que el idioma no tiene importancia y ya quieren hablarle en español a
sus hijos. Pero, pero es un poco complicado porque los abuelos, los tíos, todos les hablan
en zapoteco. [R09_0014, 5:16]

‘I don’t think so…I would say no…it would be very difficult…all kids, if they go to
school, I mean, they don’t forget Zapotec, only some do, it’s like they think that it is…
that the language is of no value and then they want to speak with their kids in Spanish.
But, but it would be difficult because grandparents, aunts and uncles, everyone speaks
to them in Zapotec.’

(2) No, siempre [se hablará]. Porque desde que son chiquitas, les enseñamos que aprenden
zapoteco y cuando, cuando ya tenemos hijos, cuando ya tenemos nietos, desde que ya
quiere hablar, pues, les enseñamos zapotecos. Cuando ya tiene los seis a siete años va a
ir a la escuela y ya aprende un poco el español. Sí, este…nosotros no les enseñamos que
habla español desde que quiere hablar pues. Porque hay algunas palabras, no todas las
palabras aprendemos en el español. Por eso les enseñamos zapoteco. [R09_0029, 17:33]
176   Gabriela Pérez Báez

‘No, [it will] always [be spoken]. Because from the time they are little kids, we teach
them to learn Zapotec and when, when we have our own children, when we have our
own grandchildren, from the time they start to talk, well, we teach them Zapotec.
Once they are six or seven years old they will start going to school and will learn some
Spanish. Yes, uhm…we don’t teach them Spanish when they start learning to speak.
That is because there are some words, we don’t know all the words in Spanish. That is
why we teach them Zapotec.’

A second reason may be that while the decline in population in San Lucas is
evident, the decrease in the child speaker base may not be so, at least not in
terms of how it might affect language vitality. This last point is related to a third
possible reason: that while community members express consternation about
the lack of SLQZ acquisition among children raised in Los Angeles, there is an
acceptance that Los Angeles-raised children are no longer an integral part of San
Lucas Quiaviní in the same way as those raised in the hometown. Indeed, chil-
dren born in San Lucas are registered in the municipal records, a process that
transfers community rights and responsibilities to the children. Children born in
Los Angeles do not undergo this same process. It is overtly acknowledged that
Los Angeles-raised children who are not active speakers of SLQZ impact social
interactions in San Lucas in that they are not able to engage with the elderly who
are often monolingual Zapotec speakers. However, this concern does not consider
the effect that these children might have as agents of language shift. This might
be perhaps due to a fourth possible reason and that is a widely acknowledged
relationship between place of birth and a person’s L1. Since the early years of
this research, San Lucas residents overtly expressed that they did not think SLQZ
could become extinct because San Lucas children were born speaking Zapotec.
This is illustrated in (3).3 Interestingly, Los Angeles-based parents who raised
their Los Angeles-born children as speakers of Spanish as L1 justified their family
language policy as owing to the language – Spanish and not English – that these
children were born into by virtue of having Los Angeles as their place of birth
(Pérez Báez 2013b). In the context of language endangerment in San Lucas, a
belief that place of birth determines one’s L1 invalidates any concerns about the
possibility of SLQZ going extinct on the premise that as long as children continue

3 This relationship has been described quite overtly in numerous occasions in San Lucas and in
Los Angeles, but it has been done either outside recording sessions, or by parents who did not
allow for their interview to be audiorecorded. As such, (3) is the best recorded reflection of this
belief although not the most explicit.
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   177

to be born in San Lucas, there will continue to be speakers of the local Zapotec
language. This in turn renders language revitalization initiatives unnecessary to
the community.

(3) Pues la verdad, yo creo que aquí, aquí en San Lucas no se va a acabar. Porque en primer
lugar los niños que nacen, que, que, que van creciendo, creciendo, pues son primera pues
primer lengua de ellos. [R09_0027, 37:20]

‘To be honest, I think that here, in San Lucas, [SLQZ] will not cease to be spoken. This
is because, in the first place, as children are born, and, and, and grow up, they grow
up and, well, [SLQZ] is their first language.’

There may be other reasons behind the lack of concern for the survival of SLQZ.
However, I do not intend to explain here the lack of concern because what is rele-
vant in this paper is an understanding of the community’s views about language
vitality.

5 Knowing how to respond

Given the above scenario, two questions arise. The first question asks what a
researcher is to do in a situation in which she is aware that a language is at risk, but
that the dominant suggestion in her discipline is that it is not up to the researcher
to initiate advocacy for revitalization. Yet, for the reasons explained in Section
4, it is unlikely that the language community would reach out to the researcher
with an invitation to engage in revitalization activities. San Lucas Quiaviní is not
the only case in which there is no community concern or awareness as to the
endangered status of a language. Crippen and Robinson (2013) describe this for
the Dupaningan Agta in the Phillipines. Personal communication with Yasnaya
Aguilar Gil and Hilaria Cruz indicates that this was also the case for the Mixe
community of Ayutla and the San Juan Quiahije Chatino community respectively,
both in Oaxaca, Mexico. In the Chatino cases described in Villard and Sullivant
(this volume), the researchers have been approached to teach English rather than
Chatino. The lack of community concern or awareness about language endanger-
ment is not uncommon in the Mexican context. The second question is whether
the researcher is justified to continue interacting with the San Lucas Quiaviní
community if she is not to respond to a situation of concern that is revealed by her
research – namely the possibility that SLQZ could go silent.
In light of this, I sought to combine needs that were conveyed to me overtly
by community members during my many visits to San Lucas and to its sister
178   Gabriela Pérez Báez

community in Los Angeles with the need revealed by my research to address the
endangerment situation of SLQZ. For instance, and as mentioned earlier, access
to health care information has been heavily dependent on oral proficiency and
literacy in Spanish. Also, teachers and parents were concerned that the schools,
notably the preschool, lacked supplies. Young adults were concerned that the
knowledge bearers were dying and taking away knowledge of relevance to the
community. SLQZ monolinguals were often marginalized in the context of visits
from Los Angeles-born children. Over the years, and in collaboration with commu-
nity members and some (community-external) researchers, I was able to develop
initiatives that responded to these specific needs and that opened a space for
discussions about language endangerment to emerge. In the next subsections I
describe these initiatives.

5.1 Health care information audio CDs

As explained in Section 3.2, with medical staff at the local health clinic being
community-external Spanish monolinguals, access to medical treatment in this
clinic was heavily dependent on Spanish proficiency. Further, health care infor-
mation materials generally came in the form of posters, brochures and other
printed materials. Considering that Zapotec monolingualism rates are still at 15 %
and that 34 % of the population ages 15 and older is illiterate in Spanish (INEGI
2005),4 it is clear that access to health information and care is limited for about a
third of the San Lucas Quiaviní adult population. It should be noted that literacy
in SLQZ is only incipient with a few dozen teenagers who had exposure to reading
and writing in the local language. The clinic does have some strategies in place to
overcome this problem. For instance, through the Oportunidades (known before
as Progresa) program, local volunteers, who are themselves SLQZ speakers, serve
at the clinic and can assist in translating. Volunteers are also engaged as trans-
lators at health information meetings held regularly throughout the year. Never-
theless, there seemed to be a need for additional materials that residents could
consult without depending on translations or scheduled presentations.

4 Readers may notice that while data from the 2010 Census has been provided, the literacy data
cited here is from the 2005 Population Count. The 2010 Census data only reports literacy figures
for the 15 to 24 age group (http://www3.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/mexicocifras/?e=20&mun=233
last accessed on March 4, 2013 and downloaded as a spreadsheet) thereby neglecting age groups
in which attendance to school and literacy rates are lower, hence the use of data from the 2005
Population Count which provides data for all age groups.
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   179

In response, I joined forces with Dr. Angelina López Hernández in late 2006 to
create a set of audio CDs recorded in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec, with a variety of
health care topics, and that would be distributed free of charge to all households
in San Lucas Quiaviní. Dr. López Hernández is a medical doctor born and raised
in San Lucas Quiaviní and a native speaker of SLQZ. She does not practice nor
reside in San Lucas, yet she would be in the town a couple of times a week to visit
her family, to have her children looked after during her work days, to tend to land
matters, etc. Dr. López Hernández knew the doctors in charge of the local health
clinic as well as the health issues afflicting the community most. Her profile made
her the perfect expert for the development of the content for the CDs.
The Audio CD format was selected for two reasons: first, because written
materials in SLQZ would not be accessible given the almost non-existent literacy
in the local language and second, because most San Lucas households have CD
players. Of the 390 households accounted for in the 2000 census (INEGI 2000),
353 reported having an audio player. The Audio CD, therefore, seemed to be an
adequate format that would be accessible to most in terms of the technology
needed, and accessible to all in that the audio would be in SLQZ exclusively. The
clinic was equipped with a CD player to provide a place for those without CD
players to consult the CDs.
Once Dr. López Hernández and I worked out the scope of the project, we devel-
oped a proposal in early 2007 requesting support from the Instituto Nacional de
Lenguas Indígenas (INALI) who approved the project enthusiastically. The INALI
covered travel costs for Dr. López Hernández and me to visit their headquarters
and do the recordings, did the reproductions and delivered the CDs to San Lucas
Quiaviní. The CDs were organized in sets of three discs, one on women’s health-
care, one on pediatric healthcare, and one on afflictions relevant to the commu-
nity in general such as high blood pressure and diabetes. In October 2007, we
presented the CD sets to the community in a ceremony and luncheon organized
by the community authorities. The CDs were hand-delivered at the end of the
ceremony to any community members in attendance, and distribution was done
through the clinic afterwards. CDs were handed out in both cases entirely free of
charge.
The project was not uncontroversial. The audio CDs content was of a clinical
nature and caused some reactions in families that reject allopathic medicine in
favor of local healthcare approaches. However, there were immediate signs that
the CDs were welcome. Notably, mothers of young children began to approach
the health clinic to request a revision of their children’s vaccination schedules
when they diverged from the schedule recommended on the pediatric health CD.
Overall, the project accomplished a number of important goals. It made essential
healthcare information broadly accessible by presenting it orally in the local lan-
180   Gabriela Pérez Báez

guage – the format of every day communication in San Lucas. By engaging the
INALI, a state institution, in the development of a project intended to broaden
information access in an indigenous language of Mexico, the project allowed
for the exercise of the right of indigenous people to information in their native
languages. In terms of language maintenance, the CDs placed SLQZ in a domain
from which it had been mostly excluded. In addition, it showed that SLQZ was a
medium as suitable as Spanish for treatment of topics of a medical and scientific
nature and created a unique corpus for the language. Finally, and more impor-
tantly, the project created an opportunity to discuss other projects that were of
social benefit and which would represent the introduction of SLQZ into domains
currently occupied by Spanish. The issue of language endangerment was not
necessarily overtly discussed, and yet, we were able to make a small dent into a
Spanish domain in favor of SLQZ.

5.2 Supporting the language through support to the schools

In early 2008, I began a long-term conversation with Prof. Janet Hernández Reyes,
then Principal of the Centro de Educación Preescolar Quiaviní, the local preschool.
Prof. Hernández Reyes approached me to ask if I might be able to assist the school
in securing enough supplies to cover their academic year needs. The situation
that Prof. Hernández Reyes described to me was one where the state support that
the school receives, in the order of $200–300 US dollars per year, was insuffi-
cient to cover the needs for supplies for the year. In addition, the support gen-
erally arrived several months into the school calendar year, and teachers were
then forced to request monetary contributions from parents in order to stock the
school and provide adequate activities for the children. In response, I carried out
low-key fundraising efforts through my daughter’s US-based school to assist the
San Lucas preschool. In Fall 2008 I delivered boxes of new supplies donated to
the San Lucas preschool. The next year, we thought it would be more efficient to
collect funds and purchase the supplies on site in Oaxaca City. Donors were so
generous that we covered the needs for supplies for the school for two full aca-
demic years.
The Centro de Educación Preescolar Quiaviní runs one nursery class, one
pre-kindergarten class and one kindergarten class serving 45 or so children ages
3–6. Children generally arrive in preescolar as monolingual Zapotec speakers and
are able to carry out conversations in Spanish by the time they go onto elemen-
tary school. Attendance to preescolar is not mandatory. The school is officially a
bilingual school, a denomination that loosely refers to schools in communities
where an indigenous language is spoken and where teachers may be themselves
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   181

(but do not necessarily have to be) speakers of an indigenous language. One of

the greatest contradictions in Mexico’s policies on linguistic rights is the lack of
strategic placement of teachers to match their language skills with the languages
spoken in the communities they serve. In other words, it is generally the case that
teachers placed in bilingual schools speak a language that is not mutually intel-
ligible or even within the same family as the language spoken in the community
where their school is located. This system may be sensitive to the needs of chil-
dren who are speakers of Mexican indigenous languages as they are introduced to
Spanish as a medium of instruction. The system, in and of itself, is not designed
to carry out instruction in local indigenous languages nor to protect the vitality of
these languages. Rather, teachers have the mandate to ensure that their students
become proficient Spanish speakers by the time they graduate and move onto
elementary school.
In San Lucas, the preescolar has community members assigned to a commit-
tee that oversees the operations of the school. They are, of course, native speak-
ers of SLQZ. The school itself, though, had been staffed with teachers who were
speakers of languages other than Valley Zapotec varieties until Prof. Hernández
Reyes’ arrival. Prof. Hernández Reyes was one of three teachers from San Baltazar
Guelavila assigned in 2006 to teach at the Preescolar Quiaviní. The Zapotec lan-
guages spoken in San Baltazar and in San Lucas are mutually intelligible. The
close relationship that I was able to develop with Prof. Hernández Reyes, her col-
leagues and the committee members through the fundraising efforts and ensuing
support to the school allowed me to begin conversations with them about the role
of SLQZ in the school.
Now, these conversations required a great deal of sensitivity on my part: my
research showed that San Lucas parents place high expectations on the schools to
ensure that their children will acquire Spanish proficiently. Parents overtly state
that Spanish should be the medium of instruction because children are acquiring
SLQZ in the home and, therefore, consider that Spanish proficiency ought to be a
priority in the schools. This is illustrated in (4) where I conversed with a mother
of two young children about whether SLQZ should have a presence in the school
or not. In (4), the interviewee made an effort to find a way to justify how Zapotec
could have a place in the school. Her response to the first question showed that
the only value the interviewee could see in incorporating SLQZ into the school
curriculum was as a transition language. I sought confirmation of this by making
an explicit question about whether the value she saw was as a transition lan-
guage. The interviewee confirmed her position and clearly stated that beyond its
value or its place as a transitional language, there is no other justification for
incorporating SLQZ in the classroom.
182   Gabriela Pérez Báez

(4) Researcher: ¿Crees que sería útil [que se enseñara el zapoteco en la escuela]? ¿Crees
que le serviría a los niños?
Interviewee: Pues sí, sí nos serviría porque en un inicio, cuando empezamos a ir a la
escuela como no sabemos español, no entendemos prácticamente nada lo del libro. Es
como si cuando la gente emigra y van a la escuela en inglés pero ni sabe a qué va porque
no le entiende nada. Es lo mismo, nos pasa con el español. Entramos a la escuela y no
sabemos ni qué está diciendo el maestro porque no sabemos español.
Researcher: ¿Entonces como idioma de transición estaría…sería útil?
Interviewee: Solamente o sea para que entendiéramos qué nos están diciendo. Pero de
ahí ya no. [R09_0013, 9:10]

Researcher: ‘Do you think it would be useful [for Zapotec to be taught in school]? Do
you think it would benefit children?’
Interviewee: ‘Well yes, it would be beneficial to us because at first, when we first go to
school, since we don’t know Spanish, we essentially don’t understand anything that’s
presented in the textbooks. It’s like when people emigrate and they attend school in
English but don’t even know why they attend because they don’t understand a thing.
It’s the same for us with Spanish. We start school and we have no idea what the teacher
is saying because we don’t understand Spanish.’
Researcher: ‘So, [SLQZ] would be useful [in school] as a transition language’
Interviewee: ‘Only [as a transition language] so that we can understand what we are
being told. But beyond that, no.’

Example (5) is part of a dialogue in which the same interviewee explains that
families with the means send their children to Tlacolula de Matamoros, the
administrative center of the Tlacolula Valley where San Lucas is located, for their
schooling. Tlacolula is 6 miles north of San Lucas. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, access
to Tlacolula from San Lucas was difficult requiring long walks across fields in
the dark of dawn and yet, education in Tlacolula was considered worthwhile
enough to be pursued. Nowadays, Tlacolula is a short 15 minute bus ride from
San Lucas but schooling in Tlacolula represents a financial investment and an
effort that not all are able to make. However, those with the means are willing to
make this investment. The interviewee and her siblings have in fact all attended
school in Tlacolula. In (5), the interviewee explains that Spanish proficiency for
the children motivates parents to send their children to school in Tlacolula and
incur the related costs. The dialogue in (5) came about as part of a discussion
about observable language shift among children who attend Tlacolula schools.
Given this context, what I saw as a fabulous opportunity to collaborate with Prof.
Hernández Reyes and her staff to introduce SLQZ into the classroom as a medium
of instruction alongside Spanish, was not a goal that was in line with parental
interests.
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   183

(5) Researcher: Como los niños que se van a Tlacolula [a estudiar] que usan el español más
tiempo que el zapoteco, en comparación con otros chicos que están aquí [en San Lucas]
en la escuela. Por ejemplo, una madre que habla zapoteco, si el niño le habla en español,
¿se ve mal? ¿lo regañan? ¿o la señora cambia al español?
Interviewee: No, no los regañan porque para ellos es mejor que hablen el español y pre-
cisamente para eso los mandan a Tlacolula, para que aprendan el español. [R09_0013,
12:00]

Researcher: ‘So, children who go to Tlacolula [for school] and speak more Spanish
than Zapotec in comparison with children who attend school here [in San Lucas]. For
instance, a mother who speaks Zapotec, if her child speaks to her in Spanish, is that
frowned upon? Would the child be scolded? Or would the mother shift to Spanish?’
Interviewee: ‘No, [the children] wouldn’t be scolded because for [the parents] it is best
if [the children] speak Spanish and that is precisely why the send them to Tlacolula, so
that they can learn Spanish.’

Now, there is a vast body of research showing that there are benefits to educating
children in their native language even in contexts where their native language is
in competition with a language of wider communication or of dominance, and
there are numerous models of bilingual education showing the efficacy that well
designed bilingual education programs can have in educating children who will
grow to become proficient speakers of two languages. Discussing the benefits of
additive bilingual education in the context of the Quiaviní preschool needed to
be approached with great sensitivity given the aforementioned value afforded to
Spanish-only education. An opportunity to introduce these issues into the con-
versation emerged as the school supplies from the collection efforts were deliv-
ered to the school. The first year, the preschool staff issued official documenta-
tion stating receipt of the supplies, and complemented these with drawings from
a number of children, made with the new supplies, and featuring words written
by the children both in Spanish and SLQZ. The second year, the teaching staff
developed an activity in which children created handmade bilingual books on
themes such as family, where each page had an illustration by the child, with
relevant vocabulary written in Spanish as well as in SLQZ. At that point, I thought
it was time to share with the school what I had learned through my research about
concerns for a loss of traditional storytelling in the community and to consider
developing a more ambitious activity to open some more space in the classroom
for SLQZ without clashing with the parents’ expectation for their children to be
taught Spanish in the school.
My research had shown that while there was no overt concern about endan-
germent afflicting SLQZ, there was a great deal of concern about the waning sto-
rytelling tradition in the community. Parents in their 30s and 40s indicated that
while they had been raised within an active storytelling tradition, they did not
184   Gabriela Pérez Báez

remember the stories and were not sharing the stories with their own children.
I shared this with the preschool committee and teaching staff and we developed
a project in which the school would establish a story time slot within their week
and invite a knowledge bearer to tell a story in SLQZ to the children. The story
would then be recorded and archived in the school, and the set of recorded stories
would constitute a resource for future activities such as the development of hand-
made illustrated books, dissemination of compilations on CD, etc. In June 2011,
we secured funds from the Endangered Language Fund5 to purchase the neces-
sary equipment to do the on-site recordings and archiving in collaboration with a
second linguist, Dr. Mario Chávez Peón.
The activity faced numerous setbacks beginning with the fact that Prof.
Hernández Reyes and her staff were rotated out of San Lucas and to other commu-
nities. These rotations are done on a schedule and while we expected two of the
teachers to be rotated out, we also expected Prof. Hernández Reyes to remain in
San Lucas one more year to see the project through. Despite this, the project was
carried out and created additional opportunities for incorporation of the local
language and knowledge into the preschool curriculum. The new staff included
one speaker of a Zapotec variety that is also mutually intelligible with San Lucas
Quiaviní, Prof. José Ángel Martínez Nicolás, who became the Principal of the pre-
school and the point person for the storytelling project. The other two teachers,
one being a speaker of Triqui and one being a Spanish monolingual, provided
technical support for the project. Prof. Martínez Nicolás conducted the storytell-
ing sessions. During these sessions, a knowledge bearer would be invited from
the community, often from among the students’ grandparents or from among
the committee members, to tell a story. Children would sit in a half circle out in
an open courtyard around the storyteller. The recording equipment would be set
up ahead of time and operated during the session by one of the teachers. Prof.
Martínez Nicolás would introduce the speaker and facilitate an interactive follow
up activity with the children. The story would be told strictly in SLQZ and Prof.
Martínez Nicolás would rely on his variety of Zapotec in his activity with the chil-
dren, without missing opportunities to include Spanish where appropriate. For
instance, if counting was involved in the story, the counting would be done in
Zapotec and in Spanish.
I oversaw the project during the 2011–2012 academic school year, with support
from Dr. Chávez Peón, who visited San Lucas twice during the year. Together, we
trained a community member, Ms. Alicia Morales López, in the use of ELAN and
a practical orthography for the transcriptions. By the end of the academic year,

5 Grant awarded in June 2011, PI Gabriela Pérez Báez.

 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   185

the 12 stories recorded had been transcribed. The most important outcome of
this activity, however, was that it motivated teachers and parents to open a space
for the local language and culture in the school curriculum. And this was done
without ever confronting parents – in fact, parents became actively engaged in
follow-up activities – and mostly without my involvement. Even during the year
of the Endangered Language Fund grant, Prof. Martínez Nicolás turned the story-
telling activity into a culture and knowledge endeavor. He planned the creation
of illustrated books using the transcriptions of the stories recorded and also con-
ducted organized visits to community homes for discussion, demonstration and
documentation (audio and video) of cultural activities such as tortilla making.
Of course, children were exposed to those activities on a regular basis, but the
fact that the school approached the parents and the homes and made it all part
of their curriculum served as an acknowledgement that the school does not need
to exclude the local culture nor the language as it pursues the goal of educating
bilingual children who are proficient in Spanish.

5.3 Future prospects

As I write this article, the conditions seem right for the development of next-phase
initiatives in support of the long-term survival prospects of SLQZ. The interaction I
have had with many people from San Lucas since my first visit in 2002 has put me
in a position in which I am well known and accepted and in which I can approach
many for open discussions about language endangerment and language revital-
ization. I remain mindful of potential conflicts between what certain segments
of the population may be interested in, for instance parents with regards to the
language that is to be used as a medium of instruction in the schools, and about
what I might think would be ideal opportunities for revitalization initiatives. So
I continue to be led in my efforts by the cues that I receive from the community.
Specificallly, Prof. Martínez Nicolás has continued the practice of inviting
parents and grandparents to the school for storytelling time and he reports that
children have now become engaged, on their own initiative, in telling stories in
their native language. I met with Prof. Martínez Nicolás in September 2014 and
we devised together a project in which stories would be narrated and illustrated
by children. The language and art resulting from the exercise would be preserved
in quality hand-bound books that children could have as keepsakes at the end of
the school year. This project would bring together oral storytelling, orthographic
representation of the language, and the visual arts. We scheduled an initial work-
shop in which I provided orthography instruction for the school teachers and a
Oaxacan artist provided an initial book-binding workshop. From January to June
186   Gabriela Pérez Báez

2015, the school worked on the development of the stories and their visual rendi-
tions by the students. In June 2015 we held a final workshop to further assist in
the orthographic rendition of the stories in Zapotec and production of the hand-
bound books. All workshops involved both children and parents.
This activity is of relevance not only as a language maintenance endeavor
within the community but also because it supports regional efforts to promote the
use of a practical orthography that is applicable to all Valley Zapotec languages.
This orthography was developed by a group led by Roberto Padilla Pérez and
Ausencia López Cruz, both linguists and speakers of two different Valley Zapotec
languages, through consultations over several years with representatives from
numerous Valley Zapotec communities. The opportunity for this effort to reach
San Lucas emerged by capitalizing on the storytelling project at the preschool and
on the relationship that Dr. Chávez Peón had with the local middle school around
a creative writing project that led to the publication of works by local students
(Chávez Peón and López Reyes 2009). Ausencia López Cruz, Dr. Chávez Peón and
I shared the load and carried out a number of orthography workshops from July
to November 2012 in which the Valley orthography was used. The illustrated sto-
rybook project at the preschool opened a new opportunity to continue to share
the Valley Zapotec orthographic system in San Lucas. As mentioned above, two
workshops were conducted, first in December 2014 focusing on teacher training,
and the second in June 2015 involving parents as well. In both cases, the Zapotec
writing skills acquired by caregivers may ultimately support and foster the use
of Zapotec in their children’s writing, thereby breaking the trend of exclusion of
Zapotec in the domain of written language.
A short-term goal is to involve the Los Angeles sister community in future
revitalization activities. In January 2007 and April 2008 I conducted field research
amongst San Lucas residents in Los Angeles which included extensive inter-
views with 19 San Lucas Quiaviní parents with children born and/or raised in
Los Angeles. What emerged during these interviews was a combination of family
language policies in which about half the parents considered that their children
needed to be raised as Spanish speakers and therefore addressed their children
strictly in Spanish, and parents who continued to speak Zapotec to their children
but were faced with resistance from the children who would respond in Spanish
and when possible English and did not develop more than passive skills in SLQZ
(Pérez Báez 2013b). I returned to Los Angeles in October 2011 to observe the cel-
ebration of the yearly Patron Saint festivities which revealed the dominance of
Spanish on important cultural activities such as the prime San Lucas Quiaviní
celebration in which Zapotec is otherwise dominant back in the home commu-
nity. I also returned in February 2013 to conduct interviews with children and
young adults raised (not necessarily born) in Los Angeles. To the extent possible,
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   187

I interviewed children whose parents I had interviewed almost five years earlier.
What emerged in the interviews this time around was a growing interest among
young adults to reengage with San Lucas in meaningful ways.
In response, I have been in regular conversation with two college students
of San Lucas origin living in Los Angeles, offering mentoring and educational
opportunities to both as to facilitate their engagement with the San Lucas lan-
guage and culture. In September 2014, I was able to provide support to a student
of San Lucas origin studying her junior year as a Biology major so that she could
participate in a language and flora documentation project I directed in the
Zapotec community of La Ventosa in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This activity
was prompted by the student’s own expression of interest for learning how to
combine science and culture in a scholarly endeavor. The student is now actively
developing her thesis project on the study of the flora and language of San Lucas
Quiaviní and has made the commitment to develop her own language skills as to
become a proficient speaker of SLQZ.
The challenge now lies in the need to streamline these various efforts so that
they are sustainable. This challenge is the result of having overcome an even
greater challenge after many, many years (over ten years, in fact): opening an
opportunity to engage in conversations about language revitalization for San
Lucas Quiaviní. It has been through activities aimed at responding to some of
the needs communicated to me by the community that a space emerged through
which we, collaboratively, could begin to discuss language revitalization. The
careful reader will of course note that there is much that needs to be done before
we can reach the point where a programmatic language revitalization effort is
in place. It is not the goal of this paper to argue that the activities carried out to
date constitute a language revitalization program. Rather, the goal has been to
describe how – in a context where language revitalization is needed but where
the conditions for a community-external linguist to engage in language revitali-
zation as prescribed by those experienced in revitalization in North America were
not present – an active, sensible and informed stance has created the conditions
that may be conducive to developing effective long-term collaborative language
revitalization in San Lucas.
188   Gabriela Pérez Báez

6 The San Lucas Quiaviní experience in the

context of current trends in revitalization
In this section I contextualize the San Lucas Quiaviní experience within the pas-
sivity prescribed for linguists interested in engaging in language maintenance
and revitalization. I begin with one of the strongest positions I have encountered:

As an outsider, I would feel very uncomfortable if I were to advocate to a speech commu-

nity that it ought to try to keep its language alive. It is entirely up to the community or to
individuals within a community as to whether they want to put in the effort to develop new
speakers for their language. Community members have the right to advocate within their com-
munity for the survival of their language; someone from outside the community does not. The
right to language choice includes the right to choose against a language. This is the logical
result of believing that maintaining an indigenous language is a matter of human rights, a
belief virtually all language advocates must share. The outside expert’s role is to assist in
providing the means for language survival or revival to motivated community members and
perhaps to provide encouragement and a sense of hope that it can be done. (Hinton 2002:
151–152) [emphasis mine]

There are several questions with which I have been faced as a community-exter-
nal researcher. The first question is whether I should make known to the com-
munity the language shift and ensuing endangerment situation that my research
revealed. There is tension, as per the above quote, in whether I had the right to
do so even when I have a responsibility to make my research results known to the
community. Yet, reporting on the endangerment situation of SLQZ amounts to
advocating for language maintenance. After all, why would I bother to report on
these findings if I did not think the situation needed to be addressed? However,
the above quote suggests that in an attempt to make results available to the com-
munity, thereby engaging in language maintenance advocacy, I would be com-
mitting something close to a human rights violation.
Confident that the decision to make the research results known to the com-
munity was correct, the second issue was in devising the appropriate way to make
this information known to the community. I have explained in Section 5 a strategy
based on identifying and addressing needs overtly articulated by the community
and creating, in the process, an opportunity to talk about language endanger-
ment. This allowed for conversations about whether Spanish acquisition should
be a condition to receiving adequate health care information or whether there
was a need to put into practice existing linguistic rights legislation to provide
the relevant information in the local language. It also prompted conversations
between teachers and parents about the content of the education their children
are to receive in the schools and whether the local culture and language have
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   189

a place in it or not. I cannot imagine that motivating these conversations is an

affront to the community’s rights. In fact, the experiences recounted in this paper
indicate that the act of creating opportunities for the community’s rights, linguis-
tic and otherwise, to be discussed and possibly exercised have had positive out-
comes.
One more point to consider is that the presence of an external researcher and
their work will inevitably impact the community to some degree. Consider the
scenario described in Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro (this
volume) of the authors’ interaction with the Wixárika community of El Colorín.
The researchers initially engaged with the community with the purpose of carry-
ing out research into language attitudes. The language attitudes which they docu�
mented indicated that the community looked favorably at the ongoing language
shift and actively supported the use of Spanish over Wixárika. However, as the
authors report, it was through the interaction between community members and
external researchers over the course of the research that expressions of interest
for revitalization began to emerge from within the community. The authors recog-
nize that any research endeavor will have an impact on any given community and
in the Wixárika case, this impact led to a collaboration in language revitalization.
Further, works such as Dobrin (2008) and Holton (2009) show that there are
a myriad cultural situations that require a myriad different stances and that the
primary role of the ethics-driven linguist is to define their stance on the basis of
the particular cultural situation. Failure to do this would lead to a potentially
unethical situation as Dobrin (2008) explains. In this regard, consider the Xinka
case described in Rogers (this volume) where the community’s desired outcome of
the documentation carried out by the author was clearly not to revitalize the lan-
guage but to have it support the consolidation of a distinct identity. In the Xinka
case, then, advocating for language revitalization would have been detrimental
and conflicting with community desires and expectations. But the lack of interest
in language revitalization in the Xinka case is quite different to that in San Lucas
Quiaviní, as I have described in this paper in detail. As such, there was no clear
signal that my persistent interaction with San Lucas Quiaviní residents had an
adverse effect or that it disrespected the community and its priorities in any way.
I do recognize that in contrast with the Wixárika case, I sought more actively to
capitalize on emerging opportunities of various kinds in order to create the con-
ditions that would lead to talking about language endangerment and revitaliza-
tion with community members. But this all amounted to simply taking an active
rather than a passive stance with regards to the impact that a research endeavor
may inherently have. Would it not have been wrong if I had walked away from San
Lucas Quiaviní without sharing the results of my research with the community?
Have any of the outcomes of my interaction with the San Lucas Quiaviní commu-
190   Gabriela Pérez Báez

nity been unethical or damaging to the community in any way? Over the course of
my interaction with the community, no one has ever suggested that this may have
been the case. The warmth with which I am welcome in San Lucas at every one of
my visits gives me the confidence that I have always acted respectfully.

7 Conclusion
I have presented in this paper the case study of a language endangerment situa-
tion which does not yet have community-wide recognition. I have argued that my
proactive stance to foster discussions and resulting initiatives aimed at revitaliza-
tion were warranted given the sociocultural context at hand. I have described said
context in the spirit of the volume to which this paper contributes: to broaden our
views about language endangerment and the possible ways in which concerned
linguists might be able to engage ethically in language revitalization. The case
study presented here does not align with most of the US, Canada, Australia and
New Zealand experiences in that the endangerment state of the language is not
as advanced as in most of the cases from the regions described in the literature.
Considering that most endangered languages are not in these regions, it is likely
that many other language endangerment scenarios will not exhibit conditions
similar to those in the better documented regions. Consider the myriad situations
that could be found in Mexico and South America, one of the most linguistically
and culturally diverse regions of the world. The value of the existing literature in
language revitalization is not as a source of universals of community engagement
but rather as case studies that inform our practice. I therefore wish to echo the
questions raised, for instance, in Holton (2009) and Rice (2011) and the advice
given by Dobrin (2008) to extend our knowledge about a community to the field
of ethnographic anthropology, in order to stress the importance of approaching
engagement with endangered language communities in a culturally-appropriate
manner.
The experience that I have gained in my engagement with San Lucas Quiaviní
suggests to me that to place the burden of choosing for or against a language on
an endangered language community alone constitutes yet another unfortunate
consequence of policies that promote monolingualism as a norm. If societies
were more open to multilingualism, if schooling advocated for additive bilingual-
ism, and if the focus were on the development of stable diglossia, language com-
munities would not be under the pressure to choose one language – a dominant,
growing language usually – over another – often an endangered language. In a
multilingual environment, the question should not be about choosing one lan-
 Addressing the gap between community beliefs and priorities   191

guage over another but rather about the strategies that could allow a community
to acquire the languages that it deems necessary for its well being.
In conversation at a conference with a good colleague, he mentioned that
he wondered whether linguists ought to get involved in language revitalization
or not. My answer at the time was an unhesitant ‘yes’, but without much sub-
stance to explain why indeed we are in a position to make a contribution towards
the preservation of linguistic diversity. The San Lucas Quiaviní experience has
made it evident that various lines of research in linguistics have indeed much
to contribute to the myriad language endangerment scenarios at play nowadays.
A hugely promising area is that of language acquisition for revitalization which
is producing fascinating reports about the cognitive benefits of multilingualism.
Ethnography-based sociolinguistic work can provide information of great value
to the successful development of collaborative revitalization initiatives. Language
documentation can provide language communities with valuable skills to enable
them to carry out the documentation internally. We, and more important, the lan-
guage communities with which we work, may be better served if we approach our
interactions with culturally-informed openness.

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Liliana Sánchez
8 The linguist gaining access to the
indigenous populations: Sharing cultural
and linguistic knowledge in South
America

1 Introduction
Many linguistics students and researchers develop an interest in conducting
research on indigenous languages in South America. Many researchers come
from countries and regions different from those where the indigenous languages
are spoken and come from different cultural backgrounds (Bowern 2010). In the
past two decades, new legislation and efforts from indigenous organizations have
begun to emerge in South America with the goal of protecting indigenous lan-
guage rights (Grinevald 1998). This has created the need for a better understand-
ing of the administrative and political conditions in which research on indige-
nous languages is and can be conducted in this region of the world.
As Bowern (2010) points out with respect to a new paradigm for ethics in lin-
guistics, there is variation in the responses of academic institutions to establish-
ing guidelines for ethical research. While some institutions such the University
of Toronto’s Research Office exempts data collection based on elicitation from
human subjects review, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Studies has proposed to increase the requirements for ethical approval
in research concerning aboriginal languages (Bowern 2010: 897). This type of var-
iation in guidelines generates some uncertainty regarding what is appropriate
ethical behavior in data collection and research on indigenous languages.
For linguists interested in less documented and less studied languages of
South America the issue of how to approach indigenous speech communities is
especially important in the context of the assertion of indigenous communities
rights in the region, given the different levels of development of cultural and lin-
guistic policies by these indigenous communities and their national states.
In this paper, I would like to present three aspects of the complex relation-
ship that many indigenous communities have with the countries/states of which

Liliana Sánchez, Rutgers University

196   Liliana Sánchez

they are members or in which they are geographically located (with a special
focus on indigenous languages and communities in Peru) that affect the way in
which a linguistic researcher may approach indigenous communities. The first
one is the varying degrees of connection that indigenous communities have with
the states in which their territories are located. The second one is the difference
in representation at the local and state levels that indigenous communities have.
The third one is the existence of legislation and ongoing government projects that
aim at producing equality in the way in which indigenous communities and their
cultural and linguistic rights are represented. The pieces of legislation and the
ongoing processes that are discussed here address language policies that support
the revitalization and maintenance of indigenous languages.
The primary goal of introducing these complexities is to provide linguists
interested in conducting research on indigenous languages of South America,
and especially of Peru, with an approximation to what is involved in developing a
research project that is mindful of the current situation of indigenous languages
and cultures. A second goal is to inform them of current efforts being undertaken
by government institutions, indigenous representatives and local communities of
scholars in order to promote language maintenance and revitalization.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 focuses on the complex relation-
ships that may exist between indigenous communities and local, regional and
national governments providing examples from Peru where I have conducted
research on Quechua languages. Section 3 presents a series of steps that might
be helpful in securing proper access to indigenous communities’ knowledge
that is respectful of the communities’ rights and of the existing legislation with
examples from current legislation on indigenous languages in Peru. Finally, in
Section 4, I present two projects being currently undertaken in Peru: an accurate
ethno-linguistic map of Peru and a National Language Policy document. These
projects are part of a series of institutional approaches to the defense of indige-
nous peoples’ rights and the promotion and strengthening of indigenous commu-
nities, their languages and cultures. Section 5 concludes.

2 The spectrum of indigenous communities in

South America and Peru
The relationship between indigenous communities and the states in which they
are geographically located, and of which they are considered to be a part, varies
widely in South America. There are several factors that contribute to this com-
plexity such as a) the degrees or levels of integration into the larger society or
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   197

nation-state, b) the geographical location of the indigenous community and c)

the self-perception of the community members, among others. In terms of the
first factor, there is a wide spectrum of communities. It includes indigenous com-
munities that have decided to remain isolated from the larger society and, despite
their wishes, are still considered part of a political unit defined as a nation-state;
communities with high degrees of integration into the national society that may
be currently experiencing a language shift towards a majority national language;
and communities with intermediate degrees of integration.

2.1 Integration into the larger society

The so-called “uncontacted” indigenous peoples in South America are geograph-

ically located in the Amazonian forest of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru
and Venezuela. These countries are themselves characterized by a wide variety
of language policies and legislation that affects indigenous communities as well
as a wide range of integrating and discriminating practices that may reflect or
violate official policies and current legislation.
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru are countries that guaran-
tee some aspects of indigenous language rights in their Constitutions. More spe-
cifically, Bolivia (INE Bolivia 2012),1 Colombia (Ministerio de Cultura 2013), Peru
(Ministerio de Cultura 2015) and Venezuela (National Assembly of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela 2015)2 have laws that promote and protect indigenous lan-
guage rights.
I will now illustrate the diverse situations of indigenous peoples in terms
of their integration into the larger society with examples from Peru. Among the
“uncontacted” peoples in Peru mentioned by Survival International’s website
are: the Panoan languages Cacataibo, Isconahua, Mastanahua, Murunahua (or
Chitonahua  – not listed in the Ethnologue), and Yora; and the Arawakan lan-
guages Matsigenka, Mashco-Piro and Nanti.3, 4
Due to the mobility of some members of these groups, there are linguistic
descriptions for some of these languages. For example, among the Panoan lan-

1 http://www.ine.gob.bo/indicadoresddhh/archivos/educ/nal/Ley%20N%20269.pdf (accessed
4 November 2015).
2 http://www.asambleanacional.gob.ve/uploads/documentos/doc_0de81968cbc-
690034f1682a4cc1bdd339d1b3133.pdf (accessed 4 November 2015).
3 http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/isolatedperu (accessed 4 November 2015).
4 The ISO codes for these languages are: Cacataibo (cbr), Isconahua (isc), Mastanahua (mcd),
Yora (mts), Matsigenka (mcb), Mashco-Piro (cuj), Nanti (cox).
198   Liliana Sánchez

guages listed as spoken by “uncontacted” peoples by Survival International there

are a variety of linguistic and anthropological references on Cashibo-Cacataibo
published by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) since the 50’s as well as
more recent publications such as a vocabularies by Shell (1987) and recent work
by Zariquiey and Fleck (2012).
With respect to Isconahua, a National Science Foundation grant has been
recently awarded to researcher Jose Antonio Mazzotti and students from Tufts
University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru to document the lan-
guage through a series of videos in collaboration with native speakers of the
language.5 There is also a second edition of a vocabulary by Loos (2008) of
Mastanahua, originally published in 1976 by the SIL. Murunahua, also known
as Chitonahua, is not listed in the Ethnologue (Simon, Lewis and Fennig 2013),
while Yora, listed in the Ethnologue, has apparently no linguistic documentation.
Regarding Arawakan languages, for Matsigenka there is an SIL dictionary as well
as other documentation (e.g. Snell et al. 2011) that can be found in the Ethnno-
logue.6 There is also some current work on Nanti (Crowhurst and Michael 2005;
Michael 2008, 2012a, 2012b). To the best of my knowledge there is no grammatical
description or linguistic work done for Mashco-Piro, although it is listed in the
Ethnologue.
According to AIDESEP, a non-government organization that includes a large
number of indigenous organizations and that I describe in the next section, a
National Commission in Peru formed by representatives from different govern-
ment agencies has declared five national reservations for “uncontacted” peoples:
a) Mashco-Piro, b) Kugapakori or Nanti, c) Nahua, d) Isconahua and e) Muruna-
hua in accordance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization
that protects the rights of tribal and indigenous peoples.7
Peru is one of the countries that have ratified this Convention in South
America. The other countries are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Ecuador and Venezuela. Countries that have ratified the Convention are legally
bound to respect the rights conferred by it to indigenous peoples. In this respect,
linguists must ensure that specific agreements between researchers and commu-
nities are not in violation of indigenous peoples’ rights. More information on the

5 The information on the project can be found on the NSF site: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_
summ.jsp?cntn_id=125113&org=NSF (accessed 29 October 2015).
6 See http://www.sil.org/sil/news/2012/matsigenka-dictionary.htm. (accessed 29 October 2015).
7 See http://www.ilo.org/indigenous/Conventions/no169/lang--en/index.htm. (accessed 29 Oc-
tober 2015).
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   199

legal status of indigenous “uncontacted” or first contact indigenous communities

in Peru can also be found at the Ministry of Culture.8
At the other extreme of the continuum are communities that are currently
experiencing language shift towards Spanish, the dominant language in the
country. One such community is the Lamas Kechwa-speaking community. Indig-
enous organizations such as the FEPREKSAM (Kechwa Peoples Federation of San
Martin) and educational leaders in the community are engaged in the revitali-
zation of the Lamas Kechwa language despite what appears to be an on-going
process of language change and language shift documented in Sánchez (2003).
There are also communities where the process of language shift that favors the
socially dominant language is welcome by most members of the community,
for whom language identity is not necessarily part of their self-perception. In
some of my experiences in the northern highlands of the Ulcumayo district, in
the province of Junín in the Peruvian Andes, this was a particularly challenging
situation, especially since it may be the case that only the elder members of the
community speak the language fluently. Contacting them might prove difficult
given that most teachers might not necessarily see the use of an indigenous lan-
guage as a practice they want to promote due to decades and even centuries of
stigmatization of the indigenous languages. Identifying teachers involved in the
social sciences curricula (those who teach history for example) might be helpful
in approaching individuals who value cultural and linguistic traditions. It is quite
important to realize that, even though some villages and towns in the Andean
regions might not be actively represented by indigenous associations and might
not have a self-perception that highlights their indigenous background, their cul-
tural and linguistic rights are protected by national legislation in Peru.

2.2 Geographical locations

Many indigenous speech communities throughout the world are located in two
or more bordering countries and are therefore divided by geopolitical borders.
In some cases, geopolitical borders do not necessarily create a division in the
cultural and historical continuum that characterize indigenous populations, but
they do introduce a different set of language policies as well as legislation regard-
ing the status of languages in each nation-state. Such is the case of the Tikuna
people geographically located on different sides of the border between three

8 See http://www.cultura.gob.pe/sites/default/files/paginternas/tablaarchivos/2014/03/
actatercerasesion.pdf (accessed 29 October 2015).
200   Liliana Sánchez

countries: Colombia, Peru and Brazil, and the status of the Aymara and Southern
Quechua-speaking communities in the border of Peru and Bolivia. Depending
on the degrees of integration of these communities with the larger society, there
might be different perceptions of the degrees to which a community is part of a
cultural and linguistic continuum and, at the same time, part of separate political
entities.
In the case of the Southern Quechua-speaking community, there are clear
dialectal differences that have been bridged by many researchers who have con-
ducted research on both sides of the border. In many cases, contact on different
sides of the border has been reached through college-level institutions such as
the Universidad de San Simón in Bolivia that hosts the M.A. Program in Bilingual
Intercultural Education known as PROEIB Andes.9 This program has graduated
MA students who are speakers of Quechua from Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru as well
as speakers of other indigenous languages. Thanks to this program some inter-
national collaborative work has taken place. Between 1999 and 2000, Zúñiga,
Sánchez and Zacharías (2000) conducted a study at the request of Peru’s Ministry
of Education on the demand and need for bilingual education in Quechua and
Spanish and in Aymara and Spanish in five provinces of the southern Andes in
Peru. In that study, students in the MA program from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru
participated as research assistants. In this case, formal contact was made through
official channels. The Bilingual Intercultural Education Office at the Ministry of
Education in Peru contacted PROEIB Andes.
The basis of this collaborative effort was a strong long-term relationship
between Peruvian and Bolivian linguists and educators dedicated to Bilingual
Intercultural Education. Linguists interested in conducting fieldwork in Peru or
other countries in South America can benefit from a deeper understanding of
longstanding national and international relationships between researchers and
institutions.
Discontinuous geographical locations may also arise as the result of displace-
ment. Some indigenous communities might be geographically displaced commu-
nities. For example, there are Shipibo-Konibo communities that have migrated
from their original locations in the Amazon region along the Ucayali River (and
other rivers) to urban areas such as the cities of Pucallpa, Iquitos and Lima, the
capital of the country in the coastal region. This migration has been attributed
to the decline in productivity of Shipibo traditional activities such agriculture,
hunting and fishing due to the unscrupulous exploitation of natural resources by
national and international companies (Zavala and Bariola 2008). Displacement

9 http://www.proeibandes.org/(accessed 29 October 2015).

 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   201

in this case is not necessarily detrimental to the affirmation of indigenous iden-

tity or to language preservation and revitalization. To the contrary, the Shipibo
community in Cantagallo, Lima represents a significant force in terms of assert-
ing language rights and indigenous identity in a highly discriminatory urban
environment that has been traditionally characterized by the imposition of cul-
tural and linguistic assimilation, sometimes in brutal ways (Zavala and Bariola
2008). The Shipibo community has established agreements through their repre-
sentatives with the municipal authorities of the city and is currently involved in
projects with local universities such as the the Pontifical Catholic University of
Peru as well as with international researchers on the exploration of their culture
and language. An example of such types of projects is Barrio Shipibo, a project
conducted by the Interdisciplinary Amazonian Group (Grupo Interdisciplinario
de la Amazonía) from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru to support the
Shipibo community in their relocation efforts as well as in their efforts to obtain
adequate intercultural education in Lima. The Shipibo community in Cantagallo
Lima can be contacted through a Facebook page in Spanish.10

2.3 Self-perception of indigenous peoples

Regarding self-perception of indigenous peoples, it is very important that  – in

attempting to gain access to indigenous language knowledge – linguists become
aware of the complex relationship that different indigenous communities may
have with respect to their self-perception. One important aspect of Convention
169 of the International Labor Organization is that of self-perception. Convention
169 states the following regarding identification of indigenous and tribal peoples:

The Convention does not define who are indigenous and tribal peoples. It takes a prac-
tical approach and only provides criteria for describing the peoples it aims to protect.
Self-identification is considered as a fundamental criterion for the identification of indige-
nous and tribal peoples.11

This includes communities where there is historical continuity as an area of tra-

ditional indigenous background even if they do not have speakers of indigenous
languages but rather individuals who are engaged in the recovery and revitali-

10 https://www.facebook.com/limashipibo?ref=ts&fref=ts (accessed 4 November 2015).

11 See http://www.ilo.org/indigenous/Conventions/no169/lang--en/index.htm (accessed 4 No-
vember 2015).
202   Liliana Sánchez

zation of their languages. The emphasis on self-identification is very important

in order to understand that there might be a continuum of levels of affirmation
of the indigenous community and integration into nation-state wide systems.
In practical terms for researchers in linguistics, this means that it is necessary
to be aware of and respect how populations perceive themselves as well as be
mindful of the need to comply with regulations and protocols and to be informed
of Â�indigenous populations’ rights.

3 Necessary steps before starting a project

3.1 How to approach indigenous communities

The World Health Organization recommends identifying appropriate indigenous

institutions to consult about conducting research:

If researchers without previous experience of working with a particular indigenous group

are interested in pursuing a research topic with that group, they should first ascertain if
there is an appropriate indigenous institution to consult. In some developed countries,
extensive indigenous-controlled structures are in place. A phone call or visit should be
made to the research office, if one exists, or to the head of the health department or to the
local leaders to discuss the possibility of collaboration. In developing countries, an inde-
pendent indigenous infrastructure is uncommon. If direct contact with the community is
not feasible, an approach to local government departments may be the best channel. Local
NGOs may in some cases be able to provide advice on how the RI could establish appropri-
ate initial contacts with indigenous communities.12

In the context of linguistics, Dwyer (2006) has identified five steps in planning
and executing a fieldwork project, which she terms the five Cs: (i) establishing
criteria for selection of a field site: (ii) establishing contacts with native speakers,
academics and local officials; (iii) avoiding cold calls by the researcher, namely
showing up without being previously introduced by individuals in close contact
with the community; (iv) establishing cooperative relations between community
consultants and researchers, and (v) determining appropriate compensation. In
this subsection, using examples from Peru, I present information on how to try to
establish contact with:

12 World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/ethics/indigenous_peoples/en/index8.

html (accessed 4 November 2015).
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   203

a. Indigenous organizations.
b. Educational authorities (school principals, bilingual teachers).
c. Educational non-governmental organization (NGOs) that work with the
indigenous communities.

3.1.1 Indigenous-controlled organizations

In the case of Peru, an example of a macro-level organization that protects indige-

nous rights of the Amazonian peoples is AIDESEP. As stated in their webpage, the
Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (Interethnic Association
for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest) is a Peruvian organization pre-
sided by its National Council that represents several organizations located in the
northern, central and southern regions of the Amazon macro-region. It comprises
65 federations that represent 1,500 communities, approximately 650,000 indige-
nous people. Each federation or organization has its own local representatives.
These communities represent 16 language families. Some of these organizations
are a conglomerate of nations and peoples that may be part of the same region
but may not necessarily have geographical continuity. For example, CODEPISAM
is the Council for the Development of the Indigenous peoples of the San Martin
region and represents the Awajun, Kechwa, and Shawi peoples in three adja-
cent provinces Rioja, Lamas and San Martín, respectively. At the same time, the
Awajun people located in the Amazonas region have a different organization rep-
resenting them called ORPIAN.13

3.1.2 Ministry of Education

At the level of local government departments, one institution that is usually

present throughout Peru is the Ministry of Education through elementary schools.
While not all indigenous populations are reached by the educational system
(for example, some of the “uncontacted” peoples previously mentioned), most
indigenous populations have at least one elementary school.14 Teachers may be
members of the community themselves or they may be from outside the commu-
nity and with varying degrees of connection. If teachers are members of or are

13 http://www.aidesep.org.pe/organizaciones-regionales/(accessed 4 November 2015).

14 However, access to the schools might be difficult depending on the geography or the weather
conditions.
204   Liliana Sánchez

supported by a local or regional NGO, their level of commitment to the commu-

nity may be greater.

3.1.3 Educational NGOs

Well-known education-driven NGOs can be found in the Andean and Amazonian

regions of Peru. In the southern Andes, Pukllasunchis15 and the Programa Alianza
para la Educación Rural Ruta del Sol16 are examples of education-driven NGOs
that work in close contact with schools that serve indigenous populations and/
or are engaged in language revitalization processes. The program Ruta del Sol for
example works in the following regions through or with the institutions listed in
their webpage:

Apurimac
– CADEP – Centro Andino de Educación y Promoción José María Arguedas Aya-
cucho.
NERA – Núcleo Educativo Regional Ayacucho.
TAREA – Asociación de Publicaciones Educativas.17

Cusco
– CADEP – Centro Andino de Educación y Promoción José María Arguedas18
– CESIP – Centro de Estudios Sociales y Publicaciones19
– FE Y ALEGRÍA 44
– RER – Red Educativo Regional
– TAREA – Asociación de Publicaciones Educativas
– Fundación Hope

Huancavelica
– EDUCA – Instituto EDUCA

15 http://www.pukllasunchis.org/(accessed 4 November 2015).

16 http://www.rutadelsolperu.org/secciones/quienes-somos (accessed 4 November 2015).
17 http://www.tarea.org.pe/index.php (accessed 4 November 2015).
18 http://www.cadep.org.pe/(accessed 4 November 2015).
19 http://www.cesip.org.pe/(accessed 4 November 2015).
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   205

Junín
– EDAPROSPO – Equipo de Educación y Autogestión Social20

In the Amazonian region one of the most prestigious education-driven NGOs is

FORMABIAP, a program for the professional development of bilingual teachers in
the Amazonian regions of Peru.21 This institution was created in 1998 as part of an
agreement signed by the Ministry of Education, the Instituto Superior Pedagógico
Público Loreto (ISPPL) and AIDESEP. It has a longstanding tradition of working
with AIDESEP and the Ministry of Education in teacher training and bilingual
intercultural education through the Instituto Superior Pedagógico Público Loreto
ISPPL, in Iquitos, the capital of the Loreto region.22

3.2 Respect for the rights of indigenous populations

In many countries, there is special legislation that protects indigenous peoples

rights and their culture. Knowing local legislation about indigenous rights to the
preservation of culture and language is very important before establishing per-
sonal relationships and requesting permission or seeking access to indigenous
populations through indigenous organizations, education officials or NGOs. The
relationship between language, culture and identity must be respected when
identifying research questions and data collection techniques in accordance
with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2008).
Several countries in South America have recently passed laws that regulate the
legal status of indigenous languages. For example, Venezuela passed the Law
of Indigenous Languages (National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Ven-
ezuela 2008) and Bolivia passed the General Law of Language Rights and Lan-
guage Policy (INE Bolivia 2012).23
In 2011, Peru’s Congress passed the Prior Consultation Law 29785 in accord-
ance with Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization. According to
this law, indigenous peoples have the right to be consulted before any adminis-

20 Contacts for these institutions can be found on the Ruta del sol webpage: http://www.
rutadelsolperu.org/secciones/quienes-somos (accessed 4 November 2015).
21 Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la Amazonía Peruana  – Institute for the
Education of Bilingual Teachers in the Peruvian Amazonian Region http://www.formabiap.org/
(accessed 4 November 2015).
22 See Vallejos’ article in this volume.
23 Earlier this century a similar law was passed in Mexico (see Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz
and Verdín Amaro in this volume).
206   Liliana Sánchez

trative or legislative measure that may affect their collective rights, their physi-
cal existence, their cultural identity, their quality of life or their development is
taken by the state. The state is required to consult about plans for regional and
national development programs and projects that may affect indigenous rights.
The Prior Consultation Law also requires that consultation take into account lin-
guistic diversity. In areas where they are needed, official interpreters registered
by the state must be part of the consultation process.24 The law also requires
the creation of an official database of indigenous peoples with official self-de-
termined denominations, geographical, and cultural relevant information, a list
of representative organizations and an ethnolinguistic map. The existence of a
Prior Consultation Law is one of the most important legislative accomplishments
in favor of indigenous rights in Peru. It makes consultation by the state a legal
requirement but it also sets standards for the way in which indigenous peoples
must be approached for any type of project that may affect their rights such as
research projects on their languages and cultural identity.
In addition to the Prior Language Consultation Law, a Linguistic Rights Law
(29735) was passed in 2011 in Peru. In its first article it states:
1.1 The goal of this law is to state the individual and collective linguistic rights
established in article 48 of the Political Constitution of Peru.
1.2 All native languages are the expression of a collective identity and of a dif-
ferent way to conceive and describe reality, therefore they should have the
necessary conditions for their maintenance and development in all of their
functions.25

Law 29735 guarantees the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples
to speak their languages, to be served by state institutions in their language, and
to receive Bilingual Intercultural Education in their language and in Spanish, the
shared language of the country. According to this law, indigenous languages are
official languages of Peru.
In this context of recent legislation, it is of vital importance that, in addition
to establishing effective connections through indigenous associations, local gov-
ernment authorities, NGOs, educators and community members, linguists also
become acquainted with the laws that protect individual and collective linguistic
rights of indigenous peoples.

24 The Ministry of Culture has already certified 168 indigenous interpreters. http://www.
cultura.gob.pe/sites/default/files/content_type_archivos/archivosPDF/2014/07/registro_de_
interpretes_y_traductores_260614_0.pdf (accessed 4 November 2015).
25 Translation by the author.
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   207

Article 18 of Law 29735 is of particular relevance to researchers in linguistics:

Article 18: Compilation and publication of research. The state promotes research on, and
knowledge and revitalization of indigenous languages as well as publication of research
and compilation of literature and oral tradition in bilingual editions through national
research institutions as a means of preserving traditional knowledge and wisdom as well as
the world vision of indigenous peoples.26

In Colombia, Law 1381 – passed in 2010 (Ministerio de Cultura, Colombia 2013) –

dictates norms related to the recognition, promotion, use, preservation, and
strengthening of the languages of the ethnic groups in Colombia and about their
linguistic rights and those of the individual speakers. The first article of Law 1381
states:

The present law is of public and social interest and has as its goal to guarantee the recogni-
tion, protection and development of the individual and collective linguistic rights of ethnic
groups with their own linguistic tradition as well as promotion and use of their languages
which will be from now on be referred to as native languages. Native languages are those
currently spoken by the ethnic groups living in the country: those of Indo-American origin
spoken by indigenous peoples, Creole languages spoken by people of Afro-descendant
origins, the Roma language spoken by the Roma or gypsy peoples, and the language spoken
by the people of the Archipelago San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina.27, 28

Given the legal framework that has been put in place in different South American
countries, a series of subsequent projects are being undertaken to ensure enforce-
ment of these laws. For example, at the nation-state level in Peru, the educa-
tional system has been traditionally in charge of compilation and involvement in
research on indigenous languages. Multiple NGOs have also shared this commit-
ment with varying levels of success and with some nation-wide coordination. As
I show in Section 4, currently great efforts are being made, through the Ministry
of Education and the Ministry of Culture, to develop effective language policies
that allow for greater articulation of the local, regional and national institutions.

26 Translation by the author.

27 Translation by the author.
28 http://www.mincultura.gov.co/areas/poblaciones/publicaciones/Documents/Ley de Lenguas
2013.pdf (accessed 4 November 2015).
208   Liliana Sánchez

4 Projects at the national government level

There is currently a need to integrate individual linguistic research projects into
nation-wide projects to connect community, regional and nation-state language
policies. In this section, I introduce two projects that are currently being under-
taken by the General Direction of Bilingual Intercultural and Rural Education of
the Ministry of Education and the Vice-minister Office of Intercultural Affairs at
the Ministry of Culture in Peru. I became aware of these projects as part of a group
of linguists invited to provide feedback by the institutions in charge of the pro-
jects. The first one is the creation and development of a complete and accurate
ethno-linguistic map of Peru and the second one is the development of a National
Language Policy document that incorporates proposals from indigenous organ-
izations, leaders and community members as well as indigenous educators for
the revitalization and promotion of indigenous languages and cultures in compli-
ance with Law 29735. These two projects are concerned with setting ethical guide-
lines for gaining access to indigenous communities. The ethno-linguistic map
will allow researchers in linguistics to be aware of the geographical and politi-
cal distribution of speech communities and the extent to which the languages,
dialects, and language varieties have been identified and named by the speech
communities themselves. The National Language Policy document will allow
researchers to find ways of connecting their findings with the projected goals of
the indigenous communities for language planning purposes.

4.1 Development of an accurate ethno-linguistic map of Peru

Law 29735 charged the Ministry of Education with the elaboration of an accurate
ethno-linguistic map. In Chapter II, Article 5, the law states that:

By supreme decree The Ministry of Education is responsible for the elaboration, official-
ization and update of the ethno-linguistic map of Peru as a language planning tool that
allows appropriate decision-making regarding the recovery, preservation, and promotion
of indigenous language use.29

Article 5, section  2 states that the ethno-linguistic map should determine the
number of indigenous and rural communities that belong to a specific ethno-lin-
guistic group. In order to determine the number of speakers of indigenous lan-

29 Translation by the author.

 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   209

guages the Ministry of Education was assigned the task of establishing, in coor-
dination with the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, the necessary
mechanisms to determine by quantitative and qualitative means how predomi-
nant is an indigenous language in a specific area.
The ethno-linguistic map created by a group of linguists from the Universidad
Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and other research institutions at the request of
the Office for Bilingual Intercultural and Rural Education (DIGEIBIR) at the Min-
istry of Education has been recently published as part of the Documento Nacional
de Lenguas Originarias del Perú (Ministerio de Educación del Perú 2013).30 This
group worked in close collaboration with personnel from the National Institute
of Statistics and Informatics (INEI). This map contains information on language
use of indigenous languages at different levels of geopolitical units (populated
centers, districts, provinces and regions).31 The information provided by the
INEI was contrasted with information provided by representatives of indigenous
organizations and by linguists who have extensive fieldwork experience in differ-
ent regions.
All the materials related to the ethno-linguistic map and the project are cur-
rently being transferred to the Vice-ministry of Intercultural Issues at the Ministry
of Culture. Some of the most challenging issues with which the research team
had to deal are the fact that census information is given at the level of popu-
lated centers, which may or may not necessarily coincide with a homogeneous
speech community (see Yáñez Rosales et al., this volume). Linguists with specific
knowledge of the communities as well as representatives of indigenous peoples
were called to participate in workshops and meetings with the research team in
charge of elaborating the map as well as with representatives of the Ministry of
Education Office for Bilingual Intercultural Education to contribute with informa-
tion about speech communities. Of particular relevance were: the self-identifica-
tion and naming of indigenous languages by the communities, the recognition of
different levels of dialectal variation and the levels of multilingualism in indige-
nous languages that characterize many Amazonian communities as well as bilin-

30 A more schematic ethnolinguistic map was previously created by INDEPA (Instituto Na-
cional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y Afroperuanos – National Institute for
the development of Andean, Amazonian and Afroperuvian Peoples, a Unit of the Ministry of
Education) http://www.indepa.gob.pe/mapa2.html (accessed 4 November 2015). This map has
been published in the Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Pública. Print version
ISSN 1726–4634. Rev Peru Med Exp Salud Publica vol.27 no. 2 Lima Apr./June 2010. http://www.
scielosp.org/img/revistas/rpmesp/v27n2/a19fig01a.jpg (accessed 4 November 2015).
31 For a similar effort to generate a survey of indigenous languages in Brazil called Inventário
Nacional da Diversidade Linguística, see Moore and Galucio (this volume).
210   Liliana Sánchez

gualism in indigenous languages, and Spanish and processes of language shift.

Another quite important issue is determining the status of a language as in need
of revitalization or as severely endangered. All this information will be extremely
relevant to researchers in linguistics to identify projects that may contribute to
the documentation of endangered languages and to revitalization efforts.

4.2 Development of a national language policy document for

indigenous languages

Since 2012, the Ministry of Education has also engaged in the development of
a National Language Policy document focused on the importance of respecting
the indigenous people’s rights to their culture and territories. This document has
been the result of a series of consultations and workshops organized by an advi-
sory team headed by researcher Fernando García from FORMABIAP at the request
of the Office for Bilingual Intercultural and Rural Education at the Ministry of
Education. In these workshops, proposals were requested from participants from
most regions of Peru on three categories: status of indigenous languages, acquisi-
tion of indigenous languages, and indigenous languages corpora.
In addition to proposing the recognition of territorial rights of indigenous
peoples, there is also a proposal to recognize and use indigenous languages and
to respect indigenous peoples’ rights to self-denomination and the existence of
their dialect or language variety without subordination to other languages or
varieties of language.
In its present form the proposal includes the creation of a national research
institute dedicated to indigenous cultures and languages and of regional offices
of bilingual intercultural education in indigenous areas. Indigenous represent-
atives have also proposed the modification of article 48 of the Constitution that
discriminates against indigenous languages with lower numbers of speakers as it
only declares official those languages that are predominant in a specific region.
As some speakers have very low numbers of speakers they cannot be treated as
predominant.
According to the press note released by the Ministry of Education (SERVINDI
2012), among these are the Quechua dialects Chachapoyas, Huaral, Yauyos-Chin-
cha, Waycha Wanka and Shausha Wanka as well as Amazonian languages
Amahuaca, Arabela, High and Low Perené, Capanahua, Caquinte, Chamicuro,
 The linguist gaining access to the indigenous populations   211

Harakbut, Iñapari, Iquitu, Isconahua, Kukama-Kukamiria,32 Maijuna (Orejón),

Muniche, Murui (Huitoto), Murunahua, Nanti, Ocaina, Omagua, Resígaro, Secoya
(Putumayo region), Shiwilu, Taushiro, Yaminahua, Yine, Jaqaru and Cauqui.33

5 Concluding remarks
In this paper, I have made an initial attempt to provide a brief sketch of what
could constitute appropriate ways of gaining access to South American indige-
nous populations for linguistic research, using examples from Peru. While indige-
nous populations have varying degrees of connection with the countries/states in
which they are geographically located, their rights are protected by international
agreements such as the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 and
in South American countries such as Peru their rights are increasingly recognized
and protected by recent legislation. There are therefore initial steps that need to
be followed by linguists trying to obtain access to indigenous populations. These
include knowledge of the relevant legislation and knowledge of representative
indigenous organizations. In the case of Peru, for example, the Previous Con-
sultation Law sets guidelines for the way in which consultation with indigenous
organizations must be sought for research projects. In the possible absence of
such organizations, officially recognized NGOs and government offices such as
state schools (under the supervision of the Ministry of Education) may provide
initial access to indigenous communities. There are also some current govern-
ment projects whose aim is to protect indigenous languages and cultures and
foster their revitalization and development. These projects will hopefully result in
a process of cooperation between the community of researchers in linguistics and
the indigenous speech communities in order to preserve, document, revitalize,
develop, and strengthen their rich cultural and linguistic traditions.

32 See more about the efforts to revitalize Kukama-Kukamiria in the article by Vallejos, this vol-
ume.
33 http://servindi.org/actualidad/79299 (accessed November 4, 2015).
212   Liliana Sánchez

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Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green,
Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

9 Life histories, language attitudes and

linguistic variation: Navigating the micro-
politics of language revitalization in an
Otomí community in Mexico

1 Introduction
It is by now a well-established fact that language communities are not homogene-
ous in their linguistic norms and practices. It is also well established that linguis-
tic variation often correlates with variation in attitudes about how one should
speak (what linguistic anthropologists today call metalinguistic ideologies), even
if there may be quite large discrepancies between conscious and unconscious
language attitudes. In the context of language documentation and revitaliza-
tion, such variation presents a challenge to the linguist who must find ways of
representing the language in a way that is acceptable to both contemporary and
future speakers. In a language revitalization context, often a small number of
speakers participate each with their own idiolect in the form of unique linguistic
repertoires and each with their own ideas about what makes the language valu-
able and worthy of revitalization. And in the end the success of the revitalization
project depends on the ability of these speakers to agree to pass on some form
of the language, hopefully one that they can all consider legitimate, to a new
generation.
In this paper we describe a case in which language attitudes and linguistic
variation also covary with the role of the language within the life histories of indi-
vidual speakers participating in a language revitalization project. Further, we
show that the challenge faced by revitalization projects is increased when the
local political framework does not unambiguously establish which speakers have
the authority to represent the linguistic community and authenticate a linguistic

Magnus Pharao Hansen, Brown University

Néstor Hernández-Green, CIESAS Tlalpan-Mexico
Rory Turnbull, Ecole Normale Supérieure, PSL Research University
Ditte Boeg Thomsen, University of Copenhagen
216   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

standard. When speakers have different views of what constitutes the source of
linguistic authority, this may lead to tensions that are difficult to resolve without
attending directly to the underlying discrepancy in assumptions. We argue that by
recognizing how individual language preferences and views of linguistic author-
ity are tied to the ways that speakers understand themselves and their lives, lin-
guists may find it easier to mediate when tensions arise between participants in
the project, and ultimately increase the likelihood of revitalization success.

1.1 The politics of community based language revitalization

Standard practice today for linguistic documentation and revitalization is “com-

munity based” fieldwork. In the early days of linguistic fieldwork, linguists often
worked alone with one or two informants and generally did not consider the
possibility that the community of speakers might want access to their research
output. In contrast, the current ideal for descriptive work on endangered lan-
guages sees the linguists as a kind of specialist consultant for a community of
speakers who are working to preserve their language (Cameron, Rampton, and
Richardson 1993; Dwyer 2006; Dobrin 2008; Gerdts 2010). This change in research
ethics came partly from the realization that traditional linguistic fieldwork was
often exploitative in nature, and from the increasing awareness of linguists in the
role they might play in reversing language shift by working collaboratively with
speakers of endangered languages. Recent fieldwork literature describes in detail
the ethical issues of intellectual ownership and community involvement (Dwyer
2006), and describe how truly collaborative fieldwork takes into account the
fact that the research objectives of linguists and community members frequently
differ (Collins 1998; Mosel 2006; Musgrave and Thieberger 2007; Whaley 2011).
Indeed, the discourse that emphasizes collaboration and community involve-
ment has become so pervasive that some linguists have felt it necessary to defend
the merits of “lone wolf research” as ethically defensible and appropriate in some
cases, for example when the goal is simply to document an endangered variety
and there is no community interest in revitalization (Crippen and Robinson 2013).
One implicit challenge with many of these ethical principles of collabora-
tive research is that they tend to be tacitly based on an ideal in which the com-
munity of speakers is considered to have relatively homogeneous interests and
objectives. And even the very idea of revitalizing or preserving “a language”
tacitly assumes that the community in question shares a single linguistic variety.
However, as pointed out by Whaley (2011), such assumptions are frequently at
odds with reality. Linguists often find that both linguistic and ideological vari-
ation is rampant in even the seemingly most coherent and homogeneous com-
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   217

munities (Dorian 2001, 2010), and that political or interpersonal tensions play
a role in determining how revitalization efforts are received (Canger 1994; Kro-
skrity 1998; Suslak 2010). The studies by Pérez Báez, by Rogers, and by Villard
and Sullivant in this volume provide further examples of cases where community
attitudes impede revitalization efforts, or make them impossible. Whaley (2011)
argues that simplistic assumptions of linguistic and ideological homogeneity in
the community, as well as a lack of appreciation of the complexity of local social
dynamics and the risk for linguists to be overly controlling of the revitalization
project, are among the factors that contribute to “endangering” projects designed
to counteract language endangerment. Costa and Gasquet-Cyrus (2013) similarly
argue that linguists should not only expect but also accept the existence of ideo-
logical differences and even conflict within revitalization movements. Contrary to
Kroskrity (2009), they argue that rather than promoting a process of “ideological
clarification” prior to engaging in a project of language revival, the linguist should
not aim at resolving conflicts between different ideological positions, since such
heterogeneity is inherent in the constitution of any social movement. Rather, they
argue the aim should be to foster a discussion within the community of speak-
ers that may or may not eventually lead to a unified view of the future of the
language. This argument, which holds that there are no neutral positions within
the context of language revival, points to the traditional distinction between the
linguist as an objective scientist and the linguist as a politically engaged activist –
suggesting that perhaps, at least in language revival contexts, such a distinction
is not possible.

1.2 Revitalization as linguistic prescription

Linguists have traditionally tended to see themselves as describing linguistic

norms, rather than as producing them (Milroy & Milroy 1999: 3). While language
documentation is indeed basically descriptive, we would argue that there is a fun-
damentally prescriptive aspect inherent in the idea of language revitalization: it
entails the proposition that a specific way of speaking should be used more than
it is. Probably few linguists would feel comfortable in assuming the authority to
tell a community how or what to speak. Hinton (2002: 151–152) has commented
specifically on how the prescriptive aspect of language revitalization requires
community support for the linguists to be able to feel at ease. It is the community
that prescribes a set of norms and the linguist is simply in charge of documenting
and circulating them. A certain authority is inherent in the linguist’s specialist
knowledge and the fact that she often represents a politically dominant commu-
nity. Such an authority cannot simply be divested, but must be taken into account.
218   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

Others have pointed to the authority that is sometimes considered inherent in the
medium of writing itself, which may make a community perceive a written text in
their language as necessarily posing a claim to authority even when the linguist
specifically avoided making such a claim (Canger 1994). Ultimately, in a revitali-
zation context, the question of authority is inescapable.

1.3 Language and authority in North American and Latin

American contexts

The view of the linguist as facilitator of the establishment of a linguistic norm

for an already existing community often fits well when the linguist is working
at the request of the political authority of the community. Here the linguist is
simply a kind of consultant working on the task of formally codifying a linguistic
norm which has already been selected by the political authority who will also
be responsible for promoting it to gain community acceptance (Haugen 1966).
Such a relation is possible when indigenous speech communities have their
own political authorities, such as it is often the case in the contemporary USA
and Canada, where linguists today are occasionally approached by tribal gov-
ernments to act as expert consultants when a community has already decided
to preserve or revitalize their traditional languages (Grenoble and Whaley 2006:
193–194). This relation is facilitated by the fact that today in the USA and Canada
indigenous groups have relatively high degrees of ethnic identity and political
autonomy – at least regarding internal issues such as cultural politics – and that
they are conceived of as independent nations within a larger nation state.1 Many
tribal governments have officials specifically dedicated to handling questions of
cultural and linguistic heritage. Such officials may choose to engage linguists as
consultants, or choose to either support or disavow specific products of linguistic
description, or to promote specific ideologies of language use. There are many
examples where North American Native communities have explicitly claimed the
political authority over their language in relation to linguists and other outsiders.
The Hopi tribal government resisted the Hopi Dictionary project (Hill 2001) and
the Jemez Pueblo decided to prohibit the writing of their indigenous language
(Whiteley 2003) (see also the cases described by Collins 1998, Kroskrity 2009,
and Loether 2009). Nonetheless, some of the most successful language revitali-

1 This has not always been the case; historically the US and Canadian states have played an ac-
tive role in the attempted eradication of indigenous languages through Anglophone educational
policy (McCarty 2013).
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   219

zation projects have not been undertaken by tribal governments, but by groups
of community members who have organized to form a revitalization project and
contacted linguists to assist them, often with only subsequent involvement and
support by the tribal government. This is the case for the Master-Apprentice pro-
grams organized by the The Advocates for Indigenous California Language Sur-
vival, and for the Mohawk immersion schools of Kahnawake (both described in
Grenoble and Whaley 2006: 193–194; see also Hermes 2012 and McCarty 2013).
In contrast, in many parts of Latin America, indigenous speech communi-
ties are not constituted or conceived as politically independent nations, but are
simply considered citizens who happen to speak a local vernacular that differs
from the language used in administration. Indigenous communities are often
simply towns or localities where a particular language is spoken. In many cases
there is little or no sense of ethnic identity among different communities of
speakers of the same language, local political identities being more salient. This
means that in Latin America language revitalization projects are often initiated
by linguists or by small sub-groups within the speech community who for differ-
ent reasons take an interest in promoting the indigenous language. (See also the
studies by Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro as well as Yáñez
Rosales et al., this volume for examples of how revitalization projects may be
initially caused by outside academic interest which in turn sparks interest in the
community.)
In the absence of ethno-national political organization of indigenous groups,
different countries and linguistic groups in Latin America have taken different
approaches to organizing cultural and linguistic preservation or revival. In Gua-
temala, in the midst of genocidal campaigns against them, the different Mayan
speech communities and indigenous linguists collaborated with North Amer-
ican linguists to establish an academy with the responsibility for supporting
and developing the indigenous languages (England 2003; Romero 2012; Warren
1998). (See also Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna, this
volume, for a case in which a political institution assumed responsibility of lan-
guage revitalization efforts in Nicaragua.) In Mexico, the geographic context of
this paper, the government assumed a responsibility for the usage of indigenous
languages after the revolution, seeing indigenous languages as a barrier to the
development and modernization of the indigenous peoples. The first half of the
20th century saw a series of ideological and institutional struggles between his-
panista and indigenista educators. The former considered the best approach to
the eradication of indigenous languages and their replacement by Spanish, and
the latter considered the best way to modernize the indigenous populations and
their languages so that the values of modernity could be accessed through the
native medium of knowledge. Eventually the hispanistas won, and a program of
220   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

subtractive bilingual education was instituted, aimed at gradually familiarizing

indigenous students with Spanish during primary school, so that from middle
school all education could be carried out exclusively in Spanish (Heath 1972).
From this point on, the Mexican government did little to encourage or support
local efforts to organize or promote the use of indigenous languages. The Secre-
taría de Educación Pública (SEP) assumed the responsibility of creating linguistic
standards to be used in indigenous primary education in collaboration with the
Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (ILV), the affiliate body of the US missionary organ-
ization Summer Institute of Linguistics International (Hartch 2006). Up until the
end of collaboration between the SEP and the ILV in the early 1980s, the tradition
in Mexico was for linguists to work not for the communities, but for the Mexican
government, as a partner in its education policy. The strong governmental control
of indigenous education and organization has likely contributed to the fact that
throughout the 20th century there have been few community efforts to promote or
support the use of indigenous languages. Indeed, as demonstrated by Pérez Báez
and by Villard and Sullivant in this volume, it is frequently the case that there is
little or no community interest in reviving the local language.
There are exceptions to this general picture, and the Otomí community pro-
vides one of them. In the Mezquital region, the region with most speakers of Otomí,
the ILV representatives worked with the community to establish an Academia de
la lengua, with the function of standardizing, developing and supporting the
Mezquital variety of Otomí (Hernández Cruz, Victoria Torquemada and Sinclair
2004). This level of organization and promotion has effectively established the
Mezquital variety of Otomí as the prestige variety of the language. Another excep-
tion is the Toluca Valley, where the Otomí community that we are here describ-
ing is located. Here indigenous communities comprising three different linguis-
tic groups (Otomí, Mazahua and Matlatzinca/Tlawika) organized into a formal
network to better lobby for recognition of their rights. The establishment of local
or regional language academies, or of indigenous political and ritual networks
can be understood as local strategies to work around the tradition of government
control of the cultural and linguistic resources of indigenous communities.
In the following, we describe how this political framework affects the way
that the Otomí of San Jerónimo Acazulco in the Toluca valley organize their
project of language revival, and how different views of linguistic authority coexist
within the project.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   221

1.4 San Jerónimo Acazulco: Power and language

The authors have been participating in a community based effort to revitalize

the Otomí language in the community of San Jerónimo Acazulco, (Otomí: Ndöngǘ
[ndõŋɡṹ]) since 2009. We arrived in Acazulco with the plan of linguistic documen-
tation of the endangered and undocumented variety of Otomí, but soon became
involved in the community’s ongoing efforts to raise interest in the language
among the youth. We were asked to produce written materials in the language
in order to apply for recognition as an indigenous community by the Mexican
state (Pharao Hansen, Turnbull, and Boeg-Thomsen, 2011). During several field
periods since then, we have produced and disseminated three successive editions
of a booklet of basic Otomí lessons, supported a course of Otomí classes for chil-
dren taught by community members, taught an English course to youths in order
to foment a cultural and linguistic interchange, and are in the process of elaborat-
ing a didactic grammar, vocabulary and a set of lessons for future classes. In addi-
tion, Néstor Hernández-Green has produced and published a small grammar, in
collaboration with Efrén Maíz, the organizer of the community Otomí classes.
This grammar is meant to support the teacher during classes, and is published
by the Comisión Para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) (Organización
Civil Ndöngü 2014).
San Jerónimo Acazulco is a community in the cold pine-clad hills 3000 meters
above sea level in the Sierra Madre Occidental in Central Mexico. Until the 1980s
the community was socially marginalized and characterized by poverty and a
reliance on subsistence agriculture and occasional wage labor in the nearest city.
The completion of a highway through the community’s land provided new eco-
nomic opportunities, which the people of San Jerónimo Acazulco exploited with
great success. They turned their ejido (community land) into a tourist attraction,
which is now well known in the area as a place where the large urban population
of the Valley of Mexico comes to enjoy the experience of nature on the weekends.
Due to this development, recent decades have seen rapid economic growth in the
community, but also a significant break with traditions.
The local political authorities elected by the community are the delegado,
who represents the community in the municipality of Ocoyoacac, and three
comisariados with responsibility for communal property, ejidal property and
potable water. All of these officials are young men in their thirties and none of
them speak Otomí. They are generally supportive of the language revitalization
project and have allowed the Otomí classes to take place in the offices of the del-
egación, but they do not themselves participate in the project and do not consider
it to fall within their jurisdiction.
222   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

Since 2008 the local government of San Jerónimo Acazulco is in the process
of lobbying for recognition of status as an indigenous community, which would
give access to certain sources of governmental support from the CDI. In Mexico
the status of a given community as “indigenous” is achieved if the community
can demonstrate a relation to one of the recognized ethno-linguistic groups. In
theory the relation depends on the percentage of speakers of the indigenous lan-
guage in the community, but in practice the percentage of speakers in census
data matters less than the degree of public visibility of the community. For a
community in which the language is in decline to be considered indigenous, the
indigenous language and heritage must be documented and promoted in ways
that make the community visible and recognizable as “indigenous” to municipal
and state authorities. To achieve this goal, the community of Acazulco applied
for membership to the organization of indigenous communities of the Toluca
Valley. This organization was established in 1977 with the signing of the Pacto del
Valle de Matlatzinca (Pact of the Matlatzinca Valley), in which a Consejo Supremo
(Supreme Council) was established for each of the different indigenous ethnic
groups in the valley. Each of the signatory communities elected a Supreme chief
to sit on the council. Acazulco was not among the original signatories, but in
2010 they applied for recognition as an indigenous Otomí community with right
to representation in the council. As part of the application for representation in
the Consejo Supremo, the community democratically elected a council of cultural
leaders, separate from the political authorities of the community.
The Otomí Council of Ndöngǘ is headed by a Jefe Supremo [Supreme Chief],
his female counterpart designated la mujer otomí (the Otomí Woman), a commu-
nity chronicler, and a language teacher. The titles are invariably given in Spanish,
and it does not seem that anyone has coined Otomí terms for these titles. The
somewhat peculiar title of Supreme Chief for the cultural authorities of each com-
munity may have been taken in reference to the political structure of U.S. Indig-
enous nations. Mexican indigenous communities have not generally used the
title jefe for their authorities, a title which in a Mexican context seems to evoke
the tribal organization of North American Indians. The Supreme Chief represents
Acazulco in this organization as well as in many public occasions of cultural rele-
vance. Acazulco’s claim to indigenous status, as well as its visibility, is enhanced
simply by having a Supreme Chief. The Otomí council has moral but not political
authority, and their standing in the community is partly undermined by the fact
that most of them, partly due to their age and lack of participation in the work-
force, belong to the lower socio-economic rung of the community. This lack of
status makes it difficult for them to persuade local youth of the value of their
language.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   223

Within the indigenous council, authority is contested among the proficient

speakers, each of whom holds different ideologies about what type of authority
legitimates a linguistic standard. In one view, a legitimate standard is upheld
through a “hierarchy based” view of authority according to which authority is
determined by age, gender, kinship network and standing in the politico-reli-
gious cargo system; in this view the legitimate standard is simply the standard
of the person with the highest standing. Another “tradition based” view sees
linguistic authority as embodied in the ways of speaking of ancestors, so that
claims about the correct usage tend to be supported by childhood memories of
specific speech situations. In this view, the speech of the elders of the community
and, importantly, their memories of the speech of their own elders, can be con-
sidered a true and authentic representation of the language. When talking about
how to use the language, some community members repeat verbatim (or in ways
that represent the memory as a verbatim repetition) the voices of those family
members who used it in the past. A third “modernist” view sees linguistic author-
ity as dependent on formal education and literacy, so that authority comes from
being able to read or write the language or having received schooling as a native
language educator. A fourth “purist” view sees the legitimate language as being
the one that has no discernible influence from Spanish, meaning that the ability
to create neologisms and avoid loanwords is highly valued. In this way the lin-
guistic ideologies are associated with linguistic choices and with notions of who
gets to claim status as an authoritative speaker2. At the same time the questions of
values and ideologies are embedded in complex interpersonal dynamics among
the speakers participating in the revitalization project that raises the stakes of
linguistic choices made in the process of documentation and revitalization. This
social setting in which multiple structures of authority are embedded and coun-
terpoised to each other, and in which rapid economic development has created
gaps between generations and between social classes, provides the context for
our discussion of the sources of micro-political tensions in the small subgroup
of the language community who were interested in revitalizing the indigenous
language.

2 It is important to emphasize that concrete language use can never be expected to be a simple
function of conscious ideology. It is quite common to find discrepancies between speakers’ con-
scious and unconscious language attitudes (cf. Kristiansen 2003; Maegaard 2005).
224   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

2 The Otomí Council of Ndöngǘ and the

�revitalization project
The Supreme Chief of San Jerónimo Acazulco, head of the Otomí Council of
Ndöngǘ, is Don Feliciano Soler, an 87 year old man who speaks the indigenous
language as his first language. He was first a consultant for the linguists working
on simple documentation, but then in turn he requested a published book in the
language to present to the state-level authorities as additional proof that Acazu-
lco has an indigenous language and is therefore an indigenous community. So,
the documentation project turned into a community-based revitalization project.
Another early participant in the revitalization project was Don Felipe Sánchez.
Don Felipe was trained as an Otomí teacher and had established a basic cultural
and linguistic education program in town before the arrival of the linguists. He
became a key collaborator with the linguists in both the revitalization project and
the documentation work. Another main participant was Doña Trinidad Beltrán
(74), who sometimes collaborated with Don Felipe and participated in teaching
the children and who also became involved in the revitalization project early on.
In the following we will concentrate on showing how these three major players
in the revitalization project each have different views of what constitutes a legit-
imate linguistic authority, which combined with the linguistic variation between
them presented formidable challenges to the project. First we describe the Otomí
language, and some of the intra-personal variation between the three main par-
ticipants in the project.

2.1 Otomí themes and variations: Dialectal and individual

Otomí is the name of a group of closely related languages that belongs to the Oto-
manguean language family and is spoken by ca. 180,000 people in central Mexico,
most of them in the states of México and Hidalgo. Most varieties of Otomí are con-
sidered endangered languages (Lastra 2001a) and many varieties have undergone
considerable linguistic change under the influence of Spanish (Hekking 1995;
Hekking and Bakker 2007). All varieties of Otomí are characterized by a complex
phonology and verbal morphology, and linguists have struggled with aspects of
grammatical and phonological analysis since the 1930s (Soustelle 1937; Sinclair
and Pike 1948; Leon and Swadesh 1949; Wallis 1964). Large advances in analysis
and documentation have happened in the past decades (Hekking 1995; Hernan-
dez et al. 1998; Lastra 2001b, 2006; Palancar 2009). The Otomí variety of San
Jerónimo Acazulco is currently almost completely undescribed, the only publica-
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   225

tions about it being a few texts and a two page ethnographic description in Lastra
(2001b) plus a few publications by the present authors. Lastra defines the Otomí
variety of Acazulco, as well as the neighboring variety of Santiago Tilapa, as
being most closely related to the highland varieties spoken in the northern sierra
of Puebla and Veracruz, which she defines as belonging to the Eastern dialect
group. The Acazulco variety is also linguistically conservative, for example retain-
ing the complex system of verbal conjugational classes found in colonial Otomí
(Cárceres 1907; Palancar 2011) which was lost in the better described innovative
varieties of Hidalgo and Queretaro (Palancar 2009). It also conserves phonemic
and grammatical distinctions that have been lost in most other dialects such as
the three-way distinction between voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops, and the
dual number.
The people of Acazulco refer to their language as yühǘ [jũhṹ] and not as
hñähñu as the speakers of the prestige dialect of El Mezquital, Hidalgo do. In the
present study we use the exonym Otomí, originally from the Nahuatl language,
to refer to the language and related ethnic identity of the people of Acazulco, in
spite of the fact that some other communities advocate the use of endonyms. The
people of Acazulco invariably identify themselves as Otomíes when speaking in
Spanish, and do not see any problem with this label. The advantage of the term
Otomí is that it makes visible the affinity of the people of Acazulco with other
speakers of Otomían languages – although they do not share the same endonym.
The people of Acazulco use the term Otomí exactly for this purpose.

2.2 Intra-speaker variation

The problem of disagreements about crucial elements of culture between

members of the same community has been recognized since Dorsey’s (1885)
description of Omaha customs, where he frequently noted his informant Two
Crows’ denial of the existence of certain customs described by other informants
(Sapir 1938). Early field linguists studying variation between speech communities
often worried mostly about finding the truly authoritative informant (sometimes
defined, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, as the NORM “non-mobile, older rural male”
[Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 29]). This approach to language was challenged
with the development of sociolinguistics, and the realization that linguistic
variation often correlated with social variables, such as class, age or language
attitudes (Labov 1972). Outside of the field of sociolinguistics, intra-commu-
nity variation in endangered languages has often been understood primarily as
caused by varying degrees of linguistic competence, for example Dorian’s (1977,
1981) concept of the “semi-speaker”, which is often used as a basis for typolo-
226   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

gies of speaker competence (see also Grinevald’s 2011 approach to the issue of
speaker typologies). Linguists and anthropologists have since learned to accept
and indeed to expect community-internal variation, and there is some evidence
that linguistic variation is particularly prevalent in minority languages that
are in a process of contraction (Cook 1989; Dorian 2010). Variation and how to
valorize it presents a particular obstacle in linguistic revitalization where com-
munities are often eager to establish a set standard for what is to be considered
as correct speech that can be passed on to future generations. This causes an
implicit pressure to distinguish explicitly between correct and incorrect forms of
speaking. The question of which standard to choose may be further complicated
by intra-community discussions about who may claim status as an authoritative
speaker, creating a complex interaction between notions of authenticity, iden-
tity and language variation (Bucholtz 2003). At the same time, in revitalization
contexts there is often a paucity of speakers who are dominant in the indigenous
language, and the dominant speakers may not be able or willing to participate
in the project. Thus, the responsibility for passing on the language may fall on
speakers who are dominant in the majority language and speak the indigenous
language with less confidence. The indigenous language speech of such speak-
ers, sometimes called semi-speakers, may display considerable influence from
their first language. One question for a revitalization project then becomes how
to evaluate such speech. Should it be considered legitimate variation, or should
it be discouraged? In the following we make no such judgments, rather consider-
ing all variation among speakers who participate in the project to be potentially
legitimate variation regardless of whether it seems to be caused by interference
from Spanish.

2.3 Phonological variation

There is considerable phonological variation between Otomí speakers in Acazu-

lco. Several phonological distinctions appear to be lost among some speakers –
for example the distinction between mid-high and mid-low vowels. Some varia-
tion appears to correlate with gender, and some with age.3 Historically the vowel

3 In the previous sections we have used the practical Otomí orthography used for the revitaliza-
tion project in order to reflect the way the words are used in written materials in the community.
This orthography uses diaereses to mark vowel nasalization, underlined letters to mark mid-
low vowel quality, and diacritical marks to mark tone. In the following sections which describes
linguistic variation we use an IPA-based orthography to make it more accessible to linguists.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   227

system of Acazulco Otomí had nine distinct monophthong vowels /i e ɛ ɨ ɘ ɑ u o ɔ/

as well as a distinction between oral and nasal vowels for five of the vowel quali-
ties. However, the distinction between the mid vowels /e/ and /ɛ/, and /o/ and/ɔ/,
seems to be currently undergoing a merger among some speakers, perhaps under
the influence of Spanish. Figure 1 shows mean first and second formant values for
the mid back vowels taken from 90 word productions by Don Feliciano and Don
Felipe. As the figure shows, Don Feliciano produced [o] and [ɔ] quite distinctly.
Don Felipe’s vowels, on the other hand, show considerable overlap, especially
in terms of F1 (vowel height), suggesting that he has merged the two categories.

Fig. 1: Mean first and second formant frequencies for/ɔ/and/o/for two male talkers. Ellipses
indicate 95 % confidence intervals.

Following IPA conventions, the acute accent marks high tone and the caron marks rising tone.
Low tone is left unmarked.
228   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

2.4 Variation in spatial language

One of the topics we set out to document was the use of spatial language. Here we
consulted many more speakers than the primary three.
We had 10 speakers describe the 71 spatial scenes in the stimulus set Top-
ological Relations Picture Series (TRPS; Bowerman and Pederson 1992). The
TRPS stimulus set is aimed at eliciting location predications, and for each of 71
drawings of relations between two entities, the consultant is asked “Where is the
X?”. The ten consultants generally used the same set of predicates and construc-
tions in this task, although they differed in which patterns they preferred to use.
However, in use of a general location verb, significant variation was found. Aca-
zulco Otomí distinguishes between animate and inanimate location, reserving
the verb khǎ for inanimate entities and requiring ’mbɨi or a more specific posi-
tion verb for animate beings (people, animals and occasionally agaves). So, for
instance, Don Feliciano would correct the question ábɨ rà khǎ nɨ pɨ̌ʃkhwa? (TRPS
67, “where is the owl?”) to:

1) ábɨ rà mı�h k’a pɨ̌ʃkhwa?4

where 3.icp sit det.sg owl
“Where does that owl sit?”

Both he and Doña Trinidad consistently distinguished between animate and

inanimate location with different verbs and also explained the difference to us.
Attending to the animate/inanimate distinction and categorizing scenes as dif-
ferent by means of separate verbs appear to be fundamental to Otomí; it is also
salient in other varieties, such as Sierra Otomí (Dow 2005). The rest of our con-
sultants generally honoured this distinction as well, but a couple of them were
less consistent and sometimes extended khǎ to animate beings:

2) rà khǎ a mbo meʃa nɨ mbíʃtu

3.icp be prep in table det.sg cat
“The cat is under the table.”

(2) was uttered by a male consultant whom we were referred to by other speakers
in the village as another linguistic and cultural authority whom we would benefit

4 Gloss abbreviations conform to the Leipzig Glossing Rules. Apart from these standard abbre-
viations, the following abbreviations are used in this article: AUG – augmentative, CPL – com-
pletive, ICP – incompletive, PC – property concept, PO – primary object, PREP – preposition.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   229

from speaking with. It would seem that strict linguistic differentiation between
animate and inanimate is not required to be appreciated as a linguistic authority
by the community.
In order to examine the orientation system in Acazulco Otomí, we had 6 pairs
of speakers play a director-matcher game, Man and Tree (Levinson et al. 1992).
In this game, one speaker describes a set of photos and the other has to find the
matching photos in his/her own set. Many of the photos only differ as to spatial
configuration, and to solve the task, speakers have to employ a frame of reference
(FoR). Each pair played the game twice, swapping roles. To test whether choice
of spatial terms would depend on the interlocutors’ own location the game was
played in different parts of the village and facing different directions, rotating the
table when the players swapped roles. For 5 out of 6 pairs, the speakers routinely
and successfully employed a geocentric frame of reference, using four directions:
a rí gwaní (“uphill”, east), a rí thót’i (“downhill”, west), a ʃõ ̌ nthɘ (“at mountain”,
north) and a mbɔ̌ tɨdí (“where the ocote pines stand”, south) / a rí khóni (“across,
where it is flat”, south).
Among the 5 successful pairs employing geocentric directions, all relied on
reference to the same central east-west axis represented by a rí gwaní (“uphill”)
and a rí thót’i (“downhill”). Whether these directions are used so abstractly that
they can be categorized as absolute or whether they are geomorphic (in the
senses of O’Meara and Pérez Báez 2011) needs further investigation, but in exper-
iments as well as spontaneous speech they are used consistently by all fluent
speakers for communication about location on the east-west axis both within the
village and in the surrounding area. Equally consistent across participants and
loci for playing was the use of a ʃõ ̌ nthɘ (“at mountain”) to indicate location north
of something else. As for its counterpart, i.e. south, there was, however, some
variation. Most pairs consistently referred to south with a mbɔ̌ tɨdí (“where the
ocote pines stand”), whereas other pairs used instead a rí khóni (“across, where it
is flat”). Both terms were used and understood fluently in their respective pairs,
and it is possible that this type of variation pertains to either family (two of the
pairs were close relatives) or, more systematically, to subtle differences in angles
or position of the loci of playing on either side of the main road following the
uphill-downhill axis.
The last pair was a mother and her non-fluent son. They used a relative frame
of reference, utilizing loanwords from Spanish for left and right, but they used
these terms differently and thus did not manage to match the photos. Beside sup-
porting the more general finding that the relative FoR is not routinely employed
in Otomí communication about orientation (see also Hernández-Green et al.
(2011) for a discussion of Spanish loans in spatial language in another variety of
Otomí), this kind of variation points to an important challenge for revitalization:
230   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

different linguistic FoRs require different types of nonlinguistic routine attention

(cf. Pederson et al. 1998), and switching between linguistic FoRs when speaking
different languages (here: Otomí and Spanish) may thus prove more demanding
than acquiring vocabulary, syntax and traditional greetings for speakers who
acquire Otomí as their second language.

2.5 Morphological variation

Most of the morphosyntactic variation among the three consultants is related to

verb agreement. Don Feliciano tends to express 1st person object only by using the
1st person enclitic =ga; in addition, he sometimes omits the TAM/subject proclitics
when the context is sufficiently clear to establish reference. Don Felipe and Doña
Trinidad, on the other hand, consider this as lacking correctness, and they rarely
fail to express 1st person object with the suffix -gi/-ki ‘1po’ (primary object); they
rarely omit TAM/subject proclitic either. The kind of morphemes in bold used by
Doña Trinidad in (3a) are missing in Don Feliciano’s speech in (3b), where the
omission of the 3rd-person proclitic is permitted by the lack of a referential 3rd-per-
son agent in constructions such as these.

3) a. bi ’ndah-ki=ga dahtă pă=tshɛ

3.cpl give-1po=1 aug heat=alone
‘I got a real fever.’ {txt}
(Lit. ‘It gave me fever.’)

b. ’ndah=ka k’a ’ɨ-mbɨ

give=1 det.sg pain-belly
‘I get a stomach ache.’ {txt}
(Lit. ‘It gives me stomach ache.’)

Another difference among the consultants is that a structure similar to secondary

predication in other Mesoamerican languages (secondary predicate + primary
predicate, P2 + P1; see Aissen & Zavala 2010) is used widely by Doña Trinidad
(and other female speakers as well), as shown in (4), while it has not been found
in the speech of Don Felipe or Don Feliciano.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   231

4) P2 P1
/ʃĭ [d-ra zɔ] [ʰkă mbɘn]=k’a ’ndŏnkhwa
purp irr-pc.icp good 3.irr(adv) come.out=det.sg carrying.net
‘So that the carrying net is well done.’ {txt}
(Lit. ‘So that [it will be good] [it will come out] the carrying net.’
The two pairs of brackets enclose the secondary and the primary predicate,
respectively)

This type of linguistic variation is significant both because it correlates in certain

ways with language ideologies, and because it often ends up being the cause
of discord, triggering latent interpersonal or ideological differences. The next
section describes how this happens.

3 Ideologies of authority and authenticity

None of the three main speakers in the project had close personal relationships
with each other. What united these people was their interest in promoting the
language and their willingness to work with linguists in doing so. The relation
between the men was overtly antagonistic and competitive, whereas both men
had a good working relation with Doña Trinidad. In the following we will describe
the life histories of the main participants in the project which will demonstrate
how attitudes towards the language and motivation to participate in a revitaliza-
tion project are highly individual and associated with differences in life experi-
ence and personal outlook. It is also clear how this variation can cause interper-
sonal tensions that may jeopardize the possibility to make a revitalization project
coherent.

3.1 Don Feliciano: A hierarchical view of authority

Don Feliciano, the Supreme Chief of Acazulco’s indigenous council, grew up as

a monolingual speaker of the indigenous language for the main part of his child-
hood. His father was abusive and violent, and only allowed Feliciano a total of
three months of schooling during his childhood. This experience nonetheless
gave Feliciano a taste of learning and a deep appreciation of the value of literacy.
He says about the village in the past that “traían vendados los ojos, no sabían ni
leer ni escribir, la gente abusaba de ellos” (their eyes were blindfolded, they didn’t
know how to read or write, and outsiders would take advantage of them). As a
232   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

young man Feliciano taught himself to read and write, and went on to occupy
political posts within the community and to hold several positions of authority
within the civic religious hierarchies of the community. During his period as a
local politician in the 1960s, the community received electricity, a development
for which Don Feliciano takes credit. Don Feliciano simultaneously highly values
modernization through education and technological development, but also
deplores the loss of religious traditions and of traditional agricultural practices.
He has an extensive knowledge of traditional lore, which he generously shares
with community members who frequently seek him out for that purpose.
In relation to the language, his interest is two-fold: First, he wants to help the
community advance by securing recognition as an indigenous community. This
is the reason he wants some kind of tangible evidence for the fact that they speak
an indigenous language. He does not have much faith in the possibility of revi-
talization. Rather, he has a strong interest in what Moore (2006) terms memorial-
ization, that is, to record the ways in which his ancestors spoke, so that it will not
be forgotten. He argues that the ideal outcome would be the production of a dic-
tionary that records every word that his parents spoke, and which records each
word “exactamente como debe ser (exactly as it should be)”. When working with
linguists, he is extremely patient, speaking slowly and repeating when asked. He
is emphatic that it does not matter how long it takes, but that he wants us to write
down each word precisely as he says them. His speech has several idiosyncrasies
relative to other speakers: he uses a non-standard form of the morning greeting,
and what are apparently shortened forms of some suffixes, and he uses the dual
number category more frequently than many other speakers do. He frequently
abbreviates his utterances leaving out morphemes when they can be inferred
by context, and employs many Spanish borrowings, which he adapts to Otomí
phonology. He does not read or write the indigenous language, and when shown
samples of written language he is discouraged by the use of letters that do not
exist in the Spanish alphabet.
For Don Feliciano linguistic authenticity is a function of political authority:
authentic language is the language that is able to get things done. This point of
view is essentially pragmatic, focusing on the practical value of language as an
instrument. This view is also expressed in his desire for the dictionary, which
he sees as serving the primary function of providing the community with polit-
ical legitimacy. He also considers legitimate language to be marked by the ade-
quate recognition of social roles and hierarchies, by the use of the proper terms of
respect, such as correctly greeting one’s kúmbaytó’mbé (compadres [i.e. kinsmen
related not through blood but through ceremonial relations]) and elders. As an
elder of the town and the Supreme Chief, he sees himself as a linguistic authority,
and his language as inherently authentic. When he talks about “getting it right”
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   233

he means “writing it exactly as I say it”, and he does not generally draw upon
memory of past speech situations as a means of building authenticity or author-
ity. When asked specifically what authority decides what authentic Otomí is, he
answered that to be an authority you are elected by the community: “El pueblo
me eligió porque confían en mí.” (The community elected me because they have
confidence in me)

3.2 Don Felipe: A modernist and purist view of authority

Don Felipe was the language teacher appointed by the Otomí Council of Ndöngǘ.
He acquired passive knowledge of the language in childhood – his parents would
speak Otomí to each other, but not to him. However, he had a compelling mystical
narrative about how he came to take an active interest in reviving the language,
which we paraphrase here.
For most of his life, he did not think much about Otomí at all. When he was
about 40 years old he was widowed, and a series of events took place that changed
his view of the language. Shortly after he lost his wife, he had a dream in which
a group of elders approached him and entrusted him with a large old tome of
knowledge. He interpreted the tome as representing knowledge of the traditional
heritage of the community, and understood the dream to be encouraging him to
take an active interest in promoting the local language and cultural tradition.
At the time, he was a soccer coach, and one day as his local team was playing
against their archrivals, he started yelling instructions to his players in Otomí,
using expletives and demonstratives that even those who did not speak the lan-
guage knew well enough to understand. The other team was flabbergasted and
lost the game. From this day on, the players gave him the nickname khak’wa “Like
that!” which was one of his exclamations during the game. He began studying the
language on his own, using books written on other similar varieties, and convers-
ing with a friend who was a more proficient speaker. The two started a musical
group that would perform songs in the indigenous language while garbed in folk-
loric dress. He also took the initiative to organize and teach the first Otomí lan-
guage course in Acazulco, offering free classes for the children of the town twice
a week in the town hall, and for the rest of his life he was the prime mover behind
the Otomí language classes in Acazulco. One day he chanced a meeting with an
official from a state college for bilingual teachers, and he decided to take a certifi-
cation course. They required him to take an exam to demonstrate his proficiency
in the indigenous language (of which they spoke a different variety), and then
accepted him into the course. Here, he took classes in basic linguistics and peda-
gogy, and received a diploma as an indigenous language instructor. Each day on
234   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

his way to class, he noticed a small bird singing close to the school. One of his
classmates was a young woman from another indigenous community and Don
Felipe admired her work ethics and beauty, although they never talked and he
never saw her outside of the school grounds. On the last day of classes, she finally
talked to him and told him that what he was doing was praiseworthy and that he
would be a good teacher. She gave him a book about the language. As he left that
day, the little bird appeared again singing as he was leaving the school, and Don
Felipe realized that the young woman and the bird were one and the same, and
that they were manifestations of his deceased wife encouraging his efforts.
Don Felipe used this mystical narrative to justify his own linguistic authority
as coming not simply from books, but from a supernatural source, clearly beyond
reproach by those who would question his source of knowledge.
Don Felipe’s speech was different from that of many others in that he
appeared to be following a clear purist language ideology, avoiding Spanish loan
words as much as possible by inventing neologisms and discouraging the use
of crude language, even to the degree of inventing neologisms for indigenous
words that sound similar to rude words in Spanish. At the same time, his fluency
was limited and he rarely had extended conversations with fluent speakers of
the language. Indeed, around fluent speakers, he tended to avoid speaking in
Otomí, or he took a didactic stance and corrected their pronunciation or their use
of loan words. This behavior was perhaps encouraged by his self-image of having
authority as a language teacher. This won him few friends among the more fluent
speakers, none of whom considered him a legitimate or authentic speaker. Don
Feliciano particularly disliked Don Felipe, who he felt undercut his authority as a
speaker and a Supreme Chief by correcting him in public even during ceremonial
occasions. Perhaps because of his lack of colloquial fluency, Don Felipe focused
on literacy in his classes, and had a good understanding of the practical orthog-
raphy developed for the language. The fact that Don Felipe knew how to write
the language garnered a modicum of respect from some of the elders. In terms of
orthography, Don Felipe preferred a highly detailed script that marked all pho-
nemic distinctions, including tones. His understanding of the language system
was good, and he was invaluable in helping the linguists translate and transcribe
recorded speech. He knew the language was tonal, but he did not have full aware-
ness of how tonal distinctions manifest (nor do any of the fluent speakers, who all
recognize tonal minimal pairs but have a very hard time describing what makes
them different), but nonetheless he insisted that the local orthography should be
as phonemically accurate as possible. This may also be partly because the stand-
ard orthography, based on Mezquital Otomí, does not indicate tone, and by indi-
cating tone the local orthography can be argued to be “even more correct” than
the standard orthography. This was part of a larger argument of his, which sees
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   235

Acazulco Otomí as the most ancient and most original, and the other varieties of
Otomí as adulterated or debased. His pronunciation was extremely clear, almost
exaggeratedly so, but he did not distinguish between high-mid and low-mid
vowels (see section 2.3), and in conversation his rhythm and intonation differed
from that of the fluent speakers. He took strong exception to the elision of mor-
phemes and the unclear pronunciation he perceived in Don Feliciano’s speech.
He also argued that since the traditional indigenous language name of the town
is not a direct translation of the Nahuatl name Acazulco a new direct translation
should be preferred instead.
Don Felipe saw linguistic authority as stemming from academic knowledge
and from an analytic awareness of how language is to be used. He had a high
degree of respect for linguistic knowledge and analysis. He gave authenticity and
authority to his own neologisms by rationally arguing for their use. He would
argue that his terms were preferable because they were not offensive, because
they were not loanwords, or because they established a less ambiguous reference
to objects in the world.
Don Felipe died suddenly in 2012, which was a hard blow to the language
course. The classes are now organized by Efrén Maíz, a young man who is in the
process of learning Otomí. He relies on the assistance of two fluent speakers (one
of them Doña Trinidad) to help him teach. His pedagogical method emphasizes
conversational competency rather than literacy.

3.3 Doña Trinidad: A traditionalist view of authority

Doña Trinidad is a widow and a great grandmother who lives with her extended
family as head of the household. She is a fully fluent speaker and spoke only
Otomí throughout her youth. She appreciates Otomí especially because of the
way it connects her to her family, her parents, her late husband and her in-laws.
She says that, “mbwɨ ndídí tegá hín dra põhka gídi jõɁmphɨgá, porke drí jũhṹ. mbwɨ
ndí míhká, k’ɨ mtáɁgambé jũhṹɨ. Hím bra põdí gin yɔ ra jõɁmphɨ. … bi jũhṹɨ, ora ʃo
ngentho di yɔgá ra jũhṹ. (When I grew up I didn’t know how to speak Spanish,
because I am Otomí. When I was born our parents were Otomíes, they didn’t know
how to speak Spanish… They were Otomíes, well now I also speak Otomí.)” She
tells of learning the language through instruction by her parents in the daily tasks
of the household. Her mother would issue orders and she would obey, gradu-
ally expanding her vocabulary as well as her repertoire of household skills. Doña
Trinidad did not teach Otomí to her children, who apparently did not want to
learn it, but she speaks it regularly with some of her older relatives such as her
sister in-law. For Doña Trinidad her language is a part of her social identity and
236   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

something of which she is proud, a pride in tradition also reflected in the fact that
she is one of the few women in Acazulco who still wear the traditional woolen
skirt.
All other speakers to/with whom we have talked consider her speech exem-
plary and fully legitimate. She uses few Spanish loan words, although she does
not seem averse to using them. She has a high degree of metalinguistic awareness
and recognizes minimal pairs and paradigms, and explains them in lay terms.
She is illiterate and consequently has no orthographic preferences. When she
has time she participates in Efrén’s classes, and she does so because she believes
it important for children to hear a proficient speaker. She acknowledged Don
Felipe’s efforts and recognizes that he was not a proficient speaker, but argues
that people should not criticize him unless they are themselves willing to teach
the language. She says her reason for participating in the teaching program is
that it would be beautiful for local children to learn about their roots, and about
what it means to be an indigenous Acazulco person.
When she talks about how to use the language she repeats verbatim the
voices of those family members who used it in the past, quoting what seems to
be her memory of their exact words. For her, the final source of authenticity is
her memory of how those past people spoke to her, often remembering the exact
situation in which words were spoken, and using the tone of voice in which they
were said. When asked what authority decides what is legitimate Otomí is, she
answered “Bueno, todos nosotros que crecimos con el otomí, los de mi generación,
todos lo sabemos hablar bien. Solamente hay que invitarlos a todos a una junta
para que nos pongamos de acuerdo de cómo hablarlo bien. (All of those of us who
grew up speaking Otomí, my generation, we all know how to speak it right. We
just need to invite them all to a meeting and decide together what is the correct
way to speak it.)”5

4 Conflicts and solutions

From the short biographies of the three primary community members who
showed an interest in participating in revitalization work in Acazulco, it should
be obvious that there are several possible sources of micro-political tension. Each

5 At Doña Trinidad’s suggestion, such a meeting of as many of the native speakers as possible
was organized, but did not turn out exactly as planned as it only came to include Doña Trinidad
and two of her friends who all agreed on a single usage.
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   237

individual is motivated by a specific set of life experiences and ways of under-

standing the value of Otomí, and each has a highly personal way of conceptualiz-
ing the relation between authority and authenticity, which would make it exceed-
ingly difficult for them to agree on a single standard for speaking and teaching.
At the same time, each has a different set of strengths and weaknesses to bring to
the project, which would make it highly desirable if it were possible to make the
three work together respecting each other’s unique abilities. Now that Don Felipe
has passed away, many of the tensions have disappeared or become irrelevant.
Nonetheless a new set of tensions have come into play by the fact that the current
Otomí teacher Efrén Maíz is even less proficient as a speaker of Otomí than Don
Felipe was, although he has much better personal relations with all involved.
In the collaboration between Feliciano, Trinidad and Felipe, micro-political
tensions arose in several areas:
– Personal competition: The need felt by participants to bolster their own sense
of identity by taking on an authoritative role may lead to competition, which
is waged by dismissing the forms of knowledge other speakers have and ele-
vating one’s own criteria of authenticity.
– Different understandings of the nature of linguistic authority and the source of
authentic language: Linguistic authority can be derived from the political and
social authority of the speaker, from the degree of academic preparation and
literacy, or from memories of the speech of older generations. Each of these in
turn implies different criteria of authenticity valuing either referential/com-
municative adequacy, theoretical adequacy, or historical adequacy. The role
of purism as a challenge to revitalization has often been noted (e.g., Dorian
1994), but the possible role of other more subtle differences in ideologies of
authorities has generally been left unexplored.
– Different understandings of what makes language valuable: In the case of
Acazulco, this understanding varies from the politically pragmatic approach
exemplified by Don Feliciano, to the highly social value ascribed to the lan-
guage by Doña Trinidad, to the highly personal way in which Don Felipe tied
his own identity as a teacher to his love for his wife.
– Linguistic variation: The evaluation of linguistic variation as either neutral
or problematic is tied to both interpersonal relations and the perception of
different degrees of proficiency. Doña Trinidad had a good personal relation
with both Don Felipe and Don Feliciano, and both of them spoke highly of
her proficiency. However, because of their mutual competition the two men
each deprecated the proficiency of the other in relation to their own criteria
of authority and authenticity.
– Gender and social class. The norms about who has the right to claim particu-
lar kinds of authority in particular situations are often gendered. Even when
238   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

they are unspoken, there may be powerful social constraints on women when
working together with men in a revitalization project like this. In Acazulco,
Doña Trinidad does not seem to feel restrained in her participation, although
perhaps her ability to work well with both of the male participants is partly
due to the gendered norms of conduct. Nevertheless, we have experienced
a clear tendency for male participants to be socially dominant in ways that
make female participants uncomfortable in mixed gender interview situa-
tions. Similar restrictions can be expected to arise from class distinctions,
but this did not play a role in this specific project, probably both because of
the relative socio-economic homogeneity of Acazulco, and because none of
the participants were from the upper layers of Acazulcan society.
– Orthographic choices: This is one area of ideological variation that has
received ample attention from linguists, exactly because it is often a crucial
point in determining the success of a revitalization project. Should orthog-
raphies be more phonemic or phonetic, designed to be easy to type, read or
learn, or similar to or different from Spanish orthography? How important is
similarity to orthographies of other Otomí varieties? Should tone be marked
or not? Or maybe a standardized orthography is not necessary at all? (See
Bartholomew [1979] and Bernard [1980] to see how linguists have argued
about this question for Otomí specifically).
– Primacy of discursive/pragmatic, lexical/grammatical or literary competences:
is it more important to teach the norms for what to say to whom and when or
to teach how to form new utterances, or how to read and write the language?

All of these areas of tension are tied to each other in complex ways so that stances
taken on one issue may have effects on others. Each of the areas of micro-politi-
cal tension may lead to eruptions of conflicts as participants and linguists work
together towards establishing a set of norms. In the case of Acazulco, tension
regarding orthography has been minimal, because the two most proficient partic-
ipants do not read the texts produced by the linguists. Rather in our experience
conflict has erupted mostly because of interpersonal animosity and competition,
and due to tension between fully fluent speakers and semi-speakers. One such
case happened when Don Feliciano objected to Don Felipe being mentioned as
“maestro” in the text material, since he was not a “real” maestro but rather an
“instructor” (i.e. someone who teaches without having a teacher’s education).
Another example was when Don Felipe told the linguists that Don Feliciano was
really too old and feeble minded for his statements to be considered authoritative
(in actuality, Feliciano has an outstanding memory). In both these cases the par-
ticipants criticized each other in private to the linguists, which put the linguists in
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   239

the awkward position of either having to tacitly or explicitly validate or challenge

their mutual critiques.

5 From speaker typologies to the speaker as

individual
As can be seen from the description of how individual speakers construct their
own personal ideologies of language based on their life experiences and stances,
it is not necessarily informative or useful to divide speakers based on linguistic
competence. As Dorian (2010) notes, linguistic variation need not correlate with
competence, and neither do linguistic ideologies.
Classifying Don Felipe as a “semi-speaker” or an “L2 speaker” would perhaps
tell us something about his standing relative to other more fluent speakers.
However, it would not explain how it is that in spite of such a classification he
can create a position of linguistic authority for himself through the use of a spe-
cific set of language ideologies. It also does not explain why some first language
speakers have accepted that position. Similarly, what separates Don Feliciano
and Doña Trinidad is not their degrees of competence, but their ideologies of
authority – which for each of them forms an integrated whole with their lived lin-
guistic experience. For Don Feliciano, appreciation of the language did not come
from the fact that it was spoken by his abusive father, but rather from the pres-
tige it could bring him in the social circles of Acazulco where Otomí was valued,
such as in the sphere of religious organization. On the other hand, Doña Trinidad
remembers her Otomí speaking parents fondly, and they became her main source
of value for the language. In short, language ideologies are not simply a function
of the metalinguistic discourses circulated in a community, but also of the lived
experience that make some ideologies resonate with our subjective sense of self,
more than others. If linguists begin to understand language ideologies as more
than simple circulating political discourses, we will become able to make much
closer analyses of how language ideologies circulate and thrive in communities,
and the task of “ideological clarification” (Kroskrity 2009) or “ideological manip-
ulation” (Loether 2009) will become much easier.
In the end, language revitalization is not carried out by linguists and com-
munities, but by a group of individuals who relate to their community in different
ways, who have different social and political visions, and who choose to partic-
ipate in the project of revitalization for different reasons. Dwyer (2006) consid-
ers the role of the linguist in a revitalization context to be that of the mediator,
mediating between a Western academic set of ideologies and the ideologies of
240   Magnus Pharao Hansen, Néstor Hernández-Green, Rory Turnbull, Ditte Boeg Thomsen

the community. We think that, at least in a socio-political context such as the one
found in San Jerónimo Acazulco, the role of the linguist should also be that of the
mediator between the individuals who participate in the project, and their differ-
ent ways of conceptualizing its goals. This requires the linguist to strive towards
achieving a strong empathic understanding of the people with whom they work,
because this is necessary in order to mediate between opposing views and ideol-
ogies, and also in interpersonal conflicts. By building strong relationships with
the participants and by relating to them as individuals with individual goals and
needs, we both diminish the risk of having the project be experienced as exploit-
ative or otherwise disappointing by the participants, and increase the likelihood
of the revitalization project succeeding.

6 Authority in language revitalization and in

Acazulco
In Mexico, and probably in many contexts in Latin America and elsewhere, lin-
guists interested in working with language revitalization are confronted with
the challenge that there are no clear political structures that can support and
authenticate a linguistic standard. Rather in many cases there can be different
groups within a language community who have different reasons to be interested
in revitalization, which may or may not be compatible. As Costa and Gasquet-
Cyrus (2013) point out, this frequently or perhaps inevitably means that as a lin-
guist taking a neutral position in relation to these different views is not an option.
When a language community has a political organization where the authority to
authenticate linguistic issues is clearly defined, the choice of political position
of the linguist is obvious, and this has been the case in many of the best docu-
mented cases of language revitalization projects in the USA and Canada (McCarty
2013). But when this is not the case, as tends to be the case in Mexico, the linguist
has to navigate the micro-political context in a way that makes a positive outcome
of the project most likely. Sometimes this may entail assisting the community in
creating a political structure that can support the project, and at other times this
requires simply accepting that it is only possible to work with a segment of the
community and tailor one’s efforts to the ideologies and wishes of that segment.
That is, in relation to the question mentioned in the introduction regarding
whether to engage in a process of “ideological clarification” or whether to simply
accept and embrace the presence of ideological conflict, we would neither commit
fully to Kroskrity’s strategy of ideological clarification as consensus building,
nor to Costa and Gasquet-Cyrus’ conflictive view with its emphasis on choosing
 Life histories, language attitudes and linguistic variation   241

sides. Rather the choice of doing either should be taken within a specific politi-
cal stance (sometimes relatively micro-political as in the case of Acazulco, some-
times relatively macro-political as in the case of Provence). We argue that the lin-
guist should strive for ideological clarification by first understanding the views,
ideologies and stakes for the individuals who are investing their time and interest
in the project. Then the choice of when to strive for consensus and when to accept
heterogeneity can be made with a clearer view of the possible outcomes. In the
context of San Jerónimo Acazulco, where the community of speakers is small but
the amount of ideological and interpersonal tension and linguistic variation is
considerable, we have found the role as mediators striving to build consensus
to be the best option. It has allowed us to maintain good relations with the par-
ticipants, in spite of their divergent views, and to mitigate some of the interper-
sonal conflict by working to understand the different views involved, so that the
process of ideological clarification can proceed and a consensus can be formed.
Currently one challenge for the revival project concerns the question of
whether the community should opt for a strategy based on memorialization or
regeneration (Moore 2006). In the former case, the production and circulation of
a canon of knowledge of certain words, phrases and discourses, may be enough
to form a basis for the reproduction of a cultural identity, and for achieving the
political recognition that seems to be the main goal of Don Feliciano.6 In the latter
case, the main objective would be to foster communicative competence in the
children who attend the weekly classes with Efrén Maíz and Doña Trinidad, such
as they both envision. But just like the linguistic ideologies of Don Feliciano,
Doña Trinidad and Don Felipe were motivated not simply by conscious choices
but also by the role that the language played within the context of their lives, in
the same way, perhaps the conscious choice of revitalization strategy matters less
than what kinds of experiences it engenders in the children and youths who will
carry the future of the Otomí language in Acazulco.

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Suslak, Daniel. F. 2011. Ayapan echoes: Linguistic persistence and loss in Tabasco, Mexico.
American Anthropologist 113 (4). 569–581.
Urban, Greg & Joel Sherzer (eds.). 1991. Nation-States and Indians in Latin America. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Villard, Stéphanie & J. Ryan Sullivant. Language documentation in two communities with high
migration rates. In Gabriela Pérez Báez, Chris Rogers & Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada (eds.),
Language documentation and revitalization in Latin American contexts, 273–304. Berlin
and Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.
Voigtlander, Katherine & Artemisa Echegoyen. 1985 [1979]. Luces contemporaneas del Otomi:
Grámatica del Otomi de la Sierra. Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
Wallis, Ethel E. 1964. Mezquital Otomi verb fusion. Language 40 (1). 75–82.
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Whaley, Lindsay. 2011. Some ways to endanger an endangered language project. Language and
Education 25 (4). 339–348.
Whiteley, P. 2003. Do “language rights” serve indigenous interests? Some Hopi and other
queries. American Anthropologist 105 (4). 712–722.
Chris Rogers
10 Indigenous authenticity as a goal
of language documentation and
revitalization: Addressing the
motivations in the Xinkan community

1 Introduction
The four Xinkan languages (ISO codes: xin, qco, qda, qhq, qsd)1 were once spoken
widely throughout southeastern Guatemala, and possibly beyond (Campbell
1972, 1979, 1997; COPXIG 2004; Rogers 2010; Sachse 2010). However, language
transmission declined early during European colonization and ceased entirely
in the middle of the 20th century due to the extreme social and political atmos-
phere in Guatemala. This has resulted in a complete shift away from the use of
these languages to the use of the national language, Spanish. There is currently
only one ‘speaker’ of any of the Xinkan languages: he is able to understand audio
recordings of past fluent speakers of Xinkan well, but has difficulty producing
novel utterances without significant practice  – he has commented that he is
more comfortable with the Guazacapán Xinka audio than the other varieties (see
below). There are also a few men and women who have varying abilities in under-
standing one of the Xinkan languages or who have self-identified as remembering
when Xinkan languages were spoken more widely – they often produce idiomatic
expressions of varying accuracy to validate their claims. All of these individuals
are over the age of 75.
Interestingly, in response to the general trend of cultural reaffirmation in
Guatemala, there is a strong presence of heritage Xinkan community members
interested in these languages. These individuals range in age from 16 to 40 years
old, and do not have memories of ever hearing Xinkan spoken beyond isolated

1 Until recently (within the last five years) the Xinkan languages were classified as a single lan-
guage in the academic literature under the ISO-code [xin]. However, current practice is to be
more precise by providing an ISO-code for each of the four known languages. Information on the
Xinkan languages can be found under any of the five ISO-codes listed above.

Chris Rogers, Brigham Young University

248   Chris Rogers

phrases and words by their grandparents (if they knew them). In their lifetime
there have been no spaces preserved for the use of the Xinkan languages. They
consequently approach the Xinkan language once spoken closest to the towns
where they reside, as a foreign language. Nevertheless, despite having never
acquired Xinkan, these community members use one of the varieties as a sym-
bolic marker of intercommunity and personal identity. For example, commu-
nity members from the town of Chiquimulilla take special interest in Chiquim-
ulilla Xinka as a representation of their cultural heritage. It is interesting that
this developing identity is focused around language rather than more tangible
cultural practices (e.g., clothing). However, this group of community members
is not concerned with either revitalization or preservation of the Xinkan lan-
guages, because they lack the resources, infrastructure, and a speaker base (see
the discussion of similar situations in the contributions by O’Meara and GuadaÂ�
rrama; Yañez Rosales et al.; and Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarang-
yang Balna, this volume). For this community, scientific language documentation
is more valuable than the applied outcomes of that documentation. Language
�documentation is viewed as a means to an end: a way of claiming and creating an
authentic indigenous identity. This identity, in turn, provides them with access
to social and political resources. Their motivation to document their languages
is consequently different than the one typically assumed by the community of
academics concerned with sustaining the world’s linguistic diversity. A more in
depth discussion of the characteristics of the Xinkan community is presented
below, in Section 3.
For many academic scholars interested in and committed to language doc-
umentation and revitalization, efforts are begun and sustained for a variety of
reasons. Often these reasons are based on a system of assumptions about the
central significance of language to humans, such as: the value of linguistic diver-
sity, human rights violations, or the scientific value of each language (see Rogers
and Campbell [2011] for references to these assumptions). However, in the Xinkan
community, language documentation and revitalization are not motivated by
these same assumptions, but by more pragmatic requirements to develop a
unique cultural and social identity. This difference in motivations creates a useful
context for appreciating the Xinkan community and for highlighting how an out-
sider academic linguist can and should be involved in the language planning
activities of the community.
This chapter discusses the motivations of the Xinkan community to partici-
pate in language documentation against the background of accepted motivations
and outcomes in the larger academic community. This discussion of motivations
in turn contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the difference between com-
munity motivation and academic motivation in choosing to be involved with lan-
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   249

guage documentation and revitalization; the general goal being to improve the
way language revitalization and documentation are practiced (see Pérez-Báez,
this volume, for similar discussions about community and linguist motivation). In
order to properly contextualize this claim, a brief overview of the accepted moti-
vations suggested in published, academic sources is provided first, in Section 2.
In Section 3, I then explain the sociolinguistic context of the Xinkan community,
highlighting three specific conflicts of identity in appreciating Xinkan motiva-
tion, all of which have to do with language: (1) a conflict between the Spanish
speaking population and the Xinkan community; (2) a conflict between a Spanish
speaking community with historical ties to native communities and the Xinkan
community; and (3) a conflict between other native language communities and
the Xinkan community. In Section 4, I discuss some of the linguistic peculiarities
of the Xinkan languages which are being used to resolve these conflicts in favor
of the Xinkan community identity. Lastly, in Section 5, I conclude with comments
about how the Xinkan community’s motivation might inform ideas and thinking
about language documentation and revitalization methodology and planning.

2 Endangered languages, language

�documentation and language revitalization
Over the last few decades the realities of the world’s linguistic diversity has
been made apparent (e.g., Fishman 1991; Krauss 1992; Crystal 2000; Nettle and
Romaine 2000; Brenzinger 2007). Languages, and their inextricably related
cultures, are being replaced (sometimes forcibly) as their speakers face the
demands of globalization and conformity. This has led linguists to suggest that
large numbers of the world’s languages will become “extinct” in the next 100
years (e.g., Crystal 2000; Krauss 1992; Romaine 2007). More tangible estimates
report that 34 % of the approximately 7,000 languages in the world are threatened
and another larger percentage are already extinct or about to become so (Lewis,
Simons, and Fenning 2014). Similarly, UNESCO notes that based on the reports of
individuals worldwide 43 % of the world’s languages are “endangered” and will
be lost by the end of this century (Moseley 2010). Most recently, the Catalogue of
Endangered Languages confirms the UNESCO findings that 43 % of the world’s
languages are endangered (Campbell, Lee, Okura, Simpson and Ueki 2013). As
a result of this situation, the global community in general, and the speakers of
these languages in specific, experience a loss of identity, diversity, humanity,
culture, and knowledge.
250   Chris Rogers

Guided by concrete assumptions about the importance of linguistic diver-

sity to many areas of human culture and development, language endangerment
is met by specific actions and activities which aim to stabilize and increase the
number of languages spoken around the world. Consequently, it does not come as
a surprise that, in response to these real and projected losses, documentation and
revitalization of native languages and cultures has gained new importance and
urgency among scholars and language communities around the world (e.g., Gre-
noble and Whaley 1998, 2006; Hinton and Hale 2001; Harrison, Rood and Dwyer
2008; Grenoble and Furbee 2010, Austin and Sallabank 2011). As twin heads in
a global effort to respond to the crisis of endangered languages and to conserve
the world’s intangible linguistic heritage, language documentation and revital-
ization result in: (1) the preservation of and access to linguistic records, and (2)
increasing the social profile and use of these languages.
Focused on these scholarly activities and ideals, significant advances have
been made in establishing necessary best practices and methods for language
documentation and revitalization activities (Fishman 1991; Grenoble and Whaley
1998; Hinton and Hale 2001; Errington 2003; Gippert, Himmelmann and Mosel
2006; Moseley 2010; Whaley 2011; Crippen and Robinson 2013, inter alia).
However, much of this discussion on best practices has been, and continues to
be, developed from the perspective of North American, European, Australian, or
New Zealand scholarship. There is nothing inherently wrong with this emphasis,
but often these best practices are transferred ‘in theory’ to other areas around the
world, but in practice are difficult to follow. In fact this volume provides evidence
that for many scholars and community members the suggested best practices do
not always seem straight-forwardly applicable. One example of this difference
between suggested best practices and the needs of practicing field linguists and
language communities is the fact that outside of the scholarly published mate-
rials on language endangerment (cited above), the motivation to engage in revi-
talization and documentation is not always about preserving or increasing lin-
guistic diversity or its value to human culture and development. Consequently,
the expectation that the ‘correct’ response to language endangerment results in
increased numbers of speakers of a language may not always be appropriate.
This difference in expectations and motivations means that what is valued as a
response to the loss of linguistic diversity is dependent on a specific community
context.
Collectively, the work cited above suggests specific motivations for participa-
tion in language endangerment, language documentation, and language revital-
ization. Crystal (2000: 27–67) is a good summary of these motivations: “because
we need diversity”, “because language expresses identity”, “because language
are repositories of history”, “because languages contribute to the sum of human
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   251

knowledge”, and “because languages are interesting in themselves”. However, in

many communities around the world the motivation to engage in language doc-
umentation and revitalization comes from different sources, such as their desire
for individual and community recognition or the opportunity to make a political
statement (both of which contribute to the motivations in the Xinkan commu-
nity). These are not identical to the accepted responses cited by scholars and aca-
demics in the literature mentioned above. Members of these communities around
the world value their linguistic and cultural heritage but belong to communities
that have been marginalized, or completely ignored, by their local and national
governments. Cultural marginalization can occur for many reasons, such as, the
number of speakers in a community, political inequality (with the marginalized
community being dominated), low levels of education, poverty, or civil rights
infractions such as racial prejudice, among others. In light of the cultural and lin-
guistic reaffirmation in various places throughout the world this marginalization
and the desire to end it motivates involvement with language documentation and
revitalization.
Occasionally, specific legislation is created to support these marginalized
communities in these efforts. This has been the case in Guatemala and is dis-
cussed in detail in the next section. However, this legislation (which often comes
from various national and international sources) is a double-edged sword. It
creates protection for and support of human and linguistic rights, but it also has
motivated, required, or demanded that individuals claim an indigenous heritage
in order to receive these benefits. This has the potential of motivating interest in
language only as it provides the equity and rights needed; marginalized com-
munities are consequently required to claim linguistic identity and legitimate
authenticity in an environment of extreme competition for social, political, eco-
nomic and cultural resources (see Jancewicz, MacKenzie, Guanish, and Nabini-
caboo 2002; Harrison, Rood and Dwyer 2008; MacCaluim 2007; and Warren 1998
for some specific examples).
Communities which can be characterized this way potentially find motiva-
tion for language documentation and revitalization in political or social activ-
ism  – rather than the preservation of linguistic diversity. Many communities
throughout Latin America fall within this categorization. Members of the Xinkan
community, for example, have commented to me that they are not interested in
language revitalization programs, but in opportunities to create political and
social legislation which would benefit individuals or their local communities.
252   Chris Rogers

3 The sociolinguistic context of Xinkan identity

In many ways the Xinkan community is a contemporary construct. There has
never been a community of individuals united linguistically, geographically, or
politically called Xinkan until after 1995 (see the discussion about the Acuerdo
sobre Identidad y Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas below). Even now, in fact,
only people active in community building refer to a “Xinkan community”, most
refer to themselves as Pipil (a Uto-Aztecan language spoken in the geographical
region where the Xinkan languages were used). A group of non-Mayan speak-
ing individuals has been mentioned in the general regions occupied by the
current Xinkan community since the earliest records of European colonializa-
tion. However, these references do not refer to the term “Xinka” until the late 18th
century (Maldonado 1770; Calderón 1908; Lehmann 1920; Termer 1948; Sachse
2010). This label does not appear to be a term with any specific meaning in the
language (though see Rogers 2010 for speculation about its etymology)2 and it
seems to have come into use by some individuals only after years of colonial pol-
icies of grouping and characterizing groups of people for administrative needs.
Similarly, historical records and personal narratives indicate a group of loosely
connected, independent communities in terms of cultural and social organiza-
tion (Calderón 1908; Schumann 1967; Feldman 1974, Dary 2003; Sachse 2010).
Consequently, throughout the recorded history of the Xinkan languages, speakers
represented a high level of variation in a relatively small geographic area. In con-
sequence of the adoption of the term ‘xinka’, published sources refer to a specific
linguistic variety by the town, or in some cases the neighborhood, where it was
used (Maldonado 1770; Calderón 1908; Lehmann 1920; Schumann 1967; Campbell
1972, 1979, 1997; Kaufman 1977; COPXIG 2004; Rogers 2010; Sachse 2010). The
four known languages are labeled now as “Guazacapán Xinka”, “Chiquimulilla
Xinka”, “Jumaytepeque Xinka”, and “Yupiltepeque Xinka”; other noted varieties
about which little or no information is known include: Sinacantán Xinka, Jutiapa
Xinka, and North Chiquimulilla Xinka (Calderón 1908; Lehman 1920). These
Xinkan towns are all in the department of Santa Rosa in Guatemala, and con-
sequently this can be considered the contemporary geographical region of the
Xinkan community.

2 Anything suggested about the etymology of the term “xinka” is purely speculative, as far as is
known it holds no meaning in any of the Xinkan languages. It was used in the earliest known
record of the Xinkan languages (Maldonado 1770), as szinca. Spelling for this term has fluctuated
since then as sinca, sinka, xinka, or xinca.
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   253

Linguistically, the last fully fluent speakers of any of the Xinkan varieties
claimed the four general varieties were mutually unintelligible. This has been cor-
roborated by linguistic evidence, which clearly shows separate (though similar)
grammatical systems (see Rogers 2010). The last speaker of Xinkan mentioned
in the introduction (above) self-identifies as a Guazacapán Xinka user, while the
self-identified remembers come from a variety of communities and consequently
recall different language varieties. Linguistically, the term “Xinkan” is used to
refer to these language varieties as a group.
Culturally, the term “Xinkan” has come to symbolize more than a shared cul-
tural and linguistic past, it identifies a group of communities as being cohesive
and united on the national and international stage. Membership in this commu-
nity is a matter of political or social self-identification rather than linguistic or
cultural identity. Individuals belonging to the Xinkan community do not speak
a Xinkan variety, nor do they have the opportunity of learning Xinkan because
of the absence of a speaker base. Similarly, individuals belonging to the Xinkan
community do not practice a single set of cultural behaviors beyond the dominant
Spanish speaking national culture; elements of a historical “Xinkan culture” are
unclear (at best) and have long since been eroded in favor of the national culture
(Feldman 1974; Warren 1998; Adams and Bastos 2003).
Instead, community membership is claimed within the context of native
identities in Guatemala as a way of joining the current national (and interna-
tional) discussion of and support for cultural and linguistic diversity and reaf-
firmation. Nationally, Guatemala officially recognizes “Xinkan” as one of their
native communities and consequently grants it certain rights under law (see
below). However, without a spoken language or distinctive culture, community
members struggle to highlight their uniqueness and separateness from either the
dominant Spanish-speaking culture or the various Mayan speaking communities
in Guatemala. This uniqueness and separateness is essential in taking advantage
of the privileges granted to the Xinkan community, and community members are
motivated to participate in language documentation and revitalization activities
by this potential outcome; that is, these activities are means to an end, rather
than community goals themselves.

3.1 The Xinkan community in Guatemala

It is widely known that Guatemala’s social and political history is checkered with
opposition, oppression, conflict, and prejudice which have resulted in the loss of
and shift away from the behaviors and practices of native communities – includ-
ing language use. This has resulted in civil and political unrest throughout the
254   Chris Rogers

country for centuries (Muñoz 1993–1999). Relatively recently, however, a number

of communities have begun to recuperate cultural and linguistic losses through
the reaffirmation of their cultural and linguistic heritages. These efforts have
been aided by key legislations and policies which seek to acknowledge the value
of and need for cultural and linguistic diversity in Guatemala. In 1995, after years
of civil war, the Acuerdo sobre Identidad y Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas,
(Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples) was signed, which for
the first time officially recognized Guatemala’s native Mayan, Xinkan and Gari-
funa communities. This legislation specifically recognizes the “discrimination,
exploitation and injustice” practiced on and in the native communities of Guate-
mala and that this has affected individual rights and national and political par-
ticipation. In response to this history the Agreement specifies the value of each
community’s language, culture and identity.
This is a favorable piece of legislation in Guatemala. However, the discussion
of indigenous peoples throughout the Agreement centers on languages descend-
ing from “a common Mayan root” and their surrounding cultures and communi-
ties (Acuerdo sobre identidad, 1997). Mention is made of the Xinkan community as
being distinct from these linguistic and cultural sources, but little is said beyond
that. This is most likely because little was (and is) known about the Xinkan lan-
guages, communities, and culture. Their identity is officially recognized but not
defined, and for many Guatemalans this recognition is considered a lip service
only (Adams and Bastos 2003; Muñoz 1993–1999; Smith 1990: 3; Warren 1998).
Nevertheless the descendants of the Xinkan speakers also want (and deserve) the
opportunities specified for their Mayan speaking neighbors. This creates the need
to define the Xinkan identity, and following the wording in the Agreement, this is
done through the use of language, culture and community. Xinkan community
members are consequently very interested in using these parameters as a way of
carving out a social and political space for their community: one that is different
from the national Spanish-speaking culture; different from the Mayan-speaking
culture; and different from the Spanish-speaking descendants of native language
speaking people (called ladinos in Guatemala). This is a challenging task since on
the surface all self-identified Xinkan community members speak only Spanish,
participate only in the national culture, and belong to a group of non-indigenous
communities. The Xinkan community must claim native ancestry (i.e., that they
are the descendants of previous generations of native Guatemalan individuals)
while showing that they are distinct from the Mayan languages and cultures, and
the Spanish-speaking majority.
The Agreement established the fact that Xinkan community members do
have native ancestry, but for many Guatemalans Xinkas are ladinos and are not
considered to form a culture or community different from the national culture
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   255

(Warren 1998: 9). From the perspective of the Xinkan community, this implies
a need to differentiate Xinkan-ness from the ladino culture  – to reaffirm their
indigenous identity. The Agreement also recognized indigenous communities in
need of protection, but does so in terms of Mayan linguistic and cultural history.
Indigenous practices, communities, and opportunities are specified throughout
the Agreement in terms of Mayan-ness; in fact, for many, the Mayan community
is the indigenous population of Guatemala. From the perspective of the Xinkan
community this implies the need to differentiate Xinkan-ness from Mayan-ness.
The challenge for the Xinkas is in showing that the Agreement is not just political
lip service, but that Xinkas are authentically unique and indigenous in Guate-
mala. They must show that the Xinkan community has different goals and moti-
vations from the Mayans and the Ladinos.

3.2 Defining Xinkan identity

Relatively recently (within the last seven to ten years) many individuals – men
and women who self-identify as Xinkan – have organized themselves to meet the
needs of authenticity and uniqueness inherent in the wording of the Agreement.
As a result two governance organizations have been formed: the Consejo del
Pueblo Xinka de Guatemala (Council of the Xinkan People of Guatemala, COPXIG)
and the Parlamento del Pueblo Xinka de Guatemala (Parliament of the Xinkan
People of Guatemala, PAPXIG). Both of these organizations have been officially
recognized by the national Guatemalan government, and they work in tandem in
expressing interest in the Xinkan languages as a means of defining Xinkan iden-
tity. It is important to note that members of each of these organizations do not
always agree on the necessary scope of the efforts and activities in which they are
engaged. In order to avoid taking sides on specific issues, I have agreed with both
organizations to not mention individuals by name or to quote their comments to
me (beyond the general comments about the community) in published sources
outside of the community (Pharao Hansen et al., this volume, also discuss the
negotiation of micro-politics in a language community).
Both COPXIG and PAPXIG recognize the need to identify what it means to be
Xinkan (as evidenced by their interest in creating activities and policies which
create a single community identity – see below) despite the obvious lack of lin-
guistic and native cultural resources. Since community members approach their
Xinkan identity as basically a foreign culture and language, activities seem to
focus on highlighting the uniqueness of Xinkan in relation to both ladinos and
members of Mayan-speaking communities. As the published documents about
the Xinkan languages (cited above) are the most tangible and accessible aspect of
256   Chris Rogers

Xinkan culture, all of these activities revolve around aspects of Xinkan grammar.
This means community leaders are very interested in language documentation
efforts as a source of new information on Xinkan identity. However, prolonged
documentation is not valued as no new information is likely to emerge. This is
perhaps not surprising; since there are really no speakers of any of the Xinkan
languages, prolonged-documentation is simply not possible. In this vein, com-
munity leaders realize that creating a new speaker population is unrealistic and
unimportant. However, in my association with community members I was often
asked to “explain” the grammatical principles of the Xinkan languages, my role
being a linguistic teacher and/or source of information. Importantly, because
prolonged documentation is not possible, collaboration in this community is
limited to these roles.
Four activities stand out as being especially important in creating a Xinkan
identity: (1) weekly Sunday gatherings, (2) youth scholarships, (3) the creation
of folk etymologies and histories, and (4) an elementary school module. The fol-
lowing are brief descriptions of these activities as I have observed them, or as
they have been discussed with me by community members. The importance of
language documentation in these activities is specifically noted below.

3.2.1 Sunday gatherings about cultural and linguistic revalorization

The Xinkan community leaders from both COPXIG and PAPXIG hold a meeting
each Sunday afternoon to encourage their youth to learn about and appreciate
their heritage. Participants in these gatherings are usually between the ages of 15
and 22. Activities in these gatherings do not usually follow a specific agenda, but
often revolve around discussing interesting aspects of Xinkan grammar, chatting
about possible word meanings, sharing pictures of local places of interest, eating,
and enjoying the company of others. These gatherings are open to everyone inter-
ested in participating, whether they are a descendant of a Xinkan speaker, are a
Mayan speaker, are a Spanish speaker, or are a foreign linguist. I spent time in the
community regularly during the summer months between 2007 and 2010, and
visit more sporadically now. I came ready to help in whatever way the community
asked; consistently, my role was to teach and lead discussions about aspects of
the grammar of the Xinkan languages.
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   257

3.2.2 Community youth scholarships

Soon after the organization of PAPXIG and COPXIG, the community leaders
offered “scholarships” for high-school aged individuals to “work with a Xinkan
speaker”. The scholarships covered the cost of travel to the home of one of the
self-identified ‘speakers’ of the languages mentioned above (called “Elders” by
the community organizations and given the respectful title “Tío” or “Tía” – lit-
erally ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ respectively). These young people (often in groups) are
asked to spend an afternoon with the community elders and try to learn about the
Xinkan past. They focus on discussing the time when the Xinkan elders recalled
the languages being spoken more widely and openly and on learning Xinkan
expressions the elders could produce.
This program was originally funded by donations and grants from NGOs
and community members. However, since starting this program, funding has
been revoked because of internal conflict between PAPXIG and COPXIG. These
scholarships are no longer being offered; though young people are encouraged
to perform these activities as volunteers. Some of the Xinkan elders have also
lost interest in participating in this type of program, though each has commented
about the importance they place on Xinkan culture and identity (personal com-
munication).

3.2.3 Folk etymologies and histories

Individuals active in building the Xinkan community and identity make it a point
to inform others (from the community and beyond) about the history of words
and of the Xinkan culture. This is done in person in community gatherings (men-
tioned above) or through social media, such as Facebook. Since both the Xinkan
languages and cultural characteristics (what is known of it) are unique in Guate-
mala, the dissemination of this information provides community members with
a uniqueness of which to be proud. This helps create community identity and
define Xinkan-ness.
The information community members share is often based on the informa-
tion in the linguistic descriptions of one of the languages, though no effort is
made to corroborate the details. It is simply accepted as a part of Xinkan identity.
For example, one community member is fond of showing morphological deriva-
tions of Xinkan words and then concludes with a statement along the lines of
“the Mayan languages don’t have evidence of this”. These morphological deri-
vations do not always follow actual Xinkan grammar, but they serve a unifying
function for the community. One example of the types of information community
258   Chris Rogers

members value is the Xinkan word for ‘town’ aɬtepet (borrowed from Nahuatl).
As expected, this word is not morphologically complex in Xinkan. Even though
community members have been told it is not a native Xinkan word, they insist
that it is, and that it has the following components aɬ ‘penis’ tepet ‘unknown’.
Community members then point out that it is probably the case that historical
Xinkan culture and ideology defined a village by where men and women were
supposed to reproduce, and that this is very different from the Spanish-speaking
or Mayan-speaking conceptualization of a town.
While inaccurate, this type of information dissemination creates a unique
bond among community members, one that is different than the Spanish-speak-
ing or Mayan-speaking communities around them.

3.2.4 Elementary school module

Over the last few years an elementary school module has been developed and
implemented in a few public schools within the Xinkan geographical territory.
This program is extra-curricular and focuses on teaching the children of self-iden-
tified Xinkan community members about Xinkan culture and languages. The
goal is not for children to learn any of the Xinkan languages or for them to gain
culturally specific skills, but to appreciate the difference and cultural value of
these languages compared to those which surround them. The information used
in this program is occasionally taken from published grammatical sources, but
most often from the information gathered from the other community activities
discussed above.
While not all schools use this module, and it is rarely consistent in achieving
its goals, it is an aid in defining the Xinkan community and identity. The children
who participate in this program are the children of individuals who are active
in the Xinkan community, and so learn about the ideals and claimed identities
of their parents. These adults, in turn, discuss this program in community gath-
erings or in meetings with representatives from other indigenous communities
or political organizations; often community leaders use the elementary school
program as a point of comparison with efforts in Mayan-speaking communities.
In this light the attitude observed and communicated to me is “now the Xinkan
community is at least as organized as the Mayan-speaking communities, we
deserve at least the same amount of recognition” (personal communication).
These community activities are focused on linguistic ideas (as they are
accepted by the community), but serve a specific agenda for community members
and leaders. When in political arenas, community leaders are able to point to
the uniqueness of Xinkan and its authentic identity as a community. This often
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   259

creates opportunities for community members to gain access to the social, politi-
cal, and economic resources which the Agreement guarantees for them.
Outside the agenda to prove indigenous authenticity, these activities also help
community members gain a new respect for their unique heritage. After years of
social inequality, they are learning to revalue their languages and culture, and
they are accepting them as part of their individual identities. However, interest in
language documentation and revitalization is short-lived. Community members
approach their language as a foreign language and, because there are few (if any)
opportunities to put into practice the information they acquire, quickly lose moti-
vation to learn anything about it. Learning a new language can be difficult for
anyone and if the identity of your heritage does not require in-depth knowledge
about this language, interest wanes quickly. In fact, in my involvement with the
community activities above (specifically in the Sunday gatherings), community
members show interest in gaining a practical understanding of those aspects of
Xinkan grammar that stand out as ‘different’, but not in acquiring these aspects.

4 Five linguistic traits that are important to the

Xinkan community motivation
As a result of the specific needs of the Xinkan community, community members
consider language documentation to be the most valuable language-related
activity (rather than revitalization, for example). Language documentation pro-
vides evidence for their unique and specific claim to indigenousness, it provides
authentication of their claims for community identity and treatment, and it unites
the community through the strongest connection available to their ancestral
past. However, it is also true that not all outcomes, conclusions, or discoveries of
empirical language description (such as grammatical descriptions, dictionaries
or transcribed tales) are of equal importance to the community. It is not general
traits and properties of languages that are of particular interest here, but those
elements of the language(s) that highlight, support and authenticate the creation
of their identity. As a means of illustration, I highlight those aspects of language
descriptions (such as COPXIG 2004; Rogers 2010; and Sachse 2010) in which
community members have shown particular interest, or about which community
members have placed particular emphasis in commenting about and developing
their collective identity.
Rogers (2010) describes the grammatical elements of the languages in detail,
compares them across the family, and reconstructs a common ancestral lan-
guage, Proto-Xinkan. Xinkan grammatical descriptions contain scientifically
260   Chris Rogers

and linguistically interesting typological descriptions and characteristics. For

example, Xinkan languages belong to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area and
(as a group) are said to have a lexically specified restriction on vowel occurrence
(often referred to as vowel harmony), a large number of glottalized consonants
(ejective obstruents and glottalized sonorants) in the phonological inventory, the
use of glottalized consonants as a grammatical mechanism to distinguish verbal
aspect, a prominence of grammatical/verbal aspect over tense or mood, semantic
verb alignment, a unique marking of verb categorization, VOS word order, and
agglutinating morphology. Furthermore, descriptions of the languages clearly
show that, despite being spoken in a relatively small geographic area, these lan-
guages were independent languages (among themselves) and isolates – they do
not form a historical/genetic group with any other known language or languages
(see Rogers 2008, 2009, 2010 and Sachse 2010 for references to Xinkan research).
As a professional linguist, trained in the tradition of North American lin-
guistics, I find each of these elements of value and worthy of additional study.
However, in my interactions with the community, only a small subset of these
characteristics has garnered any particular interest. The specific elements com-
munity members mention and comment on are:
1. Linguistic isolate
2. Word formation and morphological typology
3. Vowel harmony
4. Glottalized consonants
5. Peripheral status within the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area

Community members show little, or no, interest in any other grammatical prop-
erties of any of the Xinkan languages. As examples show below, each of these
five elements distinguish “Xinkan” from other languages, and consequently they
also distinguish the developing Xinkan community from all other cultural and
linguistic communities. Each of the five characteristics are discussed in turn.

4.1 Linguistic Isolate

By definition, a linguistic isolate stands in contrast to all other languages in the

world. It is a language that is not grouped with, descended from, or related to any
other known language in the world, in terms of historical change. Xinkan lan-
guages are related among themselves but are unrelated to all other languages –
and of particular importance here, to Spanish or any of the Mayan languages.
Xinkan languages are consequently typologically and genetically not similar to
the other languages spoken in the community.
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   261

As two other examples of this typological and genetic difference between

the Xinkan languages and the languages spoken in the Xinkan community, I give
examples of both the vowel co-occurrence restrictions and semantic verb align-
ment (see Rogers 2010 for details). Over the years of sporadic documentation of
Xinkan languages, however, some linguistic connections have been suggested
(Brinton 1885; Calderón 1908; Campbell 1972, 1979; Lehmann 1920). Nevertheless,
each of these suggestions has been discredited based on scientific principles and
methodology (Campbell 1978; Rogers 2010). It is not uncommon for community
members to know and understand the implications of these conclusions, and
comments about the Xinkan identity in public spaces (such as social media, or in
political gatherings) mention them. For example, I have often heard community
members involved with PAPXIG and COPXIG make comments or display attitudes
like: ‘Xinkan is an isolate. That means we are different from the Mayan groups,
and that we were here [in Guatemala] before the Spanish [Europeans] arrived;
Xinkas have always been a separate [cultural] group.’ The general attitude about
being a linguistic isolate is that even though the majority of Guatemalan indig-
enous populations and towns are Mayan speaking, the fact that Xinkan is an
isolate automatically distinguishes the community from all others and gives legit-
imacy to claims of cultural affirmation and community creation.

4.2 Morphological typology

Morphological typology is linguistically not very interesting, because it seeks

to characterize languages in terms of holistic properties rather than typological
parameters (Shibatani and Bynon 1995). Nevertheless, it is not uncommon for
language descriptions to mention the general properties of morphological deriva-
tion and inflection, for the purpose of surface comparisons between languages.
In this vein languages are characterized in a number of different ways in relation
to the number of allowable morphemes per word and meanings per morpheme.
These characterizations result in labels such as analytic (or isolating), fusional,
agglutinating, or polysynthetic.3 Xinkan languages are mildly agglutinating, occa-
sionally having more than one morpheme per word. However, the maximum is
three morphemes in a single word making the languages appear, in general, to
be more isolating or fusional than other languages. As an example of compari-

3 Of course, many different labels have been suggested since the early days of the Comparative
Linguists in the 1800s for these ideas and properties. In using the labels above, my intention is
not to take a particular theoretical stance but to use them as general descriptive terms.
262   Chris Rogers

son Xinkan languages display patterns of word formation similar to English or

Spanish, but quite distinct from Mayan languages; of course, the actual content
of morphological meaning is different in every language. As a means of compar-
ison, (1) gives a sentence in Guazacapán Xinka and (2) gives a sentence in Kaq-
chikel (Mayan).4

(1) Xinkan word formation5

xuk’a-y tumuki’ tenuwa Hwan
eat.compl-3sg.tr all zapote Juan
‘Juan ate all the zapote.’

(2) Kaqchikel word formation

A Xwan x-u-tij r-onojel ri kina̋q
clf Juan compl-3sg.erg-eat 3sg.erg-all the bean
‘Juan ate all the beans.’

While not drastically different, the differences are apparent. This is especially
true for the Xinkan community members, who, if they choose to learn a Xinkan
language or a Mayan language, approach them as a foreign language. These
obvious differences are often mentioned in conversation about the uniqueness
of Xinkan languages. The general attitude of the community reflects pride in and
understanding of the surface differences between the different languages in Gua-
temala. However, as a functional communicative tool, community members see
Xinkan with indifference (and skepticism).

4.3 Vowel harmony

Emphasis on the uniqueness of the Xinkan languages and community often

revolves around more concrete linguistic facts. For example, Xinkan vowel

4 Kaqchikel is often mentioned by community members as a point of comparison to the Xinkan

languages. There are a number of Mayan languages spoken around the Xinkan geographical
area, but this language has a unique connection to the community. A local linguist, a speaker
of Kaqchikel, acts as an advisor for community development activities, including language doc-
umentation. The community finds great pride in showing that Xinkan languages are different
than the language spoken by this linguist. I have used Kaqchikel as a point of comparison here
for this reason.
5 The abbreviations in this paper are: 3sg = third-person singular, clf = classifier, compl = com-
pletive aspect, erg = ergative marker, and tr = transitive verb
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   263

harmony is a point of pride for some community members. Xinkan languages

have six vowels as shown in Table 1 with long and short contrasts.

Tab. 1: Xinkan vowel inventory

Front Central Back

High i ɨ u
Mid e o
Low a

Phonologically, vowels are grouped according to harmonic groups based on the

height and the periphery of the vowels in the vowel space. Only vowels in the
same group can ever co-occur in a word; the low vowel is neutral and occurs with
all other groups. The groups are:

High peripheral vowels [i, u]

High central vowel [ɨ]
Mid vowels [e, o]
Low vowel (neutral) [a]

The vowel group for each word is determined in the lexicon. In some ways this is
different than other vowel harmony type systems, since the grouping and organi-
zation does not belong to the phonological component of the grammar (i.e., there
are no phonological alternations which correspond to vowel co-occurrence). This
type of lexical restriction is unique cross-linguistically because of this absence of
phonological variation expected in vowel harmony systems, and the uniqueness
of the behavior of the high central vowel compared to the other high vowels (see
Rogers 2008, 2009, and 2010 for the details). Throughout the world vowel co-oc-
currence restrictions are not uncommon, but in Mesoamerica this is a unique and
unusual pattern. It clearly distinguishes the languages from Spanish or any of the
Mayan languages.
Occasionally, it is my privilege to be asked to participate in a Sunday after-
noon gathering in the community. On one such occasion, individuals asked me
to help them understand some of the intricacies of Xinkan grammar. At the time
I was professionally very interested in Xinkan vowel harmony (in fact, I still am),
so I spent some time explaining what I then knew about this phenomenon. I was
excited to share this part of their heritage languages with them, but unsure if the
community would find it relevant or interesting. Afterward, I asked participants
if they felt that there was any value in learning about these vowel restrictions. I
264   Chris Rogers

did not record any responses at the time, but wrote down the following comment
in my field notes after talking to one of the more active community members a
few days later.

“Yes, it is very interesting. I don’t think I understand it all or why my language is like that, but
it clearly is different from languages like Kaqchikel or Spanish. This is important to help the
community understand that it is unique; that we are Xinkas.”

As this quote shows, this community member clearly felt that linguistic facts are
important for the definition of the Xinkan community and identity because it dis-
tinguished them from either Spanish or Mayan languages.

4.4 Glottalized consonants

Similarly, in speaking to community members about the linguistic properties of

the Xinkan languages, and knowing that they approach them like a foreign lan-
guage, I frequently ask what aspects of the grammar they find especially diffi-
cult. The presence of glottalized consonants is prominent in their responses. The
Xinkan consonant inventory is largely symmetrical and uses glottalization as a
source of phonemic contrast. The consonant inventory of Guazacapán Xinka is
shown in Table 2.
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   265

Tab. 2: Xinkan consonant inventory

Alveopalatal

Retro-Flex
Alveolar

Palatal

Glottal
Labial

Velar
Stops Voiceless p t k

Ejective p’ t’ k’ ʔ

Fricatives Voiceless s ṣ̌ h

Affricates Voiceless tʃ

Ejective ts’ tʃ’

Nasal Plain m n

Glottalized m’ n’

Liquid lateral Plain l

Glottalized l’

Voiceless ɬ

rhotic Plain r

Glottalized r’

glides Plain w y

Glottalized w’ y’

Crosslinguistically, this inventory is interesting because of the considerable

number of glottalized consonants and the presence of a number of glottalized
sonorants. However, of particular interest to the discussion about community
identity is the following response I have written down in my field notes from
another community member about the difficulty of the Xinkan grammar:

“Well, it [the language] is all a bit strange, but for me it is the glottalized sounds. I’ve learned
that Xinkan had these consonants that are called “glottalized” and that they require a con-
striction in your throat. I can’t make these sounds without choking myself, so I don’t do it. I
like that this is a way to show that Xinkan is different than other groups, but it is too difficult
to produce.”

This quote shows that for this community member, the usefulness of the lan-
guages is doubtful as a tool of communication. The community member cited
above is not unwilling to learn to produce the glottalized sounds, and in general
266   Chris Rogers

community members are uninterested in practicing and producing them, but they
are considered quite foreign when compared to their native language (Spanish).
Even though these sounds are produced with varying accuracy, they are often
mentioned as one unique quality of the Xinkan languages; the linguistic prop-
erties they exhibit are highly valued as a means of community identity. Mayan
languages, in fact, do have glottalized consonants (such as the voiced bilabial
implosive [ɓ]), but not nearly as many as the Xinkan languages – a point of which
community members are aware and which strengthens their claims of authentic-
ity.

4.5 Peripheral status within the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area

Lastly, within the community, Xinkan languages are constantly being discussed in
terms of being on the periphery of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. The Xinkan
community, culture and languages do not exist in a bubble, nor have they ever. In
fact, it is well known among scholars and community members that Xinkan lan-
guages are linguistically part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area (see Campbell,
Kaufman, and Smith-Stark 1986). Similarly, the Xinkan languages show evidence
that the speakers of these languages were also in contact with non-Mesoameri-
can languages. This means that, despite being genetically isolated, the languages
have been influenced by many other languages in and out of this linguistic area,
including: Spanish, many Mayan languages, a few Uto-Aztecan languages, Tol,
Misumulpan, possibly Chibchan languages, and most likely others. Linguisti-
cally, there is evidence of this influence through language borrowing in many
aspects of each of the Xinkan languages (though to varying degrees for each lan-
guage). Vocabulary has been added, morphemes have been altered, word order
has been affected, and other syntactic structures have been changed. Nobody
would ever doubt that the Xinkan languages are and were spoken in Mesoamer-
ica. The Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is defined based on the following five core
criteria as cited in Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark (1986: 555):
1. A specific type of nominal possession (e.g., his-dog the man = ‘the man’s
dog’)
2. Relational nouns
3. Vigesimal numeral systems
4. Non-verb-final basic word order
5. A series of specific semantic calques

Other properties of this area also exist, but are considered non-core, or non-es-
sential, in defining this language area.
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   267

For the community, Xinkan languages are thought of as being on the periph-
ery because, while they appear to exhibit all of the core (definitional) properties
of the linguistic area mentioned above, many of the non-core properties are not
true for Xinkan. In terms of the scholarship about linguistic areas, this does little
to alter the place of Xinkan as a member of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. For
the community, however, it is evidence that the borrowing and contact inherent
in a language area was different for speakers of the Xinkan languages. They claim
that this is evidence that something that can be called the ‘Xinkan community’
has always been present in Guatemala and that this community has been cultur-
ally and linguistically distinct from the rest of the country for thousands of years.
A more in-depth discussion of the Xinkan languages in relation to the Mesoa-
merican Linguistic Area or in terms of typological traits is outside the scope of this
paper,6 as the goal here is to discuss the community motivations in being involved
with language documentation and revitalization. Community members often con-
centrate on learning about grammatical aspects of the languages in their Sunday
gatherings. However, since there is no speaker base, all linguistic information
about Xinkan comes from past efforts in documenting them. Consequently, lan-
guage documentation is highly valued among community members, as long as
it serves their needs and desires as discussed above. Community members value
the unique identity that language documentation brings, but not necessarily the
languages as a part of that identity. Grammatical descriptions of the Xinkan lan-
guages clearly underscore that they are unlike any of the other languages sur-
rounding them and these linguistic differences are used by community members
as a reason to separate themselves from the Mayans (and the Mayan linguistic
agenda), from the ladinos, and from the non-indigenous Spanish speakers.

5 Motivation, language documentation, and

revitalization
The world’s linguistic diversity is seen as a valuable commodity by many schol-
ars, activists, and language community members around the world. Often the
concern over the loss of this diversity is gathered under one terminological

6 In fact, aside from Campbell, Kaufman, and Smith-Stark (1986), no specific published re-
search exists on the place of the Xinkan languages within the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
This would be an advantageous area of future work. Rogers (2010) and Sachse (2010) provide the
data necessary for this type of work.
268   Chris Rogers

umbrella “language endangerment”. However, the classification of any language

as “endangered” is necessarily a secondary classification – the endangered status
of a language is dependent on a number of primary classifications and descrip-
tions. For example, for many linguists, an endangered language is a secondary
classification of: (1) language demographics, (2) language and cultural shift, (3)
intergenerational transmission, (4) amount of descriptive documentation, or (5)
human rights violations affecting its speakers. In practice, a language can be
empirically classified as endangered for any single one of these factors or a com-
bination of more than one of them.
Nevertheless, discussions about language endangerment are beneficial as
they codify needs and motivations for and by communities and linguists. Based
on specific assumptions (mentioned above) the vitality of a language can be
quantified and a specific set of outcomes can be developed which will help reach
the community’s and/or linguist’s goals. Diagnostics of language endangerment
(and the concomitant needs and motivations) are often used by linguists and
local communities to set goals and expected outcomes for language related pro-
jects. Generally, the terms language documentation, language revitalization, lan-
guage conservation, or language preservation (as examples) are used to talk about
and understand these planned outcomes. However, specifically, the types (and
names) of activities which are related to endangered languages are not homoge�
nous and the differences are important. Each of the activities and expectations
are appropriate only for a specific community context. For example, language
revitalization in the Xinkan community should not be considered a focus for lan-
guage activities, research and/or projects; community identity creation is more
appropriate.
In speaking about the marginalized communities around the world (and in
Latin America in specific) the twin heads language documentation and revitali-
zation do not seem appropriate. Language documentation is a broadly defined
activity covering descriptive and empirical work with/on a language. Language
revitalization involves strengthening an already existing language whose com-
municative function is diminishing. However, as the Xinkan community indi-
cates, revitalization is not always appropriate or desirable. An emphasis on revi-
talizing Xinkan would be difficult and in some ways might weaken the growing
community identity.
A better way of describing language-related activities, research, and/or pro-
jects in this type of community is language documentation and community cre-
ation. Community creation is required in situations where an indigenous com-
munity has been identified (and defined in political terms) but where there is no
cultural or linguistic heritage unifying this community. For these communities
recognition among community members, other indigenous groups, and national
 Indigenous authenticity as a goal of language documentation and revitalization   269

cultures is among the highest priorities. A community cannot act towards lan-
guage maintenance if they do not have a unique language or unique cultural iden-
tity. These communities struggle for the linguistic and sociopolitical recognition
that is assumed in discussions of language documentation and revitalization.
For the Xinkan community in Guatemala this is precisely the issue. Language
documentation and the ensuing discussions give authenticity to their claims of
cultural otherness. This is also true for many other communities throughout Latin
America (and probably beyond). These language communities represent a very
significant contribution for our understanding of the best practices of language
documentation and revitalization. Language diversity and linguistic rights are
imperative, but often these are secondary concerns. Establishing the right to join
in the discussion of these topics as an independent cultural group is fundamen-
tal.
A language community is not a fixed homogenous organization and neither
should our response to and expectations for the loss of the world’s linguistic
diversity be. The current organization of the Xinkan community is one way of
developing cultural identity, and this identity and organization will likely change
as time goes by and this identity is developed more. At this stage of community
development, language-related activities have a very specific task, to prove every
community member’s authentic indigenous identity.

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Rogers, Chris. 2009. The theoretical significance of Xinkan vowel harmony. Paper delivered at
the Endangered Languages Information and Infrastructure Workshop. University of Utah.
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Rogers, Chris. 2010. A comparative grammar of Xinkan. Salt Lake City, University of Utah
doctoral dissertation.
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Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant
11 Language documentation in two
communities with high migration rates1

1 Introduction
The transnational migration of indigenous Latin Americans to the United States
is sizable, with the majority of migrants being of Guatemalan or Mexican national
origin. Many of these people speak languages which are the subjects of language
documentation and revitalization programs (Huizar Murillo and Cerda 2004).
Because the intersection of transnational/transborder migration and endangered
language documentation and description (ELDD) is a recent topic in the field of
linguistics, studies examining the effect of migration on indigenous languages’
vitality and maintenance within the community of origin are still scarce. The
majority of existing studies deal with the effect of English or Spanish on the pace
of language shift from an indigenous language to either one of the languages
of wider communication. Furthermore, the indigenous language communities
studied show a certain level of vitality, and often migrate from their community
of origin to an existing satellite community where the heritage language is still
present (Falconi 2011, 2013; Fox and Riviera Salgado 2004; Pérez Báez 2009, 2013,
2014).
The communities examined in the present paper are in a state of advanced
language shift to Spanish as children are no longer learning the indigenous lan-
guage and the youngest fluent speakers are over thirty years old. Furthermore,
contrary to the communities considered in the studies mentioned above, neither

1 Thanks to Margarita González Hernández, Anatolio Soriano Cortés, María de Jesús Barrada,
Javier Ayuso González, Pedro Franco, Anel Franco, Flavia Mateo Mejía, Celiflora Cortés Jiménez
as well as the editors of this volume and one anonymous reviewer for their help with various
aspects of this paper. We gratefully acknowledge support for our work through the Major Docu-
mentation Project Grant MDP0153 (under Woodbury), and the Individual Graduate Studentship
Grant (PI: Villard), award number IGS0128, to the University of Texas at Austin, offered by the
Hans Rausing Endangered Language Project at the School of Oriental and African Languages,
University of London (Villard and Sullivant), and through a Dissertation Improvement Grant
from the National Science Foundation, award number BCS-1065082 (Sullivant).

Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant, University of Texas, Austin

274   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

of the communities in this paper has a satellite community in the US, and instead
migrants tend to disperse themselves among several regions of the US.
Given the observation that many Latin American migrants in the US are
speakers of indigenous languages, ELDD projects on Latin American languages
may involve communities with high US migration rates. As a result, linguists may
face issues related to migration and the disruption of communities, which can
impact the availability of consultants, and the deleterious effect of English on
local language ideologies. The literature so far has not given an account of ELDD
projects in this specific situation, this paper aims to provide such an account in
hopes of starting a conversation about the specificities and obstacles linguists
may encounter when working in communities with high migration rates to the
US. We will present descriptions of the sociolinguistic situations in our respective
field sites, provide examples of how we accommodated these situations in our
projects, as well as offer a few suggestions for linguists embarking on similar pro-
jects, which are either absent in fieldwork manuals or are only minimally present
in the ELDD literature.
We have noted that while there appears to be an overall positive sentiment
associated with Chatino identity and language, there has been much less support
for communitywide revitalization efforts than would be expected. Our claim is
that the community’s exposure to and participation in cyclical migration to the
United States and the culture of migration (Cohen 2004) has brought about favor-
itism towards English language skills over Chatino skills.2 This general inclina-
tion compelled us to move away from community-wide revitalization goals in our
respective documentation projects, and instead to focus on the empowering of
individual speakers in the hopes of fostering, in the long run, grassroots revital-
ization efforts.
Before proceeding, a couple of clarifications ought to be stated. Our inten-
tions here are not to expose the factors that led to language shift in the first
place,3 but rather to show how intense migration to the US may preclude commu-
nity-wide language revitalization efforts. Furthermore, we are not claiming that
indigenous communities in Latin America with large migration figures to the US
are shifting or ever will shift to English, but rather it is the idealization of English
in the speaker’s mind that affects desires for acquisition of the heritage language.
Finally, English is not the cause of language shift in these communities, since

2 We readily acknowledge that all the factors leading to language shift from Chatino to Spanish
also lead to a devaluation of Chatino skills.
3 Chatinophone shift to Spanish began over thirty years ago in both communities, and non-Cha-
tino Spanish speakers were present in Tataltepec well before then.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   275

this process well preceded the coming of English into the picture in both Chatino
communities, and in fact, roughly half of all Chatinophones also spoke Spanish
forty years ago (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía 1970).
Section 2.1 provides information about the respective sociolinguistic sit-
uations in the two Chatino communities as well as information about each of
the Chatino varieties in question. Section 2.2 discusses multilingualism in the
region. Section 2.3 provides information on the patterns and prevalence of labor
migration, and Section 2.4 offers insights on the migration discourses. Section
2.5 describes English language usage in the two towns. Section 3 shows our
approach to language documentation using examples from San Marcos Zacate-
pec and Tataltepec de Valdés, and Section 4 concludes our paper and offers some
suggestions for researchers.

1.1 Methods

The data in this paper come from the authors’ experiences as US-based academic
linguists working in two Chatino communities, including our conversations with
Chatino and non-Chatino residents of the two locales, as well as our investiga-
tions into Chatino vitality and migration prevalence in each community through
annotating medical clinic records based on our consultants’ knowledge of these
relatively small communities.
The data presented in this paper is drawn from our experiences and obser-
vations as graduate student linguistic fieldworkers engaged in independent lan-
guage documentation projects in San Marcos Zacatepec and Tataltepec de Valdés,
two Chatino communities which speak mutually unintelligible and highly endan-
gered Chatino varieties. We also informally interviewed community members
about their views on Chatino identity and language.

2 Sociolinguistic overview
Chatino is a shallow language family in the Zapotecan branch of Otomanguean
spoken in southwestern Oaxaca, Mexico (Kaufman 2006). The Chatinophone
region occupies the coastal ranges of Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur, from relatively low river
valleys to high mountainside towns. As can be seen in Figure 1, to the west and
southwest the Chatino communities border Coastal Mixtec-speaking towns and
to the east lie Southern Zapotec-speaking communities. Like most indigenous
communities in Mexico, all Chatino-speaking locales are in contact with Spanish
276   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

speakers to varying degrees of intensity. In 2006, 42,791 people self-identified as

speakers of a Chatino language, 20.7 % of whom were monolinguals (Instituto
Nacional de Estadística y Geografía 2009).

Map 1: Chatino languages and locations mentioned in the text. Adapted from Wikimedia
Commons images by El Ágora, Mario Fuentes Cid and Lokal_Profil.

The family consists of three languages: Zenzontepec Chatino (ISO 639-3 code:
czn), Tataltepec Chatino (cta), and Eastern Chatino (Campbell 2013). Eastern
Chatino itself is a collection of some fifteen different varieties (including Zacate-
pec Chatino) which vary considerably from each other, yet no divisions or sub-
grouping within Eastern Chatino have been demonstrated at this point.4 All
Chatino varieties are notable for having, among other things, intricate systems
of lexical tone (Cruz 2011; McIntosh 2012, 2015; Sullivant 2013, 2015; Villard 2015;
Villard and Woodbury 2012), and complex inflectional paradigms within their

4 Ethnologue 2013 divides Eastern Chatino in four: Western Highland Chatino (ctp), Eastern
Highland Chatino (cly), Nopala Chatino (cya) and Zacatepec Chatino (ctz), and describes no
subgrouping among the six Chatino languages it identifies. These divisions were based on re-
searcher intuitions and input from a mutual intelligibility survey (Egland 1978), but have not
been proven by application of the comparative method.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   277

verb aspect systems (Campbell 2011; Sullivant 2011a, 2015; Villard 2009, 2012,
2015).
The rest of this section will discuss the particulars of Chatino language vital-
ity in Zacatepec and Tataltepec making reference to the demography of the two
communities and the domains of usage of their respective Chatino variety, and
will briefly mention some discourses about the ongoing shift from Chatino to
Spanish.

2.1 Chatino vitality

Tataltepec and Zacatepec are the two most endangered Chatino varieties, in which
there is a socially integrated and active body of speakers, but most are beyond
childbearing age. The two communities are similar, but the position of Chatino
within each is slightly different. The Ethnologue gives the vitality of Tataltepec
and Zacatepec Chatino as 6b (Threatened) and 7 (Shifting) in the EGIDS scale
(Lewis et al. 2015), though our own assessments of Chatino’s vitality according to
the EGIDS scale (Lewis and Simons 2010) are 7 (Shifting) for Tataltepec Chatino
and 8a (Moribund) for Zacatepec Chatino. The particulars of Chatino vitality in
each community, including the demographics of its speakers and the domains of
usage, will be discussed in turn.

2.1.1 Demographics

Zacatepec Chatino belongs to the Eastern Chatino language, and is only spoken
within the small community of San Marcos Zacatepec, which counts about 1000
inhabitants. It is a highly endangered Chatino variety as all its 300 or so fluent
speakers are over 40 years old. The population’s ethnicity is almost exclusively
Chatino, as few mestizos5 have settled in the community, and those that did gen-
erally have had to learn some Chatino for their business to thrive.

5 Mestizo is a cultural label. We follow local usage in this paper and use mestizo to refer to per-
sons who do not identify as Chatino, both people without Chatino ancestry as well as people
with Chatino ancestry who do not speak Chatino or identify with the indigenous culture. This
usage is distinct from other, more widespread uses of the term which define mestizo as referring
to people born of mixed, typically American and European, ancestry (Fernando Lara 2010; Real
Academia Española 2001).
278   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

Tataltepec Chatino together with the Eastern Chatino language forms a sub-
group within the family (Campbell 2013). Tataltepec Chatino is only spoken only
in Tataltepec de Valdés, a small town of some 2600 residents. Unlike Zacatepec,
the community is ethnically divided. According to the widely agreed-upon local
history, mestizo immigrants began arriving in Tataltepec about a century ago.6
With time, many of these immigrants and their descendants came to dominate
Tataltepec’s political and economic activities, including much of the retail activ-
ities of the town. Unlike in Zacatepec, contemporary mestizo small business
owners do not accommodate Chatino speakers, and perform business solely in
Spanish.7

Fig. 1: Chatino vitality in Zacatepec (left) and Tataltepec (right). Number of individuals is listed
on the x-axis and age cohort in years on the y-axis. Gray indicates Chatinophone persons, white
indicates Spanish monolinguals.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of the population by age and Chatino fluency in
both communities (Zacatepec on the left and Tataltepec on the right). In Zacate-
pec, Chatino skills directly correlate to age: all persons below 25 are Spanish
monolinguals, people between 25 and 40 may be semi-speakers of Chatino and
native speakers of Spanish, and everyone above 40 is a bilingual Chatino-Span-
ish. There are no Chatino monolinguals left. Of course, the particularities of each

6 This chronology is supported by early census data. Tataltepec was identified as a “república de
indios” or an autonomous indigenous community in the mid eighteenth century, but by 1900, 153
of its 833 residents (18 %) were identified as Spanish speakers (Instituto Nacional de Estadística
y Geografía n.d.; Villaseñor y Sánchez 1746).
7 Chatinophone Tataltepec resident Flavia Mateo recalls that as a young girl, her first encounter
with Spanish was being sent on an errand to buy sugar. The Spanish-speaking merchant did not
sell it to her until she was able to name it in Spanish (azúcar) rather than in Chatino (skà).
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   279

household mean that some younger speakers are more fluent than this generali-
zation suggests (even though they characterize themselves as Spanish monolin-
guals and may be considered ghost speakers as per definitions in Grinevald and
Bert (2011)), and some older speakers may be less fluent. The picture of Chatino
language vitality is somewhat different in Tataltepec de Valdés. As in Zacatepec,
nearly all Chatinophones are bilingual in Spanish and the youngest generation
of speakers is almost entirely monolingual in Spanish. In contrast to Zacatepec,
however, Chatino speakers are in the minority of every age cohort, as can be seen
in Figure 1.8

2.1.2 Domains of usage

In both Tataltepec and Zacatepec, Spanish is the dominant language in all public
domains except for communication between Chatinophones, whose numbers are
decreasing. The towns’ loudspeakers, both those used by the municipal authori-
ties and those used to broadcast paid messages, exclusively make their announce-
ments in Spanish, whereas the authors have heard these messages broadcast in
the Eastern Chatino varieties in other communities such as San Juan Quiahije.
Spanish is the language of governance, but Chatinophone officials will chat
with one another in Chatino in government buildings and a Chatinophone may
address them in Chatino if no Spanish monolinguals are present. Both Tataltepec
and Zacatepec are governed locally in part by a civil-religious hierarchy.9 One
of the features of this system are the yearly ceremonies ratifying the installation
of new appointees, which in other Chatino communities are accompanied by
elaborate and impressive displays of Chatino oratory (Cruz 2014). In Zacatepec,
this event is one of the only instances of publicly used Chatino when one of the
village’s elder gives a ritual speech to bless all new entering cargo-holders. In

8 These figures were obtained by asking a Chatino resident of Tataltepec to identify each person
listed on a 2012 medical clinic’s census data as either Chatinophone or not. All told, 541 of the
2684 listed residents of Tataltepec and the much smaller outlying hamlets of Plan del Aire and El
Ocote were identified as Chatinophone, or roughly one-fifth of the population. Since no explicit
criteria were given for “knowing Chatino”, semi-speakers of the language are likely included,
so this figure is probably somewhat greater than the number of fluent speakers currently in the
town.
9 These civil-religious hierarchies are common throughout Mesoamerica, though the particulars
of each system and its implementation are quite varied from place to place. For more detailed
studies of civil-religious hierarchies in other Chatino communities see Bartolomé and Barrabas
(1996) and Greenberg (1981).
280   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

Tataltepec, on the other hand, these ritual oratories have been replaced by com-
memorative speeches in Spanish.

2.1.3 Language shift discourses

In Zacatepec, non-fluent speakers deplore the loss of the language, and often
express regret or blame their parents for not teaching them Chatino. A feeling
of nostalgia is budding, as can be seen when a local credit union Caja Solidaria
Ki’che-Tzi uses the Chatino name of the community. Nostalgia of the heritage lan-
guage is generally at its peak when the language in question has completely dis-
appeared from the linguistic landscape but is still fresh in the memory of people.
This sentiment may contribute to a community-wide revitalization effort but
Zacatepec has not reached this point of language loss and despite the laments,
many in the community still feel that Chatino is very much part of their daily
life.10
The situation is similar in Tataltepec, where Chatino can still be widely
heard in households with older Chatinophone residents. Chatinos in Tataltepec
are aware of the shift to Spanish and many blame parents for not teaching the
language to their children or blame children for choosing to not speak Chatino.
While it may be premature to say that Chatino nostalgia is present in Tataltepec,
there have been some instances where children (who are often semi-speakers or
Chatino learners) reciting Chatino have been the focus of public events – a chorus
singing a translation of the national anthem into Chatino, and the contestants of
the Reina Chatina ‘Chatino Queen’ pageant who were made to present themselves
in Chatino and answer questions as part of the competition – which suggests that
speaking Chatino is no longer taken for granted among the Chatinos of Tatalte-
pec, but is now a skill that is notable and worthy of praise.

2.2 Past and present multilingualism in the region

We hold that the ideologies seen today are responses to relatively recent changes.
By way of illustration, we will now present evidence of historic multilingualism
and language contact in Mesoamerica in general and the Chatinophone region in
particular and contrast that to the present situation.

10 See Pérez Báez (this volume) for further discussion of the lack of community awareness of
language endangerment in other Oaxacan communities and elsewhere.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   281

2.2.1 Historic multilingualism

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica was a multilingual place. The existence of the Meso�

american Linguistic Area (Campbell et al. 1986), a zone of structural linguistic
convergence born out of prolonged contact between several unrelated language
stocks, is testament to this. Such an area suggests that there had to have been
some degree of multilingualism (most likely a series of overlapping diffuse net-
works of multilingualism) throughout the region.
Documents from the colonial period clearly indicate that certain populations
spoke multiple indigenous languages. Swanton (2008) describes several colo-
nial-period documents from the valleys of Coixtlahuaca and Tamazulapan-Te-
otongo in the northern portion of Oaxaca’s Mixteca region which contain writing
in Mixtec and Chocholtec or Mixtec and Nahuatl, and a few documents that
contain all three. A bit closer to the Chatinophone region, a Spanish friar states
that the Mixtec of Teposcolula and Yanhuitlán could be plainly understood by
nobles and traveling merchants throughout the Mixtec-speaking region whereas
peasants would only partially understand the Mixtec of those towns (de los Reyes
1593).
Colonial-period documents referring to Chatino are few and far between and
there is no extant description of their languages before Belmar (1902).11 Linguistic
evidence suggests that they have been in contact with several nearby languages,
and this contact has left marks on Chatino and other nearby languages. Some
Chatino varieties have borrowed ‘toad’ from Coastal Mixtec (Campbell 2013) and
Tataltepec Chatino has also borrowed a now-archaic term for ‘money’, and in the
domain of syntax, has adopted the use of ‘companion’ in numeral phrases from
a Coastal Mixtec language (Sullivant 2011b). Though we are aware of no evidence
of Chatino’s influence on Mixtec, Chatino has been argued to have left its mark on
some other languages. Beam de Azcona (2004: 151) labels Coatlán-Loxicha South-
ern Zapotec nì ‘house’ as a loan from Chatino, and Bartholomew (1980) argues
that Chatino (or a language which shared Chatino’s stem-final stress) affected
the prosody of Pochutec, which was the only known Aztec language to not have
penultimate stress.
All of which shows that Oaxaca has been a place where language contact was
common, and where some level of multilingualism was present in many of the
contact situations.

11 Interestingly, the earliest identified mention of the Chatino languages also suggests multilin-
gualism in the region: Tavárez (2011) recounts the trial of a man accused of translating a suppos-
edly idolatrous text from Chatino into Soltec in 1635.
282   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

2.2.2 Multilingualism today

Today multilingualism in the Chatinophone region is much more restricted. Many

Chatino speakers (and nearly every speaker in Zacatepec and Tataltepec) are
bilingual with Spanish, but knowledge of other indigenous languages is generally
absent. Speakers today report no contact with Mixtec speakers or Zapotec speak-
ers that is not mediated through Spanish. Chatino speakers may be bi-dialectal,
especially within the fifteen or so communities that form the Eastern Chatino
language, where marriages frequently bring together couples from different com-
munities. Occasionally Chatino-speaking teachers from one area learn to speak
the Chatino of the town where they are sent to teach, though this is uncommon,
and Chatinophones from different places quickly switch to Spanish if there is any
communicative difficulty.
In spite of Mexico’s self-proclamation as a multicultural and plurilingual
nation, the educational system appears to promote a single mestizo culture trans-
mitted by the Spanish language through its use of bilingual education as a path
to cultural assimilation (Coronado Suzán 1992; Despagne 2013). This is reflected
in the first schools to be placed in indigenous communities, the escuelas castil-
lanizadoras ‘Castillianizing schools’ which aimed to teach all children to speak
Spanish through monolingual Spanish education, and hence become integrated
into Mexican society.12 Even the later introduction of bilingual schooling has
been argued to have assimilationist aims (Comas 1953), resulting an educational
system that is neither bilingual not bicultural (Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz,
and Verdín Amaro, this volume). This normative monolingualism has a corollary
implication: bilingualism is seen as a transitional state in a community’s march
towards Spanish monolingualism (Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín
Amaro, this volume; Sicoli 2010). In Tataltepec, parents can choose to send their
children to either a Spanish-only primary school or to the Escuela Bilingüe Por-
firio Díaz, which like many “bilingual schools” in Oaxaca features classes entirely
in Spanish, with periodic lessons on the local indigenous languages asking chil-
dren to memorize the spellings of different Chatino words. Parents in Zacatepec
can only send their children to a Spanish-only primary school. There is no Chati-

12 Other attempts to impose (urban) Mexican national culture were more concrete and physical:
boys were made to wear pants instead of ntykiyàʔ (white cloth breeches), children were made to
wear shoes instead of going barefoot or wearing traditional kanyà sandals, and at least in Tatalt-
epec, girls were required to wear their hair in perms rather than the preferred local styles of long
straight or braided hair (Flavia Mateo and Modesta Martínez, p.c. 2012).
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   283

no-dominant track within the schools, and Chatino is not offered as a subject in
any secondary or post-secondary school in Tataltepec or Zacatepec.
Since English presents greater economic opportunity, parents choose to not
transmit Chatino to their children and hope they learn English instead. Herit-
age Chatino speakers feel that they have to pick between one of the languages
(Chatino or English), but cannot learn both because it would just be too difficult
to achieve. In keeping with the dominant national language ideology promoted
by the educational system, parents believe that their children should be first and
foremost Spanish speakers, leaving heritage Chatino speakers to feel that they
have to pick between maintaining Chatino skills or hoping to acquire English
skills. Parents can hope that their children might acquire skills in some other lan-
guage, but Chatino and English are perceived as “difficult” languages, so learn-
ing both seems improbable. Chatino speakers are then reluctant to teach their
children Chatino (even at home) because they believe that speaking Chatino does
not allow for ever mastering standard Spanish, and furthermore, even if the latter
situation was conceivable, it would still impede the prospect of learning English
in addition to Spanish. Now that English acquisition is desirable, the language
ideology of idealized monolingualism affects notions of what is possible in lan-
guage learning. People should be monolingual (Spanish), and can desire to speak
another language (English), but not a third (Chatino). We argue that English’s
new-found status as a desirable language is a consequence of its presence and its
perceived utility in labor migration. The next section will discuss the prevalence
and effects of labor migration in the two communities.

2.3 Labor migration: The context of two Chatino communities

This section discusses the patterns and prevalence of labor migration in the
region. First we describe the historic patterns of labor migration and contrast
them with the contemporary labor migration, then we show the levels of partici-
pation in transborder labor migration in Zacatepec and Tataltepec.

2.3.1 Previous patterns of migration

Leaving the home community to find work is nothing new in the Chatinophone
communities of Oaxaca. The scarcity of farmland and the poverty of the soils have
long conspired to place farmers in the position of not being able to grow all the
food they will need during the year. Additionally, the demands of the civil-reli-
gious hierarchy, especially the occasional requirement to host feasts for saints,
284   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

required households to procure items they cannot produce on their own, such
as candles and liquor, meaning that some amount of paid labor had to be under-
taken in order to fulfill a household’s obligations (Greenberg 1981). Typically,
laborers would leave their communities to work on large plantations, generally
cotton or sugar plantations along the coastal plains south of their villages. Begin-
ning in the mid-twentieth century, coffee began to be planted in large amounts
on mountainsides in the region (including the area around Zacatepec), and cof-
fee’s labor-intensive winter harvest soon became a frequent destination for wage
seekers.
Though this plantation labor does provide a precedent for labor migration,
the kind of migration it entails is vastly different in several respects from the trans-
border migration common today. Firstly, though working for a wage on a coastal
cotton plantation required passing from a Chatino-dominant sphere to a mesti-
zo-dominant sphere, no national borders were crossed, and the costs and risks
involved in traveling to work were much lower. Secondly, given that plantations
(especially coffee plantations) do not need large numbers of workers throughout
the year, employment is seasonal, and workers generally would only leave their
homes for a few weeks at a time. Thirdly, families often traveled in groups to work
on plantations, with most members participating in coffee picking and others
tending to meal preparation and watching over their camp. This is in contrast to
the current state of migration in which lone migrants13 generally stay for multiple
years given the costs and risks involved with crossing the border into the US, and
the separation of laborers from their families that can occur as a result of this
migration.

2.3.2 The prevalence of migration in Zacatepec and Tataltepec

The data for labor migration figures were collected by the authors themselves as
official migration figures are only reported by state, not by town or municipality,
and the available state-level figures may be flawed for methodological reasons:
families of migrants may be reluctant to divulge information to government
agents or may consider relatives in the US as still residing in the home. Our long-
term presence in each respective community has allowed for solid trustworthy

13 Though certainly true of the first periods of labor migration to the US, this is becoming less
the norm as more and more migrants send for their partners and children after settling in the
north or even as entire families cross together.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   285

relationships with several individuals, and migration data was easily collected
through interviews with different community members.

Fig. 2: Participation in labor migration in Tataltepec and Zacatepec.

Zacatepec migratory data was collected with the help of one main consultant at
first, who ran through every single village household in his mind in a systematic
way identifying all the persons who were away in the US at the time as well as
the people who had migrated and have returned to the community. The data was
reviewed and revised by several individuals in the community over the course
of the summer 2012, and always fostered great debate and conversations about
migration in general.
The figures for Tataltepec were obtained by asking a Chatino-speaking con-
sultant to go over the 2012 medical clinic census rolls and identify all persons
who were known to be away in the US currently, as well as all those people who
had ever migrated but currently live in Tataltepec. This approach can undercount
the actual number of migrants in two respects: the consultants may have forgot-
ten that a given individual is or has been away, and residents can be overlooked
entirely. In Zacatepec, the consultants may have forgotten to include a house-
hold or individual, and in Tataltepec individuals were removed from the medical
clinic rolls. The first confound likely has a small effect given close-knit nature
of the communities, while the magnitude of the second confound is harder to
determine. Though the medical clinic’s rolls are quickly updated with all reported
births and deaths, people who have not visited the clinic in five years may be
removed from the rolls, meaning that long-term migrants are absent from both
the counts of those currently abroad as well as the total population figures, which
has the effect of lowering the overall rate of migration for the two communities.
286   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

In Zacatepec 77 people who are currently in the US were identified, and an

additional 63 had returned from working in the US. In Tataltepec 236 people were
identified as currently in the US and 88 who have returned. These figures are
reported in Table 1 and summarized in Figure 2.
Tataltepec and Zacatepec have larger portions of their citizens abroad (9.0 %
and 6.4 % respectively) than Oaxaca (3.1 %) and the entire Republic (3.3 %) (Insti-
tuto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía 2010).14 This is understandable since
migration is often more pronounced in marginalized communities where resi-
dents perceive fewer opportunities for economic security. These figures do seem
low compared to many communities in Oaxaca such as San Lucas Quiaviní for
which Pérez Báez (2012, 2013: 55, this volume) notes a 20 % to 50 % decline in
population since the beginning of the labor migration in that locale (whereas all
Chatino municipalities have experienced population growth between 1990 and
2010). It is noteworthy that the effects of labor migration and the culture of migra-
tion are so present even when only about 12 % of the population has migrated.

Tab. 1: Participation in labor migration in Zacatepec and Tataltepec.

Zacatepec Tataltepec

Current migrants 77 6.4 % 236 9 %

Returned migrants 63 5.2 % 88 3.4 %
Participants in migration 140 11.6 % 324 12.4 %
Non-migrants 1063 88.4 % 2297 87.6 %
Total 1203 100 % 2621 100 %

2.4 Migration discourses in Zacatepec and Tataltepec

Migration along with migrant remittances–money sent home from abroad–is

viewed positively as a path to the survival and stability of the family, and poten-
tially the community as a whole (VanWey et al. 2005). The effects of remittances

14 Since the lack of a satellite community in the United States makes estimating the numbers
of all Zacatepec and Tataltepec migrants quite difficult, we have to rely on a method that sys-
tematically undercounts migrants. The INEGI state-level and national migration rates reported
here only identify persons who have emigrated in the past five years, and are suitable for com-
paring Tataltepec and Zacatepec’s migration rates to state-wide and national levels, assuming
no marked differences in average lengths of residence in the United States for the migrants of
each group.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   287

can be plainly seen in the empty houses of Tataltepec which have been built with
remittances in anticipation of a migrant’s return, and the current building boom
in Zacatepec undertaken by recently returned migrants. Building booms, both
after and in advance of migrants’ returns, has also been seen in, for example, the
Zapotec community of San Juan Guelavía (Falconi 2011: 62).
The windshield lettering of a large new pickup truck seen on a road near San
Juan Quiahije (a Chatino community whose language is currently quite vital) in
2009 read “Sin ser mojado”. The phrase literally means “without being wet”, but
can be interpreted as “without migrating”.15 Public texts like this suggest that
financial success (as demonstrated by purchasing a vehicle) without leaving
one’s community to work abroad is an exceptional event and one worth adver-
tising.
English’s perceived benefits to the migrant – in increasing job opportunities,
easing navigation of Anglophone cities, and self-defense in interactions with
authorities  – makes it a desirable and monetizable skill (Falconi 2011). As dis-
cussed in Section 2.3.2., a sizeable number of residents in Zacatepec as well as in
Tataltepec have worked or are working in the US, and this has led to the possi-
bility of intense contact with English. However, returning migrants often do not
come back to their home community with English skills because their marginali-
zation in the US and their fairly short stays (typically of three to five years) offer
them relatively few opportunities for the acquisition of English. They usually
acquire some greetings and basic vocabulary, which they use in the community
in our presence or among friends. They often express regrets for not having had
the chance to learn it while in the US.
There is a discourse that criticizes the negative effects of migration, but these
are reckoned to ultimately be the fault of individual migrants for succumbing to
substance abuse, joining street gangs, or abandoning spouses and dependents in
favor of starting new families in the US.

2.4.1 Tataltepec’s pro-migration mural

Many walls in the villages and towns of Oaxaca are painted with informative
murals, the rural analogue of the urban or roadside billboard. For a fee or for a
free coat of paint, property owners will allow an out-facing wall of their buildings
to be painted over with an informational mural. The most frequent subjects are

15 Since some undocumented migrants crossed the US border by wading or swimming across
the Rio Grande, undocumented migrants are said to be “wet”.
288   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

political candidates, concerts, rodeos and wrestling matches, but another prom-
inent topic is public health.
Figure 3 shows an information-dense mural that evidences the wider pro-mi-
gration attitude present in Tataltepec and beyond. The mural, which is far larger
than most, is divided into three panels. On the first panel are the images of a chile,
a banana and a bunch of grapes and texts which reads “Migrants: 684 people.16
Chief jobs in the US: Construction 9 dollars per hour, commerce 8 dollars per
hour, industry 20 dollars per hour.” The banner text of the second panel asks
“How much does it cost to support a family with five or more members?;” then
lists a number of foodstuffs and other consumable household goods with their
prices per half kilo given in Mexican pesos,17 arriving at a weekly grocery bill of
MXN 235.50. The third panel gives the weekly and daily wages of three common
jobs (farmer, builder, and rancher) in Tataltepec in Mexican pesos.
The disparity between the wages is remarkable. Not only are the US wages
reported in a foreign currency that is seen as ten times as valuable as national
currency, they are also reported by hourly wage, whereas the local jobs’ wages
are quoted as daily and weekly amounts. Though the mural does not explicitly
endorse migration, we believe it strongly implies that one should migrate, since
one can make much more money more quickly in the US than in Tataltepec.
According to the figures in the mural, in less than three hours of work in the US,
the grocery bill is paid for, while a worker in Tataltepec could have to spend more
than an entire day’s wages to buy the same goods. While the creators of the mural
are not known, they have painted the initials “IMSS” standing for the Mexican
Social Security Institute, a governmental organization tasked with public health
and social security, on the first panel, which we take to indicate either actual
authorship, the source of the data, or else an attempt to borrow the institute’s
authority for the mural.

16 This figure is far higher than the number of migrants we identified for Tataltepec. This figure
may include the long-term migrants that could not be identified using our methods, or this is a
figure for the municipio (roughly, ‘county’) which includes data from Tataltepec de Valdés and
the equally populous Santa Cruz Tepenixtlahuaca, or both.
17 At the time the mural was painted 1 USD ≈ 12 MXN, though people in Tataltepec and Zacatep-
ec generally reckon at a rate of 1 USD = 10 MXN.
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   289

Fig. 3: Factors that influence family progress (photo Ryan Sullivant)

2.4.2 The monetary value of English

Given that there is a widespread largely positive discourse surrounding migration,

and that migration is seen as a path to family survival and stability, it is unsur-
prising then that English would be seen as a valuable skill to acquire. Though
a command of English is not absolutely essential to living and working in the
United States, knowing English is seen as a useful skill for economic opportunity,
and to a lesser degree, for self-defense and navigation of Anglophone domains in
the US (Falconi 2011). When people were asked why someone in Zacatepec and
Tataltepec would want to learn English, the responses were often in economic
terms: knowing English opens up access to more and better jobs both in the US
and in the tourism sector of nearby Puerto Escondido, which sees large numbers
of North American and European tourists.

2.5 English in Zacatepec and Tataltepec

As it was mentioned earlier in this paper, despite the large number of people who
have migrated to the US, the English language is rather absent within the com-
munities under examination. Every so often, we would be saluted in the street in
English by a few individuals who are known in the community for having spent
a long time in el norte, but outside of greetings and interjections (chiefly Oh my
God), no other English is ever spoken.
290   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

One domain where English is common today in Zacatepec and Tataltepec is

naming practices. Amid the Eduardos and María del Carmens born in these two
communities in the past decade, there are Britnys, Cyntias and Kevins. The pres-
ence of English names is not unique to these communities, as English names are
present on yearly lists of common baby names both within Mexico18 and through-
out the Spanish-speaking world, and an onomastic study of Tlalnepantla de Baz
in central Mexico found that 6.5 % of girls and 4.8 % of boys born in the twentieth
century had been given English names (López Franco 2009).19
English is a required subject for all secondary school students in both com-
munities and is also offered at all primary schools other than the escuela bilingüe,
though the success of these courses in developing English fluency appears to be
quite limited.
In sum, English is present at a very superficial level in the community. More
prevalent is the desire to learn English; we have both been asked by multiple
individuals to teach English to children in the communities.

3 Language documentation in a community with

high migration rates
As field linguists working with endangered languages in the new millennium, the
authors’ research agendas had a moral component in addition to scientific goals,
as both they and their academic mentors were steeped in notions of responsible
linguistic research (Hale et al. 1992). Today, many major funding entities, such as
the National Science Foundation’s Documenting Endangered Languages program
expect projects “to involve invaluable community input, vision, and collabora-
tion” and “balance the needs of the community with the scientific goals of the
project.”… [D]ocumentary products become instrumental in making community

18 Babycenter en español (2012) is one example that cites data from Mexico’s National Registry
of Population and Personal Identification (RENAPO).
19 Though it is tempting to draw a connection between labor migration and the adoption of
English names, we do not have any data to suggest that migration caused or is augmenting this
trend, and an equally plausible explanation could be an increase in Anglophone American cul-
tural influences (e.g. through greater penetration of American programming into Mexican media
networks) during the same period. At any rate, the first English given name found in a sample
of Catedral de México birth records from 1540 to 1950 was from 1932, preceding the era of large-
scale migration to the United States (Boyd-Bowman 1970).
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   291

language maintenance and revival programs possible.”20 The authors’ respective

grant proposals echoed these expectations and hoped that language revitaliza-
tion and maintenance would spring up from their documentation efforts. Also in
keeping with grantors’ expectations and trends among language documentation
projects in Latin America, the authors aimed to train speakers to analyze and
document their own languages.
Agreeing with Dobrin (2008) and Sicoli (2010) that the prima facie ‘voluntary’
language shifts in process in both communities are in reality the result of politi-
cal, cultural, and economic marginalization, we could not help but feel a moral
obligation to help bring about the revitalization of their vernacular as a viable
medium of communication in all realms of daily life.
In spite of this perceived obligation, the authors could not fully involve them-
selves in the creation of a revitalization project because their linguistic research
agendas were quite heavy and left little time for revitalization efforts. Addition-
ally, the civil-religious hierarchies of the two communities can undermine the
continuity of a project, since all local government officers are switched out annu-
ally in Zacatepec and every three years in Tataltepec, meaning that local govern-
ment support cannot be guaranteed in the mid-to-long term.21 The hierarchy can
even disrupt the ability of a private citizen to contribute to such a project, since
a household may be assigned the task of sponsoring the costly feast of a saint,
and may be driven to devote energies to artisanal tasks like basket-making or to
engage in additional wage labor instead of working on revitalization projects. We
were also reluctant to devote ourselves fully to revitalization projects since we
agreed then with the idea that successful revitalization efforts come from within
communities and not through the efforts of an outsider (Crystal 2000; Grenoble
and Whaley 2006; Hinton 2001).
Over the years, the on-going documentation work within the community,
by community members themselves, has helped people in general think in new
ways, especially with respect to the value and importance of Chatino. Demon-
strating that Chatino could be written, showing that even younger semi-speakers
could learn to write Chatino, and through the exercise of transcribing and trans-
lating improve their Chatino speaking skills, all bring Chatino to consciousness
resulting in a slow increase in the valorization of their heritage language.

20 http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/2013_DEL_Awards.pdf
21 O’Meara and González Guadarrama (this volume) also report difficulties stemming from the
changing of local governments. Yáñez Rosales et al. (this volume) reports a similar problem with
turnover in school administrations.
292   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

Focusing our efforts away from community level revitalization and instead
directing them towards helping individual members who were genuinely inter-
ested in small personal projects proved to be a good counter effect to the language
ideologies in the community.
The following sections describe the course of fieldwork in Tataltepec de
Valdés and San Marcos Zacatepec and our focus on collaboration with motivated
individuals rather than large community-wide projects. Here, the purpose is
indeed to tell a story, tell the story of those individuals who are the protagonists
of ELDD projects and who tend to be left out in the literature. These particular
narratives are specific to each project, each environment, each language, etc. but
still they illustrate some of the issues discussed earlier in this paper. Each story
offers a different perspective, a possible scenario which participate to a greater
understanding of all the specificities of ELDD projects.

3.1 Tataltepec documentation narrative

Sullivant’s fieldwork on Tataltepec de Valdés began as he was looking for a

language of research after starting graduate studies. After joining the Chatino
research group in 2008 and making a few field trips under the auspices of Wood-
bury’s Endangered Language Documentation Programme grant (Cruz and Wood-
bury 2014), Sullivant received a Dissertation Improvement Grant in 2011 through
the National Science Foundation’s Documenting Endangered Languages program
which allowed for three additional field trips over two years. He chose to study a
Chatino language since he would benefit from the support of a body of research-
ers of Chatino at the university and chose Tataltepec Chatino in particular since
this third branch of the family was not yet the focus of any in-depth study.
In Tataltepec, he collected texts and collaborated with a small team of
Chatino speakers – all fluent speakers according to Grinevald and Bert (2011) –
who worked alongside him to transcribe and translate recorded texts. Given that
most speakers of Chatino are over thirty years old, and many of the younger
persons who are semi-speakers of Chatino are not living in the community, it has
proven difficult to find motivated speakers to train in linguistic analysis during
the fieldwork periods. In spite of this difficulty, some motivated speakers have
been trained in linguistic analysis  – chiefly in transcription skill sets and in
orthography development.
While the goals of Sullivant’s NSF grant did not include language revitali-
zation, the overall positive image of Chatino led him to attempt some efforts to
encourage revitalization in the community. He took meetings with municipal
authorities to set about creating a language nest (a project which did not get
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   293

past the planning stages due to a lack of interest and concerns about funding
support), and hosted a workshop on the structure of Chatino. Trilingual (Cha-
tino-Spanish-English) vocabularies were distributed within the community and
were well-received. While such products are useful for combating harmful dis-
courses denying languagehood to local languages, they are unlikely to lead to
reversing language shift by themselves.22
This is not to say that there are no pro-Chatino activists in Tataltepec, in fact,
some of the most interested collaborators sought out Sullivant to work with him
transcribing and translating the twenty-eight hours of tales, personal histories,
and conversations collected by Sullivant and other researchers. As of Sullivant’s
visit to Tataltepec in 2012, approximately twenty-one hours of this corpus have
been transcribed and translated, some of which have already been accessioned
to digital archives.23 What follows are brief profiles of the main collaborators in
Sullivant’s documentation of Tataltepec Chatino.
Early in his project, Sullivant benefited from the assistance of Alicia Martínez
Quiroz (32) who had been trained in linguistic analysis through Terrence Kauf-
man’s Project for the Documentation of the Languages of MesoAmerica (PDLMA).
Beyond her help with linguistic matters, she also was invaluable in finding poten-
tial collaborators for Sullivant’s project. In these early stages a large amount of
assistance was given by schoolteacher Jesús Jiménez Jiménez (53), who is a sup-
porter of Chatino education, and had participated in earlier attempts to produce
a Chatino orthography (Molina Cruz et al. 2011). The team of collaborators also
included Modesta Martínez Mateo (49) and Cecilia López Mejía (45) who worked
long hours with Sullivant to translate and transcribe the collected materials.
Flavia Mateo Mejía is a 64 year old retired schoolteacher who has been quite
interested in Chatino for some time. When teaching Zenzontepec-Chatino-speak-
ing schoolchildren in communities such as Llano Víbora, she learned to speak
that language, which is unintelligible to speakers of Tataltepec Chatino and is the
most divergent member of the family (Campbell 2013). Before that, she had par-
ticipated in the linguistic research of Leslie and Kitty Pride, missionary-linguists
from the Summer Institute of Linguistics who lived in Tataltepec for some sixteen
years in the sixties and seventies.24 She has participated in an initiative by the

22 For a more detailed critique of using literacy to revitalize previously unwritten languages, see
Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna (this volume).
23 The Endangered Language Archive (http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0090) and the Archive
of Indigenous Languages of Latin America (http://www.ailla.utexas.org/search/collection.
html?c_id=13).
24 Besides producing vocabularies of Tataltepec and Eastern Chatino (Pride and Pride 1970,
2004), they have written a memoir of their experiences in Tataltepec (Pride and Pride 2007).
294   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

Center for the Study and Development of the Indigenous Languages of Oaxaca
(CEDELIO) to translate and record the Mexican national anthem into various
indigenous languages. She is recognized within the community for her Chatino
skills, and over the years has been asked to teach Tataltepec Chatino to school-
children and to prepare a chorus of heritage Chatino speakers to sing the anthem
at public events. She naturally worked closely with the University of Texas lin-
guists who made short excursions to Tataltepec during surveys of Eastern Chatino
communities, and has worked closely with Sullivant since he began his fieldwork
in the community, teaching him her Chatino and working with him to transcribe
and translate the texts he had collected throughout the community.
Celiflora Cortés Jiménez is a 30 year old mother of four and part-time school-
teacher who has worked with Sullivant during most of his field sessions. Through
her work with the escuela bilingüe, she took an interest in writing and noticed that
the orthography commonly used by the schools (Molina Cruz et al. 2011) under-
represented Tataltepec Chatino’s phonology,25 and wanted to learn how to better
capture her language in writing. Sullivant worked with her to troubleshoot and
develop some revisions to the extant orthography, which Cortés adopted. Since
the end of Sullivant’s grant, she has continued to study her Chatino, and has
traveled to Oaxaca to participate in lexical tone workshops organized by Chatino
linguist Emiliana Cruz.

3.2 Zacatepec documentation narrative

Villard’s fieldwork began in 2006 as an early member of the Chatino Language

Documentation Project directed by Anthony Woodbury, when she accompanied
other project members on a exploratory trip in the Chatino region, visiting a few
communities in addition to San Marcos Zacatepec. Villard did fieldwork under
Woodbury’s Major Documentation Project grant from the ELDP from 2007 to
2010, then through an Individual Graduate Scholarship from the ELDP from 2010
to 2013 which allowed for a sustained presence in the field for a period of six
years. In this regard Villard’s fieldwork experience is atypical of most graduate
students’ experiences. One of the reasons why Villard picked Zacatepec as her
field site was due to the immediate and overwhelming interest and willingness of
the community members to share their knowledge of their language with the total

25 Besides the complete absence of lexical tone notation, the orthography as it was used in
the school’s materials failed to distinguish/tiː/from/tyi/(writing both as <tii>) and/k/from/kw/in
clusters (writing both as <k>).
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   295

stranger that she was. This openness and interest in their heritage language was
evidenced by the high level of attendance by all ages to Chatino literacy work-
shops conducted during the first summer fieldwork in 2006.
These daily public workshops had the main purpose of demonstrating to
Chatino speakers that contrary to what they may have been led to believe, their
language indeed could be written just as the languages of wider communication.
This venue was also helping Villard identify individual community members par-
ticularly interested in language documentation and maintenance issues.
When we first started working in the communities, we presumed that general
desires for language revitalization would translate naturally into communi-
ty-wide language revitalization efforts. In Zacatepec, a Chatino immersion after
school program was created in 2011 with the support from a state agency. This
project enjoyed a very short life partly due to a lack of effective management, or
lack of financial funding, poorly-trained teachers, and even more problematic,
none of the chosen teachers were recognized as fluent speakers of Chatino.
Over the course of the last few years, Villard has had regular conversations
about the state of the language with people serving as town authorities, and has
offered insights and ideas for revitalization projects but those exchanges never
translated into the creation of actual committees that would be responsible for
organizing community wide efforts of Chatino revitalization.
To follow is the presentation of four individuals who have been central to
the documentation process of Zacatepec Chatino, and who have been participat-
ing, each of them in their own way, in dusting off and polishing the community’s
image of Chatino. Some parts of the following individuals’ presentations were
taken from Villard’s dissertation (Villard 2015).
Margarita González Hernández is 71 years old, and has been working with
Villard on the documentation of her native language since 2006. She is a fluent
speaker according to Grinevald and Bert (2011). Chatino is still her main medium
of communication as her social circle is mainly composed of people her age with
a similar language profile. In that way, she represents the ideal language consult-
ant typically sought by linguists working on the description of endangered lan-
guages. She joined the project in 2006, first as a language consultant, i.e. helping
Villard figure out the grammar of the language sitting through long hours of elici-
tation and transcription sessions. She was trained to collect natural speech using
a digital recorder and to keep metadata records for all sound files in a notebook.
Since then, González has been the principal language documenter for the Zacate-
pec language documentation project and has excelled at her mission.
296   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

To date, the corpus of texts contains 170 hours of natural discourse with a
total of 116 speakers, men and women ranging from 40 to 87 years old.26 The
large number of speakers means that about one third of the Chatino speakers
in the community have participated in the documentation of Zacatepec Chatino.
The range of genres and topics includes among other things, conversations, per-
sonal narratives, folk tales, descriptions of the traditional political system, culi-
nary practices, and ritual speech. 95 % of these recordings were collected inde-
pendently by González while Villard was not present in Zacatepec. This breadth
and volume of documentation could not have been achieved without the involve-
ment of a native Chatino speaker and community insider who had been trained
as a language documenter.
Anatolio Soriano Cortés is 65 years old, and he has been involved in the
documentation project since he asked Villard to teach him to write Chatino in
the summer of 2011. He is also a fluent speaker of Chatino. He met with Villard
every day so that she could teach him how to write his native language. The
learning process was difficult but his patience and his dedication allowed him
to succeed in his new endeavor, and within a year he was a fluent reader and
writer of Chatino. She decided to train him in text collection as well, so that he
could collect texts involving men to complement González’s texts which tended
to include more women than men. Soriano collected a few hours of texts with
some of his acquaintances, but chose to focus solely on his writing, and Villard
trained him to transcribe and translate natural speech using a CD player and a
simple notebook. Since 2011, Soriano has filled 13 notebooks with transcriptions
and translations of many folktales and conversations from various members of
the community.
María de Jesús Barrada is a 22-year-old ghost speaker of Chatino (following
Grinevald and Bert (2011)) who approached Villard during the summer of 2012 to
be part of the ongoing documentation project in Zacatepec. Barrada had always
hidden her Chatino skills from Villard (as well as others) who assumed they were
nonexistent just as it was apparently the case of all people her age within the
community. At first, Villard thought teaching her to transcribe Chatino would be
difficult if not impossible since she was not aware of her language skills, having
never heard her utter a word in Chatino, and more importantly, she had always
led Villard to believe that she did not speak Chatino at all. Nevertheless, Villard
invited her to learn to write Chatino that summer. They worked on Chatino orthog-
raphy, and when she was ready, they started working on transcriptions, begin-

26 This corpus is archived at ELAR (http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0256) and at AILLA (http://

www.ailla.utexas.org/search/view_resource.html?lg_id=231).
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   297

ning with her mother’s texts. Villard figured that she would understand her moth-
er’s speech best. Barrada’s mother also participated in the transcription process
at first, repeating each recorded utterance at a slower pace so that her daughter
could transcribe the words. As of this writing, Barrada has transcribed and trans-
lated some three hours of speech and in doing has increased her own skills and
fluency in Chatino. As a result of this additional exposure and interaction with
Chatino, Barrada has become less inclined to hide her Chatino skills around her
peers – though she is still too shy to claim to speak Chatino with older community
members. She reported to Villard that she talks about her work with her friends
and that the majority of them say that they would also like to be trained to read
and write in Chatino. Economic opportunities for young people are practically
nonexistent within the community and language documenting could be seen as a
lucrative non-manual part-time job.
Javier Ayuso González is a 42-year-old semi-speaker of Zacatepec Chatino
according to the definition of Grinevald and Bert (2011). Ayuso predominantly
speaks Spanish but has very high levels of Chatino comprehension. Villard has
witnessed many such conversations where Ayuso was a Spanish-speaking par-
ticipant in otherwise Chatino conversations. Ayuso is fully integrated within the
Chatino fluent speakers group despite the fact that most fluent speakers know he
is not a fluent Chatino speaker. Fluent Chatino speakers (who are all bilingual in
Spanish and Chatino in Zacatepec) will switch to Spanish to accommodate ghost
speakers, but will not switch to accommodate semi-speakers, despite the fact
that semi-speakers in these conversations may produce only Spanish. He entered
the project as a cultural consultant and cartographer. He drafted a map of the
community with its surroundings, which served as a stimulus in interviews with
elders about local geography and history: usually Ayuso speaks Spanish and the
interlocutor responds in Chatino. Despite the fact that he is not a fluent speaker of
Chatino, he is an ideal candidate for this type of research because of his excellent
relationship with most elders in the community and also because of his genuine
passion for the region’s history and geography.
The Zacatepec documentation project unfolded in directions that Villard had
not anticipated. Each new participant would steer the project in new directions,
reflecting their own interests and affinities to different tasks within the larger
ELDD project. The participation of Barrada was unexpected, as she is the young-
est person ever to learn to read and write Zacatepec Chatino. She was the first
ghost speaker to openly show interest in learning more Chatino. Her story moti-
vated others in the community to want to follow in her footsteps.
298   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

3.3 Suggestions for field linguists

In this paper we have shown how we have adapted our work to the particular
sociolinguistic situation in our respective field sites by refocusing our efforts
from community wide efforts to collaborative work with motivated individuals. In
closing, we would like to offer some further suggestions for field linguists who are
working or soon will work in communities with similar situations.

3.3.1 Pro-language attitudes do not entail pro-revitalization attitudes

Given that academics can arrive in a fieldwork situation with the expectation that
they will shortly be able to set in motion the revitalization of the vernacular lan-
guage of the community, we can be prone to overestimate a community’s enthusi-
asm for revitalization and maintenance efforts, especially in cases such as ours in
Tataltepec and Zacatepec where almost everyone we met talked about Chatino in
very positive terms, and deplored the communities’ shift to Spanish. Positive atti-
tudes towards the local language (even widespread attitudes) do not necessarily
indicate that a community is ready or interested in language revitalization. The
pro-language attitude may itself be a badge of ethnicity for a community, even if
the community may not have any strong desires to maintain or relearn their local
language.

3.3.2 Long-term involvement is necessary

We agree with many of the authors in the ELDD literature (e.g. Dobrin 2008) that
a successful revitalization program is a long-term project that requires the full
involvement of the linguist. This long period of involvement is necessary to ade-
quately determine community attitudes in preparation for revitalization projects,
assessing the different types of speakers (ghost speakers in particular can be dif-
ficult to identify), and to fully assist the community in the long process of revital-
ization and addressing negative stereotypes (Benedicto, Shettle and Mayangna
Yulbarangyang Balna, this volume). A balance must be struck between time spent
on ELDD efforts and time spent on revitalization projects, and this balance must
be informed by the community’s preparation for and potential for engagement in
such a revitalization program. This is especially important for languages without
adequate (or any) documentation, where priority should be given to providing a
good record of the language (which itself requires much time and effort on the
 Language documentation in two communities with high migration rates   299

linguist’s part), as well as for early-career linguists whose professional demands

may not value the products of revitalization efforts as equal to other works.

3.3.3 Include all types of speakers in the documentation project

The involvement and participation of a variety of types of speakers was the key
to the success of the Zacatepec documentation project. Ghost speakers and
semi-speakers represent a very large portion of the population in Zacatepec, and
categorically excluding them from language documentation and revitalization
may hamper long-term revitalization efforts, since it is from this generally larger
semi-speaker group that some of the most involved activists for language revi-
talization emerge (Grinevald and Bert 2011: 50; Vallejos, this volume). Further-
more, semi-speakers are often the main caretakers for their grandchildren whose
parents have emigrated to the US, and in those households, the children are more
immersed in vernacular culture and language than if they were living with their
parents.

3.3.4 Teaching English

More likely than not, field linguists in these communities will be asked to teach
English. Researchers should determine if the request is for a neutral cultural
exchange or curiosity, for a show of goodwill, or a condition of one’s presence in
the community. Villard deflected all requests to teaching English by pointing out
that French was her native language, not English (and was never asked to teach
French). Sullivant deflected most requests by pointing out that he had neither the
preparation nor the materials to teach English, and in such a situation would be
a sub-par teacher.
If fieldworkers decide to teach English (or some other language of wider
communication), care must be taken to figure out what kind of instruction your
prospective students expect and model your teaching or tutoring to that. While
boring people with overly dry and technical descriptions of English may eliminate
any further requests to teach English, it could also dissuade otherwise enthusi-
astic and capable speakers from wanting to collaborate on a language project.
The amount of effort the community may be expecting may be fairly low. In Sul-
livant’s experience, the kind of lessons people in Tataltepec wanted closely mir-
rored the second-language pedagogy being used to teach Chatino in the schools.
The parents of a six-year-old boy asked for a list of words in Spanish and English
with an audio recording so that the child could listen to English words.
300   Stéphanie Villard and J. Ryan Sullivant

4 Conclusion
We assert that researchers beginning to work in communities with high levels of
international migration such as those observed in Mexico and other parts of Latin
America should be prepared for lower enthusiasm for community-wide language
revitalization programs than may be suggested by the strength of positive local
discourses about the language. In these communities, English now factors into
ideologies of language and represents a new goal for language acquisition which
may reduce community-wide enthusiasm for heritage language maintenance.
Researchers should tailor project goals towards empowering individual speakers,
which may lead, in the long run, to grassroots revitalization efforts. To this end,
we have focused our efforts in these two communities on language documenta-
tion activities and the training of motivated speakers of all types in text collection
and processing. We also show that this is only possible by means of sustained
presence and speaker empowerment through the establishment of long-term doc-
umentation projects where local language documenters work all year long (even
during the main researcher’s absence) towards the documentation of their native
language allowing for an on-going conversation within the community about the
state and the value of the language.
While teaching, training and collaborating with native speakers in Latin
America has been particularly fruitful (e.g. Benedicto et al. 2007; Cruz and Wood-
bury 2014; Grinevald 2011), the geographic proximity to the United States and
the socioeconomic situation of northern Latin American countries have brought
about specific issues relevant to language documentation projects. Among those,
migration to the US is of particular concern since it can result in the considerable
attrition of language communities (and therefore potential language consultants)
and increased aspiration for English acquisition at the cost of lowered aspiration
for language maintenance or revitalization. In contrast to the highly motivated
and engaged communities discussed in the above citations, communities where
the culture of migration is more present may lack the sufficient critical mass of
speakers who are ready and able to engage in collaborative revitalization projects
community-wide.

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Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and
Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

12 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor

in language revitalization: A look at the
Mayangna languages of Nicaragua

1 Introduction
Linguists have been collaborating with language communities in the Atlantic
Coast of Nicaragua for over 30-years since the 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution brought
about the appropriate political and social structural conditions for massive lan-
guage maintenance, revitalization and strengthening.
Activities that at the time were recognized as conducive to language revi-
talization were initiated in the 1980s: creation of grammars, vocabularies and
dictionaries; development of language-specific education programs including
the production of language-specific textbooks; and compilation of culturally rel-
evant materials, as determined by the community (such as folk tales, oral history
accounts, cooking methods, hunting and fishing practices, etc…) that were pub-
lished for free for the language-specific education programs and for the members
of the language community at large. After this 30-year period of continuous work
along these lines, there is, however, no evidence that these actions are actually
having any substantial effect in the already existing trends of language loss or
language shift: those varieties of the language that were healthy are still healthy,
and those varieties that had fallen in a pattern of language shift (and subsequent
loss) continue to be on that pattern, with increasing numbers of loss of (old and
new)1 speakers.
This work is an attempt at analyzing what has been done, how that work
relates to and interacts with factors commonly accepted as relevant in language

1 ‘Old’ speakers being those adult speakers that stop using the language replacing it with anoth-
er one, whereas ‘new’ speakers would be the children that would make up the new generations
of speakers that do not acquire the language anymore.

Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle (Purdue University) and Mayangna Yulbarangyang
Balna (Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas y la Costa Caribe de Nicaragua)
306   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

revitalization (see Pérez Báez, Rogers and Rosés Labrada, this volume), and what
potential alternatives exist to explain the patterns we find, in particular what
we can learn from examining underlying linguistic ideologies prevalent in the
region. Ultimately, we want to evaluate what responds to general trends of lan-
guage loss/revitalization across contexts and cultures, and what responds to spe-
cific conditions within the context of Latin America.
In Section 2, we introduce background information about the relevant com-
munities: the geographical location, the linguistic families, the language varieties
involved and their individual linguistic vitality, and we introduce the notion of
linguistic hierarchy first observed by Norwood (1993). In Section 3, we take up this
thread of linguistic hierarchy and analyze the pattern of language shift observed
in the Tuahka communities within the larger context of the social ecology of the
Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Section 4 addresses the different factors identified in
the Introduction to this volume (Resources, Community Engagement, Linguistic
and Dialectal Diversity, Literacy and Institutionalized Education) as they apply to
the Sumu-Mayangna communities. Finally, in Section 5 we present and develop
our proposal based on long-term personal observations of human behavior in the
local context. In Section 6, we conclude with a discussion of the systemic factors
identified around linguistic ideologies in this and other papers in this volume,
the consequences derived from them, and the implications for any potential
future actions.

2 The Mayangna language in context

Mayangna (or Northern Sumu) is the language spoken by the communities that
inhabit the Northeast region of present-day Nicaragua, though their territory may
have been substantially larger before contact (Lehmann 1920: 461–588; Conze-
mius 1932; von Houwald 1990). This region is part of Nicaragua’s eastern area,
also called The (Atlantic) Coast, which, in linguistic terms, constitutes one of the
two major linguistic areas of the country, alongside the western Pacífico side. This
linguistic (and cultural) division can be observed in the map below:
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   307

Map 1: Nicaragua: geographical location and linguistic distribution (adapted from Benedicto
and Hale 2001)

The western Pacífico side is Spanish speaking, culturally identifies as mestizo2

and has no surviving indigenous language.3 The Coast, in the Atlantic eastern
side, was originally colonized by the British and shows a larger linguistic diver-
sity, within two politically and culturally defined areas: the North Atlantic Auton-

2 Mestizo is used in the Nicaraguan context to refer to the Spanish-speaking mainstream popu-
lation; it is a label for a social construct within a given social environment and, as such, it may
have different referents within the Latin American context; see, for instance, the contributions
in this volume by Villard and Sullivant and Yáñez Rosales et al. for the use of the term in Mexico,
as well as Rogers, for the related term ladinos in Guatemala. This (the social constructs systems
existent throughout Latin America, their structural complexity and their interaction with lan-
guage revitalization) is also a realm of contrast and potential comparative analysis with the An-
glo-based world (e.g., US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) of language revitalization.
3 See Salamanca (1994) for an overview of the languages that were once present in the Pacífico.
Some works (e.g. the various contributions in Revista de Historia. Comunidades y Pueblos Indí-
genas de Nicaragua 2002) indicate that important cultural practices remain nowadays among
members of those communities that would suggest varying degrees of cultural self-awareness.
308   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

omous Region (RAAN), where the Miskitu are the dominant group, and the South
Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS), where the Kriol are dominant.4

Map 2: The languages of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (adapted from Benedicto et al. 2007)

In the south, one finds Rama, a highly endangered Chibchan language, in addi-
tion to the dominant Kriol; Garifuna, down to its last speakers (though health-
ier in Honduras, Belize and Guatemala); and Ulwa, a Southern Sumu language
spoken only in the community of Karawala. In the north, we find Miskitu and
Mayangna. Mayangna communities are distributed throughout 6 different ter-
ritories constituting the Mayangna Nation. Official demarcation of the different
territories has been ongoing for the last decade5 and is an important part of self-
identity and nation building among the Mayangna.

4 Since the writing of this text, these autonomous regions’ names have been officially changed
to Región Autónoma de la Costa Caribe Norte (RACCN), North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Re-
gion, and Región Autónoma de la Costa Caribe Sur (RACCS), South Caribbean Coast Autonomous
Region.
5 The legislation allowing for this territorial demarcation goes back to the early 2000s: Ley
No. 445 Ley del Régimen de Propiedad Comunal de los Pueblos Indígenas y Comunidades Étnicas
de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua y de los Bocay, Coco, Indio y Maíz
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   309

2.1 Linguistic family

Mayangna belongs to the Misumalpan family, a small family that has been claimed
to belong to what Mason (1939) termed Macro-Chibcha (for discussion, see Camp-
bell 1997; Constenla 1987), though the evidence for this has been considered to be
weak at best (Craig and Hale 1992). Mayangna constitutes the Northern branch
of Sumu, with Ulwa forming the Southern branch as a separate language (Hale
1991). The (western) Matagalpan branch (already identified by Brinton 1895) and
the Sumu branch form a grouping identified as Sumalpan; Miskitu is postulated
at this level, as the most distant member of the family. Misumalpa is a term coined
by Mason (1939, 1940), on the basis of the names of three of the languages in the
family (Miskitu, Sumu and Matagalpa).

(1) The Misumalpan Family (adapted from Benedicto and Hale 2001)

Misumalpan

Sumalpan Miskitu

Matagalpan Sumu

Matagalpa Cacaopera Southern Sumu=Ulwa Northern Sumu=Mayangna

Panamahka Tawahka Tuahka Yusku

2.2 Mayangna varieties (linguistic and dialectal diversity)

Though earlier work (Lehmann 1920) indicated the existence of several groups of
(what we now identify as Northern-) Sumu, each speaking a particular variety of
the language, currently only three distinct Mayangna variants have been identi-
fied: Panamahka and Tuahka6 in Nicaragua, and Tawahka in Honduras (see Ben-
edicto and Hale 2001 for a characterization of their morpho-phonological distinc-

(‘Regulation of Communal Property of the Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Communities of the
Atlantic Coast, the Bocay, Coco and Indio Maiz Rivers’) (December 2002) and the Ley No. 509 Ley
del Catastro Nacional (‘Law of National Land Demarcation’) (November 2004). The actual de-
marcation has been happening at the end of the decade and has been increasing in its coverage.
6 The spelling tuahka was decided during a community meeting on ‘normalization’ of the lan-
guage (Normalización 2002), over a previous one, twahka, because the latter reflected a spell-
ing more predominant among the Miskitu and the community sought to signal its own identity
marker.
310   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

tions). However, recent contacts by the authors and their Mayangna colleagues
with the Mayangna population of the Bocay River seem to indicate the existence
of a fourth variant, self-identified as Yusku, one of the groups previously identi-
fied by Lehmann. A further complication is that the names, geographical loca-
tion and linguistic characteristics used by Lehmann to identify linguistic varieties
within Sumu in 1920 do not necessarily correlate with the names, geographical
locations and linguistic characterization of the varieties existing nowadays. In
this paper, we concentrate on the Nicaraguan varieties and groups, for which we
have direct evidence.7

2.3 Number of speakers

As of the 1980s at least, the Panamahka variety constitutes the majority of

Mayangna speakers in Nicaragua, with the Tuahka as a minority. However, as
is always the case when dealing with endangered languages, it is difficult to put
forth a count of speakers confidently, with numbers varying greatly. Koskinen
(2009b) reports on the range of figures available: on the lower end, the Nicara-
guan Census of 2005 counted 9,756 self-reported Mayangna individuals (Koskinen
2009b: 779); this number does not make a distinction between Panamahka and
Tuahka, though it divides the population between urban (1080) and rural (8676)
(Koskinen 2009b: 776) and it does not specify whether that figure reflects speak-
ers of the language or, generally, members of the community. In the upper end,
Koskinen reports on the Nicaraguan Sumu organization SUKAWALA (Sumu Kalpa-
pakna Wahaini Lani) whose count was 25,050 people identifying as Mayangna, of
which 16,283 are reported as Panamahka and 8,767 as Tuahka (Koskinen 2009b:
779). Earlier, Benedicto and Hale (2001: 96, citing Costenla Umaña 1987) had
reported between 10–12,000 Panamahka and around 2000 Tuahka, while Buvol-
len and Buvollen (1994) had reported lower numbers estimating no more than
5,428 Panamahka and only 1,025 Tuahka.
Focusing specifically on speakers, Koskinen (2009a: 748) provides a figure
of 6,700, without specifying Panamahka or Tuahka. This figure looks quite low,

7 The same pattern of language-shift that is observed in the Tuahka communities seems to have
been reported for the Honduran Tawahka population, through internal contacts between the
Nicaraguan and Honduran communities. Though this is very likely true, we do not have direct
evidence for it. For numbers and other information on the Tawahka population, see Benedicto
and Hale (2001) and Bonilla-Álvarez and Koskinen (2009).
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   311

even when considered within the frame of the lower numbers of the 2005 Census
(9,756).8 The table below summarizes the figures mentioned.

(2) Tab. 1: Population count Comparative Table.

Source Buvollen and Benedicto and Census (2005) SUKAWALA Koskinen

Buvollen Hale (2001) (2007) (2009a)
(1994)

Panamahka 5,428 10–12,000 N/A 15,283 N/A

Tuahka 1,025 2,000 N/A 8,767 N/A
Total Mayangna 6,453 12–14,000 9,756 25,025 6,700

2.4 Introduction to the notion of (Relativized) Linguistic

Hierarchy

The linguistic groups mentioned in (2) are interlocked in a complex socio-cultural

and linguistic network of relations in the area, whose origins may well be traced
back several centuries. Norwood (1993) identified what could be considered a
linguistic hierarchy for the languages of The Coast, based on the level of mul-
ti-lingualism of the different groups in the area: the lower a group is in the social
hierarchy, the higher the number of languages they speak. Benedicto and Hale
(2001: 97) incorporated the two Nicaraguan varieties of Mayangna into Norwood’s
hierarchy:

8 This figure has also other problems. The source that is cited is PROLIBCA (Project on the Indig-
enous Languages of Central America), with a website that is currently no longer active; however,
other alternative sites for PROLIBCA have been identified (see bibliography), one of which cites
Adelaar and Quesada (2007) as the source. Nevertheless, the figure that Adelaar and Quesada
offer is 8,000 speakers, under which they include the Honduran group (which they call Ulua
[sic]) and two dialects in Nicaragua (Panamaca [sic] and Taguasca [sic]) (Adelaar and Quesada
2007: 205). As we have pointed out earlier, Ulwa is a different Sumu language, spoken in the com-
munity of Karawala in the RAAS region of Nicaragua, whereas the dialect spoken in Honduras
is Tawahka, and the two dialects or varieties spoken in Nicaragua are Panamahka and Tuahka.
312   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

(3) Population and Language associations in the Atlantic Coast (Benedicto and
Hale 2001)
Mestizos Spanish
Creoles English, Spanish
Miskitus Miskitu, English, Spanish
Panamahka Panamahka, Miskitu, Spanish
Tuahka Tuahka, Panamahka, Miskitu, Spanish

The picture, however, proved to be more complex than this, and Benedicto (2005)
and Benedicto et al. (2006) began to show that prevalent patterns of language
shift (a process by which a community abandons their heritage language and
adopts another as their L1) showed that the Language Hierarchy constituted in
fact a Relativized Linguistic Hierarchy, that is, while a group may be dominant
in a given area, they may be subordinated in a different area. For instance, the
Miskitu are clearly dominant in the north, as evidenced by other groups such as
the Mayangna shifting their identity language to Miskitu. However, in the context
of the RAAS in the south, Miskitu is clearly subordinated to Kriol,9 as evidenced
by the patterns of language shift towards Kriol on the part of the Miskitu (Koski-
nen 2009b: 778,783; Koskinen 2010: 164 and throughout).10 Patterns of similar
language shift are also observed among the Rama and the Garifuna, who have
also developed their own varieties of Kriol (Grinevald 2005: 211–214; Koskinen
2010: 140). The case of the Ulwa (Southern Sumu) is interesting in that, whereas
they are geographically in the RAAS, their shift language is Miskitu indicating a
Northern hierarchy; however, their multi-lingual pattern, which includes Kriol,
also suggests a southern alliance, which is reinforced by the closer economic and
trading relations with the RAAS capital Bluefields. An interesting property of this
relativized pattern of linguistic hierarchy is the fact that Spanish, the national
language, seems to be excluded from the equation, in the sense that it is not the
target language for any pattern of language shift, with the possible exception of
urban areas in the Mining Triangle (Northwestern corner of the RAAN), which
might indicate the existence of parallel vectors in the existing linguistic hierarchy.
The origin for this Linguistic Hierarchy seems to stem from the socio-historic
factors that shape colonial history in this area of the world. While the Spaniards
had colonized the western Pacífico area of nowadays Nicaragua very early in the

9 At the time that Norwood (1993) first introduced her Linguistic Hierarchy, the spelling Creole
was in common use. In the 2000s, it was already common to write Kriol, as the result of normali-
zation practices. See Koskinen (2006, 2010) for details of the processes related to Kriol.
10 See also Jamieson (2003), for ways in which Miskitu and Creole/Kriol identities are negotiated.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   313

colonizing period (early 1500’s), they left the eastern area practically untouched.
For reasons that are not well understood, Spanish colonizers entered the territory
through the Honduran coast, north of the Cabo de Gracias a Dios, travelled along
the northern banks of the Wangki River between Honduras and Nicaragua and
entered into what is nowadays Nicaragua through the territory of the Segovias,
in the northeast corner of the Pacífico side (Romero 1996: 36), thus avoiding the
nowadays RAAN completely. It wasn’t until the late 1600s, more than a century
later, that the British arrived to the Caribbean Coast of the territory and estab-
lished a commercial alliance with the Miskitu (Romero 1996: 37; Koskinen 2009b:
778). By the time the Spanish colony wanted to secure the mouth of the San Juan
River at the southern tip of the nowadays RAAS, the British were quite strongly
settled there and a military and political confrontation ensued that took almost
two centuries to resolve (in favor of the by then independent Nicaragua).
At the time of their arrival, the British established a primary trading relation
with the Miskitu and equipped them with weapons (Romero 1996: 40; Jamieson
2001: 6). By arming them, the British made the Miskitu, who prior to their encoun-
ters with the British were a minority ethnicity in the region, the strongest indig-
enous group on the Atlantic coast. Oral traditions of the neighboring indigenous
groups abound in stories of slavery and oppression on the part of the Miskitu
towards their neighbors, reaching all the way south to Costa Rica (Ibarra 2009);
in Nicaragua, this forced Mayangna groups to retreat west into the mountains.
By the time the first (Moravian) missionaries arrived in the second half of the 19th
century, the preponderance of the Miskitu was well-established, and the decision
to use Miskitu as the language of religion was an easy one. Moravian missionar-
ies translated the Bible to Miskitu and conducted religious services in Miskitu
(Benedicto et al. 2006: 4; Freeland and Frank 2011). Although literacy was not
widespread until the acclaimed literacy campaign of 1980 (see below, Section
4.2.), printed translations of the Bible in Miskitu and religious services conducted
in Miskitu did much to boost the social standing and prestige of the language
(Benedicto et al. 2006: 3; Freeland and Frank 2011). As a result of this increase
in economic and military power, the social standing of the Miskitu population
expanded greatly, with linguistic subordination of the other groups following suit
(Jamieson 2001: 7).
A similar pattern of acquisition of social prestige may be claimed for the
English speaking black populations that came, later on, with the arrival of
American mining and banana companies to the area (late 19th and first half of
the 20th century). Black workers acted as foremen and overseers in these com-
panies, effectively bridging (Miskitu) indigenous laborers and their white Amer-
ican bosses, thus establishing themselves as an intermediate step in the social
hierarchy (Green and Hale 1998). This social hierarchy would then extend into
314   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

the linguistic realm, yielding the Sumu>Miskitu>Kriol>English hierarchy of the

south. With the historical developments of the late 19th and 20th century, espe-
cially the final annexation of the Atlantic Coast to Nicaragua in 1894 (Koskinen
2009b: 778), Spanish entered into the picture and replaced English (Sumu>Mi-
skitu>Kriol>Spanish) as an additional language in the linguistic repertoire but not
necessarily as a shift language.
These emerging patterns of (Relativized) Linguistic Hierarchy, manifested
both in the multilingual patterns observed by Norwood and the language shifts
observed later, are, we will argue, evidence of an underlying system of linguistic
ideology that ultimately determines whether or not revitalization efforts (that is,
reversing language shift) will be successful.
In the next section, we examine more in detail the nature of language shift
among the Mayangna communities.

3 Language shift (as evidence of linguistic

ideology)
As we mentioned earlier, we understand language shift here as the process of
replacement of the heritage language as L1 with another outside language,
usually a dominant language in the environment, to the exclusion of the origi-
nal heritage language, which is eventually completely abandoned. Understand-
ing the issues that lead to language shift seems to be the (or at least one of the)
most crucial factors in figuring out the ineffectiveness of revitalization efforts in
the last 30 years in Nicaragua. Language shift is most visible, nowadays, in the
Mayangna communities along the Bambana River, most of them Tuahka but not
exclusively (Benedicto et al. 2006). Two points characterize this phenomenon:
one is that the shift is towards another indigenous language, Miskitu, and not to
the dominant national language, Spanish; the second is that Spanish does come
into the picture but only in urban areas, that is, in environments that are not per
se indigenous.
Jamieson (2001) claims that this phenomenon of language shift and its sub-
sequent identity shift is much older and is on the basis of the ‘disappearance’
of many of the Sumu groups that Lehmann (1920) and Conzemius (1932) identi-
fied at the beginning of the 20th century. According to him, these groups did not
actually disappear but did in fact shift their language to Miskitu and then, using
language as an ethnic identifier, shifted their identity to Miskitu. So, in fact, many
of the Miskitu communities between Bilwi (on the coast) and the mining town of
Rosita (on the western edge of the RAAN) were indeed Sumu communities that
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   315

completed a process of language-to-identity shift.11 This shift in identity was also

noted by some neighboring Sumu communities that remember the ethnic roots
of their neighbors and recognize their heritage by referring to them as “sumu-mi-
skitu” (Jamieson 2001: 11). This total and abrupt adoption of a new identity purely
based off linguistic shift is not unique to Nicaragua, however. In Mexico, lan-
guage seems to be the primary indicator of ethnicity, according to Sicoli (2011:
174): the Zapotec town of Asunción shifted to Spanish rapidly; when only a few
speakers of Zapotec remained, these few were the only people recognized to be of
Zapotec ethnicity, despite the population being directly descendant of the recog-
nized Zapotec people.
The language shift that we observe nowadays in Tuahka communities can
be the current manifestation of the phenomenon identified by Jamieson (2001).
The shift documented in Green and Hale (1998) concerning the Ulwa community
of Karawala can be another one. Green and Hale show that a small intervention
(in this particular case, the arrival of an American company together with a size-
able cohort of Miskitu workers) can have a sudden, quick and catastrophic effect
in terms of language shift. For our purposes here, we understand ‘catastrophic’
in the sense of carrying hardly irreversible consequences. As Green and Hale
(1998) point out, the town of Karawala basically shifted its language from Ulwa
to Miskitu in a matter of only 7 years, and has not recovered from it (Koskinen
2009b: 784). Understanding the nature of language shift is important in what
we consider in this paper because not all Mayangna communities undergo this
process and it becomes, thus, crucial to understand under which conditions it
does and does not happen, if we are interested in language maintenance, revital-
ization and development.
Two factors seem to be relevant when discussing language shift. One is, what
is it a manifestation of? And another one is, how is it transmitted? We claim in
this paper that language shift in Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast is in fact a natural
consequence of underlying linguistic ideologies that transmit a value hierarchy
(which languages are more valued than others) that can be itself a consequence
of wider and far-reaching social power structures. Without affecting these under-
lying linguistic ideologies, we claim, no measure of language revitalization can
have a sizeable effect. The second factor that we claim is important is the vehicle
of transmission of these linguistic ideologies. As with any biological process,

11 Mueller (1932: 33) also notes that there were about as many Sumu as Miskitu people in the
region between Río Grande and Punta Gorda. However, only 60 years later, Buvollen & Buvollen
(1994) conducted a study on the demographic make-up of the region and showed that the area
was almost entirely Miskitu with the exception of one Sumu (Ulwa) village, Karawala.
316   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

identifying the vector of transmission is crucial in the effectiveness of affecting

the process (either to stop it or to spread it). In Benedicto et al. (2006), it was sug-
gested that the vector of transmission was a culturally relevant medium, in the
case at hand, the river as the traditional medium of communication at the time.
As a consequence, it was not only Tuahka communities that were being affected
by language shift (they were the majority along the banks of the relevant river)
but also the few Panamahka communities along the waterway. The trigger was,
as in the case of Karawala, a sudden massive phenomenon channeled through
that vector: the presence upriver of an American company that brought with it a
massive number of Miskitu workers. This massive and sudden number of Miskitu
workers, as in the case of Karawala, introduced the linguistic ideology through
all the communities along the river Bambana, who easily absorbed it from this
medium; communities outside of the range of the river did not undergo this lan-
guage shift. This process happened in the early to mid 20th century. Currently,
however, the major vector of transmission may itself be shifting. Roads, up to
now almost non-existent, are beginning to open up and habits of transportation
are beginning to change from the river to the road. Based on reports by commu-
nity members, we are beginning to observe language shift (again, to Miskitu) in
communities far away where language shift had not been attested previously
(e.g. in Awastingni), 12 communities that did not have a road before and that do
have one now, a road that is becoming the major path of transportation from the
community to other major urban areas and to Miskitu communities; whereas at
this point we can only suggest the existence of such correlation, it will be worth-
while to continue monitoring it. A similar effect produced by the creation of major
roads and highways and the consequent influx of outsiders, speakers of a domi-
nant language, is described in the contributions to this volume by Santos García,
Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro for Wixárika communities, in Yáñez et al. for
Nahua communities, and in Pharao Hansen et al. for Otomí communities.
An additional vector of transmission, worth considering, is (formal) edu-
cation. Systemic education is a relatively new phenomenon in Nicaragua (see
Section 4.2.). We will see that, as can be observed in far away locations such as
Ireland, the education system is very effective in promoting (the use of) a lan-
guage when it aligns with active linguistic ideologies (that is, when the language
of education correlates with the hierarchically dominant language), thus favoring
language shift; when, however, the language of education does not align with

12 Awastingni is a Mayangna community whose territory, officially demarcated and the object
of a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Koskinen 2009b: 782; Inter-American
Court of Human Rights, 2001), is surrounded by Miskitu territory.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   317

the dominant language, the education system does not seem to have an effect
in either slowing down or accelerating the speed of language shift. That is, if the
language of education is the language at the top of the linguistic hierarchy accord-
ing to the prevalent linguistic ideology, this dominant language will play along
and contribute to language shift and the eventual dismissal of languages down
in the hierarchy. That is the case of, say, Spanish used in schools in indigenous
environments throughout Latin America (where it has effectively replaced indig-
enous languages13), or even in the Spain of the 1950s with respect to other local
languages such as Euskera (Basque) or Catalan, when these languages lost a size-
able number of speakers to Spanish, the only language used at that time in the
school system. This is also the case of French in France when the ideal of French
as the language of culture successfully replaced the local languages, considered
patois or dialects of lower prestige. Again, this is the case of English in the United
States during the boarding school14 era (and possibly nowadays with languages
other than English), when English successfully replaced indigenous languages.
If, on the other hand, the language of education is a language on the lower end
of the hierarchy under the underlying linguistic ideology, it will not be able to
counteract prevalent linguistic ideology and it will not have a sizeable effect on
the ongoing language situation. This is, in fact, what happens in Ireland where
Irish, lower than the higher-ranked English, taught in schools has not reversed or
slowed down the already existing language shift (i.e., no additional L1 speakers
have been created);15 or in Mayangna territory where education in the language
(see, again, Section 4.2. below) has not been able to reverse the trend in language
shift: use of Mayangna-Tuahka (a language down in the hierarchy) in the school
system as the language of instruction and as a matter of study has not been able
to stop language shift in the communities where it was already in progress.16

13 This is observed in most contributions in this volume having to do with Mexico.

14 For details on boarding schools in the US, see, among others, Adams (1995), Smith (2004)
and McBeth (1983).
15 It is unclear what the situation is in Catalunya and the Basque Country, where linguistic ide-
ologies seem to be in fluctuation since the 1970’s, with earlier periods when the local languages
seemed to peak in the hierarchy and more recent periods when local languages seem to descend
again in the linguistic hierarchy (C. Junyent, personal communication).
16 An anonymous reviewer suggests that ‘A language can be dominant in many ways and at the
same does not necessarily have to be the favored language in a group’s ideology.’ In this work, we
understand that the linguistic hierarchy is defined by the corresponding linguistic ideology: we
use ‘dominant’, not in the sense of ‘imposed’, but in the sense of the top-ranking in the hierarchy
determined by the generating ideology.
318   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

Recent work by Freeland and Frank (2011, 2014) in collaboration with Tuahka
communities is geared towards analyzing and identifying in a more detailed way
exactly what shape this linguistic ideology is taking in the area. The work is still
ongoing.
In conclusion, linguistic ideologies drive the trends of language shift, neu-
tralizing in most cases actions designed to counteract it. We claim that, without
directly addressing linguistic ideologies, no amount of language revitalization
will be able to successfully reverse language shift. In the following sections we
further elaborate on this line of inquiry and analyze the different variables that
can play a role in the processes of language revitalization that have taken place
in the context of the Mayangna communities. We show that these factors have
applied in the same way both in the communities where language maintenance
has taken place and in communities where language shift has taken place. Thus
these variables seem to have had little effect on the current processes. We then
explore again the role of linguistic ideologies.

4 Factors to consider in language shift

In this section we will consider several of the factors that can be considered to
potentially affect the success or failure of revitalization efforts (in fact, revers-
ing language shift), specifically those identified in Pérez Báez, Rogers and Rosés
Labrada, this volume. We compare them in the two minimally differing areas
in Mayangna communities, those undergoing robust language shift and those
undergoing robust language maintenance and development.

4.1 The legal system: A ‘healthy’ paradigm

Nicaragua’s body of cultural and linguistic legislation constitutes one of the best
in Latin America with respect to support for local languages, both indigenous
and ‘autochtonous’, such as Kriol and Garifuna (see Benedicto et al. 2004; Koski-
nen 2010: 141). Such a legal system is the base for policies related to the respect,
maintenance and promotion of linguistic diversity that we will discuss in this and
the next section. Despite the existence of such a legal framework, however, one
of the main problems has been obtaining full implementation and enforcement
of this body of legislation.
As a result of the social and political events of the 1980s and in an attempt to
embrace and promote a multiethnic Nicaraguan nation after the war, laws were
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   319

passed to protect the linguistic rights of all Nicaraguans (Benedicto et al. 2004).
The new Constitución Política ‘Political Constitution’ of 1986 already recognized
the linguistic rights of the communities of the Coast and the official status of their
languages, which was expanded within the framework of the Ley No. 28 Estatuto
de Autonomía ‘Law N. 28 Statute of Autonomy’ passed in 1987. This framework
culminated with a crucial additional piece of legislation, the Ley No. 162 Ley de
Lenguas ‘Law N. 162, Law of Languages’ passed in 1993 (though not officially pub-
lished in La Gaceta until 1996) granting official status and educational rights to
all indigenous and autochtonous languages within the Autonomous Regions of
Nicaragua. Article 7 of this Ley de Lenguas states that communities on the Atlan-
tic coast of Nicaragua have the right to education through high school in their
native language. The article goes on to explain that preschool should contribute
to the development of cultural identity within the people’s own system of ethnic
values and respect to the environment. In middle and high school, both Spanish
and the community’s language should be introduced as a subject matter with
the final objective of being proficient in both languages by the end of secondary
schooling (Ley No. 162, 1996).
Along with the official status promised by the law is the right to preserve lan-
guages with support from the government to be provided as needed:

Las comunidades de la costa atlántica tienen derecho a la preservación de sus lenguas. El

Estado establecerá Programas especiales para el ejercicio de este Derecho proporcionará los
recursos necesarios para el buen funcionamiento de los mismos, y dictará leyes destinadas a
promover acciones que aseguren que ningún nicaragüense sea objeto de discriminación por
razón de su lengua.
[The communities on the Atlantic Coast have the right to preserve their languages. The State
will establish programs specifically for the exercise of this right, supply the resources nec-
essary for the enactment of this law, and pass laws designed to promote actions that ensure
that no Nicaraguan is the object of discrimination due to their language.] (translation by
authors)
(Ley No. 162, 1996)

A final piece of legislation that expanded the educational reach of this previ-
ous body is the SEAR (Sistema de Educación Autonómico Regional, ‘Autonomous
Regional System of Education’), published in 2001, which was supposed to shape
a model of education that captures the cultural specificities of the regions and
regulates the final transfer of the educational system to the Regional Govern-
ments of the Coast, finally integrated into the 2006 General Law of Education,
Ley 582.
Though all this body of legislation provides official backing, prestige, and
state support to increase the vitality of the language and it is currently active and
being used as the framework for political and educational actions, its implemen-
320   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

tation continues to be slow and it has been met with a certain level of resistance
throughout the years.
The relevance of this legislative body for this paper is that it has provided a
framework for both the Tuahka and the Panamahka populations. Both communi-
ties have participated in the political life and electoral processes associated with
these pieces of legislation. Tuahka community members are active in the political
life of Rosita, the closest urban center, and a member of the Tuahka community
has been a vice-mayor, at least in the last two, mayoral teams. Members of the Pan-
amahka community are active in the political life of Bonanza, the closest urban
center, and a member of the community has been either the mayor or vice-mayor
at least since the decade of the 2000s. Political campaigns heavily involve the
participation of the two communities, and members of both the Tuahka and Pan-
amahka communities have been elected to the Consejo Regional, the legislative
camera associated with the Autonomous Government in the RAAN. In summary,
the legislative body seems to have applied equally to the two communities with
no visible substantial effect on the ‘worth’ associated to one or the other group,
and no visible preference for participation in the political life of either group.
One should note, however, that these political processes are heavily associated
with mestizo (Spanish-speaking) culture, and as such they find themselves in the
realm of Spanish, which, as we pointed out in Section 3, seems to be on a parallel
vector in the language shift patterns observed in the area.

4.2 Literacy and institutionalized education

As a direct result of the events and legislation of the 1980s, a language-specific

educational system arose. This system constitutes, despite its shortcomings and
margins for improvement, one of the best and better articulated educational
systems of the area and probably of Latin America: it recognizes the cultural
uniqueness and linguistic rights of the different ethnic groups and, as such, uses
their indigenous languages as the vehicle of instruction. The system included
different PEBI programs (Programa de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural, ‘Program
for Bilingual Intercultural Education’), one for each ethnic/linguistic group. They
were introduced early in the 1980s in part as the result of the Literacy Campaign17

17 The literacy campaign or Cruzada Nacional de Alfabetización of 1980 was the Sandinistas’ at-
tempt at curbing the illiteracy rates in the country (75–90 % of the rural population in Nicaragua
was illiterate while 50–52 % of the national population could not read or write; Silva 2010) and
began with the goal of creating an educated, literate population who could make informed deci-
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   321

initiated by the Sandinistas and in part as the Sandinista attempt to understand,

recognize and respect the cultural identity and idiosyncracy of the Atlantic Coast.
The Sumu PEBI was initiated in 1985 and by 1990 the program had reached 4th
grade, including publication of textbooks in all subject matters (including
Mayangna Language, Mathematics and Science) in the Mayangna language. This
developed in a concurrent way with the training of teachers, who initially were
empíricos (teachers without formal training) in an unprecedented program of
human resources training. It included a coordinated effort between the Escuela
Normal (teacher training education schools), local universities such as URACCAN
and the Ministry of Education. By the mid 1990s, a sizeable body of PEBI teachers
were participating in Bachelor’s Degrees in Intercultural Education; by the mid
2000s teacher training Normal schools were specializing in Intercultural Educa-
tion; and by the 2010s a number of teachers were participating in Masters pro-
grams in Bilingual Intercultural Education. Currently (and despite a lapse in the
1990s due to political reasons), all of primary school up to 6th grade has textbooks
in the Mayangna language, the textbooks have been revised and re-published at
least twice with special emphasis on the cultural adequacy and relevance of the
curriculum and the presentation of the content.18

sions during elections. Students were mobilized throughout the country and within six months,
half a million people became literate. The campaign was hugely successful (UNESCO 2007, 2011;
UNICEF 2011) and it has led Nicaragua to receive five UNESCO prizes over the years for their ac-
complishments in raising the literacy rate, including the Nadezhda K. Krupskaya Literacy Prize
which was awarded in 1980 (Sirias 2008; 25 Años 2005).
18 Textbooks are always sanctioned by the Ministry of Education (though eventually, they will
be the responsibility of the Autonomous Government under SEAR) and they are prepared by
teams of técnicos, Mayangna personnel that hold positions of technical support in PEBI offices
or that are hired by the institution charged with preparing the revision (e.g., URACCAN) under
similar professional requirements. The content of the curriculum is the result of negotiations be-
tween what is mandated at a national level and the right to reflect and convey their own cultural
practices (recognized in Law 162 mentioned above), in a process that has been named contextu-
alización, that is, encoding the content determined by the Ministry in the appropriate cultural
context. This is an improvement over the old system of translation of the national content; how-
ever, the level of success in reflecting the local culture ranges widely, depending on a number of
conditions. Once approved by the Ministry and sanctioned by the communities, they are printed
and distributed freely throughout the communities’ schools.
322   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

4.2.1 Primary education

The PEBI Program provides education in and on the local language for all the
ethnic groups of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. However, this program is only
active in indigenous communities but not in urban areas, even in those like Bilwi
with a sizeable indigenous population. In particular, all Mayangna communities
have primary schools and all those schools teach within the PEBI program. Cur-
rently, the Sumu (Mayangna) PEBI program has two offices in the Ministry of Edu-
cation, in Rosita and in Bonanza, the two mestizo towns closer to the Mayangna
territories; they serve and provide technical support to all the communities in all
the Mayangna territories covering all 6 grades in primary education. However,
Mayangna children in urban areas only have access to education in Spanish. All
children in Mayangna communities receive literacy training in their own lan-
guage and since the late 2000s, there are textbooks for all subject matters in both
the Tuahka linguistic variety and the Panamahka linguistic variety.
While it is true that initially the textbooks were published in the Panamahka
variety, a Tuahka community initiative requested the preparation of textbooks in
their own variety during the decade of the 2000s. Initially, there was some resist-
ance on the part of the PEBI leadership. However, with the last curricular revi-
sion a version of the textbooks specific to the cultural and linguistic specificity of
Tuahka communities was prepared, the books were readied, distributed and are
currently being used in those communities.

4.2.2 Secondary education

Another positive development, within the realm of institutionalized education,

has been the creation of secundarias comunitarias (community high schools) in
the last five to ten years. These vary in size and number of grades offered. Second-
ary education in Nicaragua is divided between ciclo básico (the first three years)
and ciclo diversificado (last two years). Most community high schools have ciclo
básico, and some of the bigger ones have all five years. Factors that have an effect
on this are the number of potential students and the proximity to the mestizo
urban centers. Wasakin, the main Tuahka community, has had a community high
school that fluctuates in its offering: at times it has offered all five years, and at
times only the first three years. Its proximity to the urban center of Rosita, as well
as the existence of public transportation to it (albeit irregular) for both students
and teaching staff are conditions that play a role in determining the number of
years offered. Its situation is similar to that of the high school in Sakalwas, the
Panamahka community closer to Bonanza. Despite the general positive effects
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   323

of the existence of these high schools and despite the dispositions in the Ley de
Lenguas that education in the native language should cover secondary educa-
tion, these community high schools unfortunately work under the monolingual
Spanish system; there is currently no attempt at implementing a bilingual modal-
ity for these high schools, though parents’ awareness is rising and they are begin-
ning to request that change.
Since the 2000s, the PEBI system was incorporated within the all-encompass-
ing SEAR, the Sistema Educativo Autonómico Regional, an Autonomy-wide edu-
cational system designed to improve and systematize the multi-cultural nature of
the education in both the RAAN and the RAAS. Among the actions that have been
taken, under the scope of SEAR, is the regular curricular revision of the textbooks
to better reflect the cultural set up of the region, to consider gender issues and to
avoid issues of ‘hidden’ curriculum.19

4.2.3 Higher education

Several institutions have had key roles in developing the Higher Education land-
scape since the 1980s when a big push in this direction happened, as a result of
the social and political events of that time. CIDCA, the Centro de Investigación
y Desarrollo de la Costa Atlántica ‘Center for Research and Development of the
Atlantic Coast’, though not directly involved in higher education, had an earlier
role in mentoring the first generation of university students from indigenous
communities in the Pacífico. We address this in the next section (Section 4.3.).
Two other institutions in particular developed higher education in the Coast
itself: URACCAN (Universidad de la Región Atlántica y la Costa Caribe de Nica-
ragua, ‘University of the Atlantic Region and the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua’)
and BICU (Bluefields Indian Caribbean University), each with several campuses
throughout the RAAN and RAAS, each with a prominent, though different, role in
the education of the indigenous peoples of the Coast.
URACCAN University was created in the mid 1990s as an effort by Sandinista
intellectuals to provide a venue for higher education in The Coast that would offer
relevant education to its citizens; that is, education in the fields that were relevant
for the cultural, linguistic, intellectual, political and economic development of

19 ‘Hidden’ curriculum refers to ideas conveyed not directly but implied in the way of expressing
certain concepts. A common example is in the representation of girls and women in textbooks,
the kinds of jobs or professions they do, ideals of beauty that are presented and the ideals of
‘proper femininity’ that are conveyed through text or image.
324   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

the region from an endogenous perspective that arose from within the cultures
of the region and that could feed into the development of the autonomy process.
URACCAN has now four main campuses: in Siuna, Kamla-Bilwi, Bluefields and
Nueva Guinea. Siuna has extension campuses in Rosita and Bonanza, where the
majority of the Mayangna population is located; the Bilwi campus also has a
Mayangna community in its range. URACCAN developed brand new Bachelor’s
Degrees in, e.g., Intercultural Bilingual Education, Forestry and Agronomy, Soci-
ology and Community Development. In particular, three generations of Mayangna
students, both Tuahka and Panamahka, have graduated in Intercultural Bilingual
Education (around 100 individuals) at the extension campus in Rosita. These
individuals are currently working as teachers in the PEBI system, in the Minis-
try of Education as part of the technical teams, in the university as educators, in
NGOs, in local development institutions, and in political institutions (at the level
of mayors, vice-mayors,20 congress men and women, and even at the ministerial
level in the national government). URACCAN is currently engaged in training new
generations of Masters students, again with participation of members of both
the Tuahka and the Panamahka communities. These individuals constitute the
technical, intellectual and political body of the community, merging endogenous
indigenous knowledge and exogenous knowledge, to provide the leadership for
the development of the Mayangna communities, both Tuahka and Panamahka.
Although in the earlier instantiations of the curriculum, classes were con-
ducted mainly in Spanish, as new Mayangna educators rise through the ranks,
they can conduct their own subject-matter classes in Mayangna as the language
of instruction. Mayangna, as a subject matter, including both Tuahka and Pan-
amahka, has been in the curriculum of URACCAN since its inception. The cur-
riculum includes both classes on the grammatical structure of the language and
classes for learning how to teach the language to non-speakers. In both types,
both varieties of the language are included. Classes for non-speakers, which are
required of all students in all the different Bachelor’s Degrees, are taught in the
variety of which the instructor is a speaker (in the Rosita campus, Tuahka instruc-
tors tend to be a majority).
BICU is a Moravian institution, with campuses in Bilwi and Bluefields.
Although BICU also operates in The Coast, it has had less of an effect on the
research on and higher education of members of the Mayangna community,

20 Mayoral candidacies in both Rosita and Bonanza are based on a mixed system, where if the
candidate for mayor is mestizo the candidate for vice-mayor is Mayangna (Tuahka in Rosita, Pan-
amahka in Bonanza), and viceversa. So political participation is also equally balanced between
the two groups.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   325

since its major area of influence is on the coastal cities of Bilwi and Bluefields,
where the presence of Mayangna members is a minority. However, a number of
Mayangna individuals have graduated from their campus in Bilwi. These indi-
viduals may come from the one Mayangna (Panamahka) community within the
territorial range of Bilwi, or may be urban residents in Bilwi or their families may
have transferred to Bilwi because of their jobs (Bilwi is the headquarters for the
Autonomous government). This population also has access to the URACCAN
campus in Kamla-Bilwi.
A couple of interesting points arise with respect to our considerations of lin-
guistic ideologies. Although the use of the Mayangna language for academic pur-
poses has been normal21 in the URACCAN extension campus of Rosita-Siuna, and
Bacherlor’s theses have been accepted in bilingual mode (Spanish/Mayangna)
since the beginning with defenses being conducted in Spanish and Mayangna
as the language of the committee members allowed, the situation in the Bilwi
campus has been slightly different. During the defense of one of the theses
(written in the bilingual mode Spanish/Mayangna), the Kamla-Bilwi administra-
tion claimed that Mayangna could not be used during the defense because not all
committee members understood the language; they stated that, according to the
University’s regulations, only Spanish or English could be used, despite the fact
that no member of the committee could understand English (the administration
team of the time included members of the Creole community) and despite the
fact that the extension campus of Rosita-Siuna had been accepting Mayangna
for several years. We take this as one more point of evidence of the hierarchy
underlying the linguistic ideologies prevalent in the area: Spanish and English
are prestige languages, on the top of the ladder, that can be used to conduct busi-
ness in higher education; the other, indigenous, languages, at the bottom of the
ladder cannot.
A second piece of evidence comes from considerations, within the Rosita-Si-
una campus, as to which indigenous language to offer for non-speakers. Although
Mayangna is currently consistently offered, there was initially a very strong push
to offer Miskitu despite the fact that there was no major Miskitu population in
the area but there was indeed a substantial number of Mayangna communities

21 In the context of Nicaragua (but also, for instance, in Catalunya), normal and normalization
are used as technical terms. Koskinen (2010: 154) states that ‘the normalization process is sup-
posed to make the use of a language that has been historically displaced from certain contexts
just as “normal” as the use of any other language by abolishing any social prohibitions around
using it and by gradually developing the necessary linguistic resources for its use in new con-
texts.”
326   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

around that urban center. We take this as evidence that Miskitu, even on the eyes
of a non-indigenous administration, had more ‘value’ than Mayangna; thus, that
Miskitu is higher on the scale than Mayangna.

4.2.4 Language standardization

As part of all this process of shaping an institutionalized system of education and

providing both the material and the human resources for its success, a process
of normalization of the languages involved took place (see Koskinen 2010: 154,
among others). This process, which has a long history of practice in Nicaragua,
is different from current ideas of standardization in that it does not seek to find
‘one’ variant to be used by all but to find a system of coding the writing of the lan-
guage that can capture all the different varieties of it: if the Panamahka say muhni
‘his face’ and the Tuahka say munh ‘his face’, then the system allows for those
two different writings, and everybody can recognize and produce both their own
and the others’ pronunciation. In what concerns the process for the Mayangna
language, the earliest more comprehensive system of writing the language had
probably been that of Lehmann 1920, though obviously not directed at the speak-
ing population. By the 1980s, when the PEBI system was being established and
implemented, a system was designed that served to prepare the first materials
and textbooks. The phonological system of the language, however, has certain
peculiarities that were not captured in those earlier versions. By the mid 1990s, a
group of teachers, students and other leaders began to meet under the auspices of
IPILC, the linguistics institute of URACCAN in Rosita, together with E. Benedicto.
A series of workshops ensued during the following next decade that addressed
issues ranging from the writing of the sounds of the language, to the respect of
all varieties of the language, to the creation of neologisms for the new conceptual
areas that were arising in Mayangna (including Linguistics). The Normalización
de la Lengua Mayangna (Tuahka y Panamahka) text of 2002 corresponds to the
agreements taken in one of the early meetings in July 1999 (Benedicto 2000).
Although certain aspects of the system, especially those that were different from
the more well-known Spanish system (such as the voiceless liquids –<lh>, <rh>–
and nasals –<nh>, <mh>, <ngh>– ), took longer to be commonly used, the system
is now in full applicability and being used in the school system (e.g., teachers
created a song to introduce the Mayangna alphabet Abidima to preschoolers) and
in the last version of the textbooks. The system is now normalized, and it is so for
both the Panamahka and the Tuahka varieties of Mayangna.
In summary, with respect to literacy and institutionalized education,
members of both communities, Tuahka and Panamahka, have had access to it
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   327

from kindergarten and primary school to institutions of higher education. Both

varieties have undergone the same process of linguistic normalization that has
allowed the language to be written, to be a vehicle of instruction, to be the object
of analysis, and to be offered as a second language to be taught in an educational
setting.
Members of both the Tuahka and the Panamahka communities have had
access to higher education, which has allowed them to hold positions of profes-
sional responsibility. As a result of access to higher education, members of the
Tuahka community work as technical personnel in the Ministry of Education,
MINED, in Rosita (the mestizo urban center closer to Tuahka communities) and the
coordinator of the PEBI in Rosita is a member of the Tuahka group. Panamahka
individuals, on the other hand, work as technical personnel in the headquarters
of the Ministry of Education in Bonanza (the mestizo urban center closer to the
Panamahka territory) both the positions of coordinator of the PEBI and director
of the MINED office in Bonanza are Panamahka. Members of both the Tuahka and
the Panamahka communities regularly teach classes on the URACCAN campus
in Rosita. And, as we will see in more detail in the next section, the Mayangna
Linguistic Team, Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna, that operates out of the Lin-
guistic Institute (IPILC) in URACCAN is formed of three Tuahka members and two
Panamahka members.
In conclusion, members of both communities, Tuahka and Panamahka, have
had access to a formal institutionalized system of education, both at the primary,
secondary and higher education level, which has definitely opened the doors to
professional development equally.

4.3 Research and local human resources

Several institutions have had key roles in developing research and training local
human resources since the 1980s when a big push in this direction happened as a
result of the social and political events of that time. We have mentioned some of
them in relation to their role in higher education in the previous section.
CIDCA, the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Costa Atlántica (the
Center for Research and Development of the Atlantic Coast), was an institution
created by the Sandinistas with two basic goals in mind: (a) to provide a space
to develop research on the Coast and by costeños (members of the Atlantic Coast
community) to better integrate the region with the Pacífico region respecting and
developing the cultural identity of the Coast, and (b) to train the local human
resources of the Coast (Rivas 2007). Generations of costeños and costeñas were
trained in the national universities in Managua at the same time that they par-
328   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

ticipated as researchers in research projects on linguistics, economy, forestry

in CIDCA; specifically a first generation of Mayangna university students and
researchers were trained within the scope of CIDCA’s activities. A direct result
of the work carried out during those years is the creation of the publication
Wani, a quarterly journal charged with the publication of research on the Coast
by local and foreign researchers. With the elections of 1990 and the change to a
liberal government, CIDCA underwent a series of changes, being first assigned
to the UCA (the Universidad Centroamericana, a Jesuit institution) and later to
BICU (Bluefields Indian Caribbean University, a Moravian institution). With this
final change, CIDCA moved definitely from its original main headquarters in
Managua to the Coast, with headquarters in Bilwi and Bluefields. From the office
in Bilwi, and under the leadership of MSc Melba McLean (the author of the first
dictionary of the Mayangna-Panamahka language; McLean 1996), several pro-
jects were developed to raise awareness and improve the educational conditions
of the Mayangna communities. It was also within the framework of CIDCA that
the informal group Linguists for Nicaragua was formed in the late 1980s, which
attracted linguists mainly from the US and Europe to support the development of
linguistic research and materials in the country.
We have already mentioned the role of URACCAN as a center of higher edu-
cation in the Coast (see previous section). URACCAN also became a center for
endogenous research, the kind of research that generates knowledge from within
the communities and within cultural indigenous paradigms. The research compo-
nent of the university was organized around the creation of institutos or research
centers, among them and more prominently relevant for the Mayangna, the lin-
guistic institute IPILC (Instituto para la Promoción e Investigación Lingüística y
Revitalización Cultural ‘Institute for Linguistic Promotion and Research and Cul-
tural Revitalization’), the institute for traditional medicine IMTRADEC (Instituto
de Medicina Tradicional y Desarrollo Comunitario, ‘Traditional Medicine and
Community Development Institute’), and the women’s studies institute CEIMM
(Centro de Estudios e Información de la Mujer Multiétnica, ‘The Multi-ethnic
Women’s Studies and Information Center’). It is within the framework of IPILC
and the initial Bachelor’s in Intercultural Bilingual Education that the first teams
of Mayangna linguists are formed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Under the
example of work by members of Linguists for Nicaragua, such as Ken Hale with
the Ulwa or Colette (Craig) Grinevald with the Rama, the Mayangna Yulbarang-
yang Balna emerged as a permanent professional team of linguists that would
eventually take over the tasks associated with linguistic work. The team, in col-
laboration with Elena Benedicto and several US-based linguistics students, has
been continuously working since then, currently with 5 of the original 8 members
of the team; three of the members are Tuahka (Modesta Dolores, Gloria Fendly
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   329

and Tomasa Gómez) and two are Panamahka (Demetrio Antolín and Elizabeth
Salomón). Participation of Tuahka members has always been part of the team,
ever since members of the group demanded that their linguistic variety also be
taken into account in the late 1990s (Benedicto and Hale 2001). The team, working
under a Participatory Action Research approach (Benedicto et al. 2007) has pro-
duced a variety of materials, most prominently a monolingual dictionary of the
two varieties of the language, Panamahka and Tuahka with definitions in the
language (Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna and Benedicto 2012b) and a grammar
written in the language (Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna and Benedicto 2012a),
but also a collection of folktales, oral history, children’s dictionaries, etc. The
team has also participated in the curricular revision and updating of the primary
school textbooks, provides technical support for the school system, belongs to
the faculty of URACCAN, and regularly presents at scholarly national and inter-
national meetings. The Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna constitutes one of the
best human resources team in the area and provides the Mayangna community
with invaluable tools for the development of linguistic resources, including the
training of future generations.
The body of linguistic research generated since the 1980s with Linguists for
Nicaragua has been enormous (for a compilation, see Benedicto 2010; Salamanca
2007). It has also changed the face of linguistic research in the sense that it has
been carried out mostly by members of the indigenous communities themselves,
thus narrowing down the gap between researchers and members of the commu-
nity.
However, despite the availability of materials (in terms of dictionaries and
grammars; collections of texts, textbooks and other school materials; and schol-
arly research materials) and despite the unprecedented development of indig-
enous human resources for both varieties of the language, Panamahka and
Tuahka, the language shift trends (as reported then and now by members of the
community)22 that existed before the explosion of linguistic activity in the 1980s
have not been altered. Thus, the language shift trends unfortunately continue
unaffected.

22 Another indication of the increasing loss of potential speakers is that it is becoming more and
more difficult to find Tuahka-speaking youth for the educational programs that either IPILC or
the Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna team organize. Tuahka teachers also report that an increas-
ing number of children arrive at the preschool with no linguistic abilities in Tuahka.
330   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

4.4 (Access to) resources

Both Tuahka and Panamahka communities are based on a subsistence economy.

Most members of the communities practice slash and burn agriculture in the sur-
rounding forests, they hunt and fish in the rivers; both men and women partic-
ipate in these tasks, though they specialized in specific activities. Communities
tend to be removed from urban centers and accessible mainly by dirt roads, with
little if any regular public transportation; most of them do not have electricity,
though the church and the school building may have a generator. Despite this, all
communities have a school building (that may be used in the morning for primary
school, in the afternoon for high school and in the evening for adult education).
A recent national program has installed computers and Internet satellite connec-
tion in the schools of the main communities, both in the Tuahka and the Pan-
amahka areas. However, training of some community members or teachers for
the use of that equipment has happened in an irregular way, either as part of the
national program or by student volunteers; this training may focus on a variety of
actions from searches in the Internet to word processing or social media.
Members of communities with relatively easy access to an urban center may
also have access to the resources offered by it, such as Internet cafes, now rela-
tively easy to find (as of 2013, Rosita had 3 of them). Most Tuahka communities
are relatively close to the urban center of Rosita, whereas Panamahka communi-
ties vary, some being equally close to Bonanza and others being a day’s walking
distance from it. URACCAN as well as the offices of the MINED (Ministerio de Edu-
cación, ‘Ministry of Education’) also provide access to these resources to members
associated with them. Urban centers may also host a community of indigenous
families, most of whom have been trained in technical positions and may hold
jobs in institutions in those urban centers. In such circumstances many will live
in the urban center, though some may still commute between the town and the
community. In other words, they serve as bridges between community members
and outside resources. This is true of both Tuahka communities, which are close
to the urban center of Rosita, and Panamhka communities which are, mostly,
closer to the urban center of Bonanza.
Outside researchers that visit the area regularly also provide a bridge between
the community and outside resources. This is again true of both Tuahka and
Panamahka communities. URACCAN has, again, strived to provide training that
allows members of both communities to access outside resources, both economic
and academic ones. The university has been expanding access, mostly via elec-
tronic devices, to databases and bibliographic resources. Though not perfect, the
crucial point is that the access that both communities, Panamahka and Tuahka,
have had, is the same.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   331

4.5 Community engagement and motivation

Despite certain differences in traditional heroes, connected to the land, and folk
stories, basic cultural constructs and social priorities are for the most part the
same: value and respect for family and the elders, for the environment and nature
(not taking more than you reasonably need for you and your family), for recip-
rocal systems of mutual help, for land and territory. Gender roles as well as reli-
gious practices seem to go alongside; both communities are primarily Moravian,
though other Christian churches have been introduced (e.g., Maranatha, Baptist)
within the recent past in both areas. Holidays, customs and political (un)affilia-
tions23 also seem to mirror each other.
With respect to linguistic matters, Tuahka community members have been, if
anything, more vocal about the value of their linguistic variety, being quite proac-
tive in demanding that attention be paid to their particular linguistic variety (Ben-
edicto and Hale 2001). The Tuahka group also fought loudly for having their own
textbooks created and for recognition in the public arena. The process of accept-
ance of their variety by the Panamahka majority has been interesting, going from
at times strong rejection to curiosity to know how they say certain things and to
final acceptance of the difference.
A Participatory (Action) Research approach has been adopted in particu-
lar by the Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna and in general by the IPILC and
URACCAN. In their engagement and research with the communities they have
involved both communities, the Panamahka and the Tuahka, and both have been
equally responsive to it (Benedicto et al. 2004, 2002; Benedicto et al. 2007). Media
programs engaging the communities via radio broadcasting have been very well
received by both communities (Benedicto et al. 2001); the language of broad-
casting has been at times Panamahka and at times Tuahka, the last one being
an extraordinarily well received program conducted by two Tuahka women, fol-
lowed both by the Tuahka and the Panamahka communities.
A potential differential marker, that may turn out to have some relevance,
may be a slightly stronger inclination of the Tuahka community to accept out-
siders into their territory. Panamahka communities, especially those in the most
remote Sauni As territory, are very well organized to defend their territory against
outside incursions, increasingly frequent lately by displaced poor farmers from

23 The older generation especially is known for advising not to get associated with external
political organizations, claiming that they are above all Sumu. This is less and less the case as
younger generations of both groups tend to participate in political life with similar percentages
of alignment with the national or regional organizations.
332   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

the Pacífico side. This goes alongside their traditional rejection to accept Miskitu
individuals and families within their communities and the near absence of mixed
families (where one of the spouses is Mayangna and the other is not, most com-
monly, Miskitu). In the very exceptional cases when an external family has been
accepted (to our knowledge, one single family of mestizo origin in a community
nearby Bonanza), that family has completely assimilated to Mayangna culture,
with their children attending Mayangna school and learning the language. The
Tuahka, on the other hand, occupy a territory that has been more prone to incur-
sions by the Miskitu (Benedicto et al. 2006); Wasakin, the main Tuahka commu-
nity, has a good number of Miskitu and mixed Miskitu-Tuahka families. There
also have been a number of mestizo settlers (colonos), who have not culturally
assimilated, contrary to what happened in the Panamahka community men-
tioned above.
Interestingly enough, a recent phenomenon that has been detected is the
illegal sale of communal land after the official demarcation of traditional com-
munal lands (a process for which the communities through their indigenous
organizations fought hard). This has been reported both in Tuahka territory as
well as in the eastern-most Panamahka community. Curiously enough, that Pan-
amhaka community has also been reported to begin to undergo a strong, quick
and unprecedented language shift process towards Miskitu. Panamahka commu-
nities alongside the Bambana river, that have also undergone language shift in
the past (Benedicto et al. 2006), however, are not known to have relinquished
any part of their territory. Whether there really is a correlation between these two
factors (land relinquishing and language shift) is a question to investigate, as well
as whether one is a cause for the other or viceversa, or both the consequence of
some other factor.

5 Linguistic ideologies
In the previous sections we have analyzed several factors that could potentially
be responsible for why one variety of Mayangna, Tuahka, is undergoing a rapid
process of language shift, while another one, Panamahka, is not. Eventually,
what is more puzzling is that, after three decades of linguistic maintenance and
revitalization work along well-established and professionally-accepted param-
eters, that pattern has remained basically unchanged, thus indicating that the
above-mentioned parameters may not be that effective in what they were pur-
portedly designed to do: to stop language shift and boost language revitalization.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   333

In fact, we have seen that the pattern does not cut exactly along the lines of
Panamahka/Tuahka: while Tuahka communities are indeed affected by the lan-
guage shift pattern, there is also a small number of Panamahka communities that
are affected as well.24 That is, there is nothing inherent in being Panamahka that
immunizes that community against language shift.
Once we rule out the factors analyzed in Section 4 (e.g., literacy and educa-
tion, the protection provided by the legal system, the existence of trained local
human resources, access to material resources) as potential culprits, we are left
with little else but to explore the role of deeply embedded linguistic ideologies.
Ideologies are tightly knit to societal power structures and speakers are rarely
aware of them at a conscious level but they drive human behaviors at a deep
level. In that sense, we make the distinction between linguistic ideology (or ide-
ologies)25 and linguistic attitudes: linguistic ideology being abstract, systemic
and unconscious, and linguistic attitudes being the manifestations overtly and
consciously expressed by individuals. Those two do not necessarily correlate,
that is, there may be lack of consistency between the underlying ideology and
the surface attitude (Kroskrity 2004; Leeman 2012).26 Eventually, we suggest, no
language revitalization action will produce any real effects unless we identify the
underlying active linguistic ideology and act directly on it.
Here we suggest the existence of a linguistic ideology system that also under-
lies both the patterns of bi- and multi-lingualism already observed by Norwood
(1993) and the language shift on which we focus here. These two phenomena
cannot be reduced to a simple phenomenon of language contact, as the shift-
ing Mayangna communities are also in contact with mestizo Spanish-speaking
towns, and they seem to be impermeable to it. We propose that such a system is
context-dependent and originates in the historical developments of the 17th-19th
centuries in the area. By context-dependent, we mean that the effects of such
power hierarchy are modulated by the social context in which they take place:
in an indigenous-marked context, where the hierarchy signals the primacy of the

24 These Panamahka communities seemed to be in the same river path as the affected Tuahka
communities (Benedicto et al. 2006).
25 We recognize that there may be a set of linguistic ideologies (in the plural). We use the sin-
gular form, linguistic ideology, as a mass noun, to refer to the overall set encompassing all the
smaller subsets of ideologies that conforms a system.
26 A similar misalignment between the overt attitudes expressed and the underlying ideologies
can be observed in Villard and Sullivant’s (this volume) account of the nostalgia expressed by
the Chatino community members about their language and their continuous lack of use of the
language. Pharao Hansen et al. (this volume) also point out such misalignments in their work
about Otomí communities.
334   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

Miskitu over the Mayangna, Mayangna speakers will shift towards Miskitu, the
language above Mayangna in the hierarchy; in a non-indigenous context, in the
absence of Miskitu as a dominant element, the next dominant language over27
will be activated and Mayangna speakers will shift to it. That is what happens
in mestizo urban areas, where Mayangna populations shift towards Spanish, the
language that is above Mayangna in that particular realization of the hierarchy.
The origins of the current underlying linguistic ideology lie, we claim, in
the historical events of the 17th century, when the existent social structures were
destabilized and changed by the arrival of the British to the area and their alli-
ance with the, until then small, group(s) of what would end up being considered
Miskitu (Romero 1996).28 Whether the British used the Miskitu as a surrogate in
the area for their commercial purposes, or the Miskitu used the British to estab-
lish their own power structure (Ibarra 2009) is in a way irrelevant for our pur-
poses here. The point is that the Miskitu obtained a position in the social power
hierarchy above the other indigenous groups and this created the conditions for
subsequent social and linguistic subordination.
Initial evidence for this linguistic ideology system comes, as we have indi-
cated before, from an asymmetrical language hierarchy that is manifested by two
main phenomena: an asymmetrical and unequal multilingualism and by lan-
guage shift. The use of language in religion also constitutes an indicator of this
power differential: Moravian missionaries chose Miskitu as the language of reli-
gion and for most of the last century, religious services have been conducted in
Miskitu. Even nowadays, and despite the existence of a bible and good hymnbook
in Mayangna, religious services are conducted in Miskitu in Tuahka communities,
while Panamahka communities (especially in Sauni As) conduct their services in
Mayangna.
Further evidence of this linguistic ideology based on a social power structure
comes from informal observations noticed over the course of the years and by
conversations with the members of the Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna. In those,
a gap could be observed between direct and overt opinions about the language,

27 It is not clear whether this kind of system involves a direct dependency of Miskitu under
Spanish (Mayangna>Miskitu>Spanish) or if it indicates a parallel non-interactive context-de-
pendent vector (Mayangna>Miskitu; Mayangna>Spanish). There is, to our knowledge, no data
available about language shift (or lack thereof) regarding Miskitu and Spanish that indicates
not merely multi-lingualism among the Mikitu but whether Miskitu ever shifts to Spanish (there
is, as we mentioned, evidence of Miskitu shifting to Kriol in the RAAS, but this again could be
considered an ‘indigenous’ context).
28 Romero (1996), following other historical sources, indicates that there may have been distinct
original groups that ended up merging together under one language and one culture.
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   335

which tended to be positive, and more general comments not directly linked to
language by the speaker, which tended to be more negative in nature. Among the
first, speakers would openly manifest that they valued their Tuahka language,
they considered it important since they were Tuahka and that it was an impor-
tant value to pass on to their children. These overt attitudes contrasted with
their actual non-scripted behaviors, which revealed that they would use (almost
exclusively) Miskitu in conversations with their children and though able to use
Tuahka with other adult speakers, the default was also Miskitu.
Additionally, in open ended conversation not directly aimed at language,
Tuahka speakers would, in contrast with the previous direct attitudes, express
opinions in a much more negative view, such as that Tuahka is of a lesser quality
as a language (in comparison to Miskitu) and that Tuahka has been “contam-
inated” by Miskitu (while Panamahka has remained “pure”). These opinions
seemed to be shared by Panamahka who considered Tuahka language practices
“contaminated” by Miskitu and Tuahka speakers almost like traitors for aban-
doning their own language.
In terms of social standing, Tuahka community members seemed to imply
that Miskitu individuals living among them enjoy a higher social status. Stere-
otypically, Miskitu men are considered to be “hardworking” and “successful”
while Tuahka are considered to be “lazy” as compared to the more “decisive” and
“enterprising” Miskitu. It is considered amongst the Tuahka as a good move for
one of their women to marry Miskitu men. Panamahka, on the other hand, main-
tain a more strict restraint against mixed marriages than the Tuahka do.
In sum, the Panamahka do not seem to react to Miskitu stereotypes of primacy
and, when confronted with them, they reaffirm their own identity and self-worth
(sometimes even with disdain for the Miskitu). On the other hand, they seem to
share with the Miskitu their negative stereotypes of the Tuahka. The Tuahka seem
to have internalized these negative stereotypes about themselves, while the Pan-
amahka have mostly been able to resist the absorption of such negative stereo-
types. All this suggests a deep seeded ideology that associates negative things
with Tuahka and positive things with Miskitu, power with Miskitu and subordina-
tion with Tuahka. This system, where Tuahka is at the bottom, seems to be shared
by all parties: Miskitu, Tuahka and Panamahka.
A more systematic examination of the situation was initiated by Freeland and
Frank Gómez in the late 2000s. A pilot project with the community was initiated,
followed by an intensive course of fieldwork and combined workshops under
the auspices of IPILC. However, due to logistic problems, the full course was
not completed and final results have not been systematized with the participant
community members. As such, we only have the initial report in Freeland and
Frank Gómez (2014), which seems to corroborate the informal observations men-
336   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

tioned before, as well as some encouraging new data (e.g., that indicated that the
‘capacity’ to speak Mayangna may not have been totally lost and there was, thus,
a potential thread to recover it). At any rate, it still remains a puzzle to identify the
deep reasons why some communities react to negative stereotypes by reaffirming
their identity while others succumb and absorb such negative stereotypes.

6 Conclusions and final remarks

We have shown that Panamahka and Tuahka are two distinct groups of Mayangna
people who maintain very similar ways of living, share a common cultural tradi-
tion, share the same socio-political space, but are facing very different linguistic
prospects. We have examined several factors that could be relevant in this (Legal
Framework, Literacy and Institutionalized Education, Linguistic and Dialectal
Diversity, Access to Resources, and Community Engagement) and found they
behave in very much the same way. However, despite such similarities, Tuahka
continues to lose speakers to the dominant indigenous language Miskitu despite
the many steps taken toward maintenance and revitalization in the last 30 years.
The imperviousness of actions taken has led the authors to postulate a system of
linguistic ideology based on a social power hierarchy originating with the histor-
ical developments of the 17th-19th centuries. A pattern of correlating social factors
has been identified (including attitudes towards language as well as towards the
relative status of the dominant Miskitu vs. the subordinate Tuahka, the role of
religious practices, and the tolerance levels with respect to mixed marriages).
While the Tuahka seem to be sensitive to this power hierarchy, the Panamahka
seem to have resisted it, for reasons that are at this point not clear. An interesting,
though by no means new, observation is that the gap between, on the one hand,
what we think and say that we believe and, on the other hand, the actual belief
system that underlies our concrete and specific actions (of which we are, com-
monly, unaware) is, more often than not, wider than we think. This gap exists in
all areas of human behavior (from interpersonal relationships to corporate poli-
cies) and our attitudes towards language do not escape it. Other contributions to
this volume have also pointed out the divergence between (overt) attitudes and
(covert, underlying) ideologies.
It seems sensible to postulate that until negative associations with the lan-
guage are eliminated, it is probably unlikely that any further maintenance or revi-
talization efforts will be successful or have any lasting effects within the Tuahka
communities. This involves the necessary identification of the underlying lin-
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   337

guistic ideology system, and the subsequent modification to eliminate negative

associations.29
Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in matters of language main-
tenance and revitalization, priority should be given to identifying the particular
linguistic ideology of a community. As a crucial factor in language maintenance
and loss, tools need to be designed to identify specific stereotypes, and actions
must be implemented to address negative associations. As long as such stere-
otypes are present and unaddressed, more traditional language revitalization
efforts do not seem to have much effect. To meet these needs, further research
is needed to develop systematic tools to identify ideologies and ways to improve
negative ideologies.
This is not to say, of course, that work such as grammars, dictionaries, etc.
should not be undertaken. This kind of work is good for other, or subsequent,
purposes, linguistic work especially, and it may even be the basis for some revi-
talization work (e.g., as it has happened in the reclamation cases of the Myaamia
(Leonard 2007; Rinehart 2006) and the Wampanoag (Makepeace 2010), but we
should be aware that per se they do not do much for maintenance or revitaliza-
tion.
Although the role of linguistic ideologies may well be universal and not
unique to the situation of Latin America, the particular ways in which linguis-
tic ideologies are shaped or parameterized may very well be specific to Latin
America; different contributions to this volume have shown specifically the range
of particular instantiations of those community ideologies (e.g., in Pérez Báez, in
Villard and Sullivant, in Pharao Hansen et al., in Rogers, and in Yáñez Rosales et
al.). One factor, in particular, may be of interest in the Latin American context:
we might want to re-consider actions arising out of an (underlying unconscious)
belief system that holds literacy in higher standard than orality. This includes a
widely ranging span of actions, from literacy-based school systems inserted in
orality-based cultures,30 to the production of publications or booklets for folk-

29 Whether this is at all the role of an outsider linguist is a matter of debate. Maybe the role of
such a person is just to point out the existence of such matters and leave it up to the community
to begin a discussion about the matter (or not). For discussion on similar matters, see Pérez Báez
(this volume).
30 This is not to say that language-specific school programs are not valid. It only means that
we should be aware of the implications and of the effects they may have. Some of those effects
may be more negative than positive in precipitating the demise of the local language (e.g., by
imposing literacy over orality, by transmitting cultural values of the dominant language commu-
nity [e.g., part of what is called the ‘hidden curriculum’; Jackson 1968 and, especially for Latin
America, Freire 1970], by favoring one dialectal variant over another, etc.).
338   Elena Benedicto, Amelia Chantal Shettle and Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

tales, dictionaries or grammar sketches. For a language to be reinforced in a cul-

tural system that is basically oral, actions need to be designed that work in that
oral environment and that address the linguistic ideologies existing in that par-
ticular environment. As linguists doing linguistic work and interested in language
revitalization, we need to be aware of this and explore alternative options. A good
example of sensitivity to these factors are the actions (based on modern L2 teach-
ing methods, such as Total Physical Response) designed by the team working on
Wixárika (Santos García, Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro, this volume).
The emphasis on the written word as an indicator of an underlying linguis-
tic ideology brings up one more factor to consider when dealing with ideologies
in language revitalization. We need to consider not only ideologies internal to
the communities, but also those external to the communities (see Shettle, 2015),
including both those of the dominant groups (whether they are those associated
with a national language such as Spanish, or another indigenous language such
as Miskitu) and those of the academic world we are immersed in and that we,
as linguists, bring into the equation. Ideologies stemming out of academia are
revealed not only in the kinds of materials we tend to produce, but also in the
kinds of actions we tend to foster and in the priorities we tend to set up. Beyond
the preponderance of written materials over oral materials, we also tend to have
classroom set ups instead of language activities attached to culturally-relevant
manifestations (see, for instance, Baldwin 2014 and McCarty et al. 2013, for an
insider’s perspective on the need for language and cultural revitalization to go
in tandem). And although some scholars indicate the need to do documentation
based on the needs of revitalization (e.g., Yamada 2011, as pointed out in Santos
García, Carillo de la Cruz, and Verdín Amaro, this volume), academic priorities
required by funding agencies de facto determine what is and what is not done, as
is pointedly noted in Villard and Sullivant’s work (this volume).
In sum, for a revitalization project to be successful, it needs to pay attention
to both internal and external ideologies,31 and it needs to be rooted in the com-
munity and out of community cultural practices; it is useful, thus, to think that
even though the general abstract principles may be universal, there is no single
recipe-for-all in terms of successful revitalization, and that solutions need to be
parametrized according to these considerations.32

31 One might even argue that until the Spanish-speaking shopkeeper in Villard and Sullivant’s
work (this volume) stops asking for azúcar and begins to use skà, nothing will really change. The
same can apply to academia’s ideology driven requirements.
32 Most of our thoughts on the language/culture connection in language revitalization and on
the community-specificity of any approach stem from interactions with Daryl Baldwin, Myaamia,
 Linguistic ideologies as a crucial factor in language revitalization   339

An additional factor that may be unique to the situation in Latin America (as
opposed to, say, the United States or other Anglophone contexts) is the mosaic
of interacting and overlapping languages co-occurring in a multilingual envi-
ronment that is not uncommonly found in Latin America; we may find several
indigenous or local languages interacting with one another and at the same time
manifesting varying degrees of interaction with the national dominant language,
or even with a language of immigration such as English (cf. Villard and Sullivant,
and Pérez Báez, this volume). In this sense, it is particularly interesting when
the national language seems to be irrelevant in the inter-linguistic relations; we
addressed this issue through the Relativized Linguistic Hierarchy, which reflects
the fluctuating nature of dominance and dependency in context-dependent sit-
uations.

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Index
Page numbers in italics indicate figures, maps, and tables.
ABRALIN (Associação Brasileira de
Linguística; Brazilian Linguistics
Association) 40, 49, 52, 55
Abreu, João Capistrano de 30
Acazulco. see San Jerónimo Acazulco, Mexico
Acervo Digital de Lenguas Indígenas “Víctor
Franco Pellotier” 70–71
Acuerdo sobre Identidad y Derechos de los
Pueblos Indígenas. see Agreement
on Identity and Rights of Indigenous
Peoples
Adelaar, Willem 311n8
advocacy, ethics of 166–168, 177–187,
188–189
The Advocates for Indigenous California
Language Survival 219
Agreement on Identity and Rights
of Indigenous Peoples
(Guatemala) 254–255, 259
Aguilar Gil, Yasnaya 177
Ahtna Regional Linguistic and Ethnographic
Archive 12, 66–67
AIDESEP (Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo
de la Selva Peruana; Interethnic
Association for the Development of the
Peruvian Rainforest) 198, 203, 205
Aikanã/Kwaza project 8
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 45
AILLA (Archive of the Indigenous Languages of
the Americas) 75
Alaska
–â•fiAhtna Regional Linguistic and Ethnographic
archive 12, 66–67
Algic (language family) 5
Algonquian (Blackfoot) 160
Amahuaca (language) 210
Amazonia. see also Kukama-Kukamiria
(language)
–â•fibilingual teachers 205
–â•ficountries included in 197
–â•fiGavião and Suruí of Rondônia 36–39
–â•filanguage documentation projects 33–39
–â•fiPuruborá language 33–36
–â•fi“uncontacted” indigenous
peoples 197–198
Amías Murayari, Rosa 143n2
Amoxcalli Nahuatlahtolli (Nahuatl Language
Library), Ayotitlán, Mexico 127–128
Anchieta, José de 30
Antolín, Demetrio 329
Arabela (language) 210
Arawakan languages 160–161, 197, 198
Archive of indigenous languages of Chiapas
(Archivo de los idiomas indígenas de
Chiapas) 71
Archive of the Indigenous Languages of the
Americas (AILLA) 75
archives
–â•fidesign 76
–â•fiindigenous access to 12, 59–60, 64–66,
69–70, 72–73, 76
–â•fiinstitutional archives 12, 70–71, 75
–â•filocal language archive 13, 64–65, 73
–â•fiMexico 59–79
–â•fineutral locations for 69–70, 69n4, 74
–â•fiNNAILA 61–63
–â•fipreliminary results and raw data 65
archives, digital
–â•fiCIESAS (Mexico) 70
–â•fiindigenous access to 59, 61
–â•fiInternet access issues 12–13, 69, 74
–â•fijukebox archives 12, 60, 66–67, 69–70
–â•fiMuseu Emílio Goeldi, Brazil 35, 39
–â•fiNNAILA 61–63
–â•fiPROGDOC 43
–â•firequirements 59
Archivo de los idiomas indígenas de Chiapas
(Archive of indigenous languages of
Chiapas) 71
Argentina
–â•fiConvention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198
346   Index
–â•filocal archives 64
Aruá (language) 45, 55
Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la
Selva Peruana. see AIDESEP
assimilation policies
–â•fibilingual education 282
–â•fiMexico 82, 219–220, 282, 282n12
Associação Brasileira de Linguística 40, 49,
52, 55
Asunción, Mexico 315
Asurini language survey 50, 51t
Athabaskan 159, 160
at risk languages 7t
attitudes
–â•fiof latent-speakers 152
–â•fivs. linguistic ideologies 333, 333n26, 335
–â•fimetalinguistic ideologies 215
–â•fiof neo-speakers 154
–â•fiand revitalization attitudes 298
–â•fiSan Jerónimo Acazulco, Mexico 215–245
–â•fitoward language endangerment 165
–â•fitoward neo-speakers 159
–â•fitoward teachers from outside the
community 9–10, 14, 67–69, 122, 123,
133–134
attrition 109n1, 146, 147t, 154
Austin, Peter K. 12
Australia
–â•fiethical guidelines 195
–â•fijukebox archive model 60, 66–67
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies 195
authenticity
–â•fias goal of language documentation and
revitalization 20, 247–271
–â•fiideologies of 231–236, 237
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 159
–â•filinguistic authenticity 232–233
–â•fiand linguistic variation 159
authority. see linguistic authority; political
authority
Autonomous Regional System of Education.
see SEAR
Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi
(Mexico) 71–72
Awajun people 203
Awastingni, Nicaragua 316n12
Aymara (language) 200
Ayotitlán, Mexico
–â•fibilingual schools 122–123
–â•fichallenges 130, 132–136
–â•ficommunity profile 115–121
–â•ficurrent projects 127–132, 129f
–â•fifuture 132–136
–â•fihistory of initiatives 122–123
–â•filanguage documentation 134
–â•filanguage reclamation initiatives 10,
109–141
–â•filanguage shift, history of 118–119
–â•filibrary 127–128
–â•filinguistic landscape 110, 128–130, 129f
–â•filocation 115–116
–â•fiNahuatl as a second language courses 127,
130–131, 137
–â•fiprojects and methods 111–115
–â•fisociolinguistic profile 116–117
–â•fisymbolic memory 119–121, 133
–â•fiviolence in 119
Ayuru. see Wayoro
Ayuso González, Javier 297
Aztec languages 281
baby names 290, 290n18
Bakairi 33
Bakairi-Ikpeng 33
Baldwin, Daryl 338n32
Bambana (river), Nicaragua 316
bamboo clarinets 38
Banco do Brasil 39
Barbareño Chumash (Šmuwič) 174
Barrada, María de Jesús 296–297
Bartholomew, Doris 281
Basque (Euskera) 317, 317n15
Baure (Arawakan) 160–161
Beam de Azcona, Rosemary G. 281
Belmar, Francisco 281
Beltrán, Doña Trinidad
–â•fibackground 224, 235–236
–â•filinguistic ideology 239, 241
–â•fimorphological variation 230
–â•firelationship with others 231, 237–238
–â•fispatial language 228
–â•fitraditionalist view of authority 235–236
Index   347
Benedicto, Elena 310, 311–312, 311t, 316,
326, 328
Berkeley Language Archive 76
Bert, Michel 20, 146, 292, 295, 296, 297
BICU (Bluefields Indian Caribbean
University) 323, 324–325, 328
bilingual education
–â•fiAmazonia (Peru) 205
–â•fiAymara 200
–â•fiAyotitlán, Mexico 122–123
–â•ficlassroom materials and activities 125, 326
–â•figoals 124–125
–â•fihigher education 323–326
–â•filanguage reclamation 10, 137
–â•fiMayangna 321, 322, 324, 325, 326–327
–â•fiMexico’s dysfunctional policies 15, 92, 123,
135–136, 137, 181
–â•fiNahuatl 114, 121–123, 123–127, 135–136,
137
–â•fiNicaragua 14–15, 319–322, 321n18, 324
–â•fiPanamahka 322, 324, 326–327
–â•fiPROEIB Andes 200
–â•fiQuechua 200
–â•fireplacive bilingualism 83, 181–183, 282
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní, Mexico 170, 180–185
–â•fiteacher training 135, 321, 324
–â•fiterminology 113n2
–â•fitextbooks 321, 321n18, 322, 326
–â•fiTuahka 322, 324, 326–327
–â•fiTuxpan, Mexico 114, 121–122, 123–127,
135–136, 137
Bilingual-Intercultural Educational System
(Sistema de Educación Bilingüe e
Intercultural) 113
Bilwi, Nicaragua 324–325, 328
Blackfoot (Algonquian) 160
Bluefields, Nicaragua 324–325, 328
Bluefields Indian Caribbean University. see
BICU
Bolivia
–â•fiindigenous rights 197, 198, 205
–â•fitransnational indigenous groups 200
Bonanza, Nicaragua 320, 322, 324, 324n20,
327, 330
Bora people 65
borrowing
–â•fiChatino 281
–â•fifluent speakers 147t, 148
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 147t, 148, 158t
–â•fiOtomí 232
–â•fiby speaker type 158t
–â•fiXinkan 258, 266, 267
Bowden, John 12
Bowern, Claire 195
Brazil
–â•fiAmazonia language documentation
projects 33–39
–â•ficensus (2010) 30, 45, 46, 53–55
–â•fichallenges 30
–â•fiConvention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198
–â•fiDOBES projects 8, 31, 32t
–â•fiELDP projects 8, 31, 32t, 34–36
–â•fiendangered languages 45
–â•fifunding for linguistic research 8, 11, 31,
39, 49
–â•fiGavião and Suruí of Rondônia,
Amazonia 36–39
–â•figovernment initiatives 30, 39–43, 46–55
–â•fiINDL 30, 46–51, 51t, 209n31
–â•fiinternational programs 30–33
–â•filanguage documentation 29–58, 33–39
–â•filanguage transmission 45
–â•filinguistic diversity 6, 9, 32t, 43–46, 53–54
–â•filocal archives 64
–â•fiMinistry of Culture 47
–â•fiperspectives for language documentation
and revitalization 55–56
–â•fiPRODOCLIN 39–43, 42t
–â•fiPuruborá language 33–36
–â•fisurvey of languages 47–49
–â•fitransnational indigenous groups 200
–â•fiwhistled and instrumental speech 36–39
Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics. see IBGE
Brazilian Linguistics Association. see
ABRALIN
Buvollen, Hai Almquist 310, 311t, 315n11
Buvollen, Hans Peter 310, 311t, 315n11
Cacataibo (language) 197, 197n4, 198
Cameron, Deborah 167
Campbell, Lyle 5–6, 6n8, 266
Canada, linguistic revitalization 218, 240
348   Index
Canger, Una 116–117
Cantagallo, Lima, Peru 201
Capanahua (language) 210
Caquinte (language) 210
Cariban (language family) 33
Carib languages 33
Casa de la Cultura, Ayotitlán, Mexico 128
Cashibo-Cacataibo (language) 197, 197n4,
198
Catalan (language) 317, 317n15
Catalog of Endangered Languages. see ELCat
Catalog of Indigenous National Languages
(INALI) 5
Cauqui (language) 211
CBLR (Community-Based Language
Research) 21
CDI (Comisión Para el Desarrollo de los
Pueblos Indígenas) 221, 222
CECA (Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las
Artes) 128
CEDELIO (Center for the Study and
Development of the Indigenous
Languages of Oaxaca) 294
Census of 1990, Mexico 172, 173t
Census of 2005, Nicaragua 310, 311, 311t
Census of 2010, Brazil 30, 45, 46, 53–55
Census of 2010, Mexico 81, 172, 173t, 178n4,
179
Center for Research and Development of the
Atlantic Coast. see CIDCA
Center for the Study and Development of
the Indigenous Languages of Oaxaca
(CEDELIO) 294
Center of Research and Superior Studies in
Social Anthropology. see CIESAS
Central America. see also specific countries,
languages, and peoples
–â•filanguage documentation projects 8
–â•finumber of languages 5
Centro de Educación Preescolar Quiaviní, San
Lucas Quiaviní, Mexico 180–185
Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios
Superiores en Antropología Social. see
CIESAS
Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la
Costa Atlántica. see CIDCA
Chaco project 8
Chamicuro (language) 210
Chatino 273–304
–â•fiborrowed words 281
–â•fiChatino Language Documentation
Project 294
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 17,
19, 177
–â•fidemographics of speakers 277–279
–â•fidomains of use 279–280
–â•fiearliest mentions 281n11
–â•fiEnglish language, favoritism toward 274,
283, 289
–â•fifield linguists, suggestions for 298–299
–â•figeographic distribution 275, 276m
–â•fiintergenerational transmission 282–283
–â•filabor migration 283–289, 285f
–â•filabor migration mural 287–288, 288n17,
289f
–â•filanguage documentation 290–299
–â•filanguage endangerment 177
–â•filanguage revitalization 292–293, 295
–â•filanguages and locations 276m
–â•filanguage shift 274, 274nn2–3, 280
–â•filinguistic variation 10, 276
–â•fimethods 275
–â•fimultilingualism 280–283
–â•finumber of speakers 276
–â•fisociolinguistic overview 275–290
–â•fivitality 277–280, 278f, 279n8
Chávez Peón, Mario 169, 184, 186
Cherokee 159
Chiapas (state), Mexico
–â•fiarchives 71
–â•fibilingual Tzotzil-Spanish speakers 77n7
Chibchan (language family) 266, 308. see
also Rama (language)
Chile, Convention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198
Chiquimulilla Xinka 248, 252–253
Chitonahua. see Murunahua (language)
Chocholtec (language) 281
Chumash 174
CIDCA (Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo
de la Costa Atlántica; Center for Research
and Development of the Atlantic
Coast) 323, 327–328
CIESAS 70–71, 75
Index   349
Cinta Larga peoples 45
civil-religious hierarchies 279, 279n9, 291
clarinets, in instrumental speech 38
clitics 148–149, 148n4, 155
Coatlán-Loxicha Southern Zapotec 281
Cocama-Cocamilla (language). see Kukama-
Kukamiria (language)
Cochimí-Yuman (language family) 5
CODEPISAM (Council for the Development
of the Indigenous peoples of the San
Martin region) 203
code-switching 152–154, 154n6, 160
Colima (state), Mexico 117
collaboration
–â•ficommunity-based language research 13,
15, 21, 22, 95, 166
–â•fidifficulties 13
–â•fiethics 21, 167, 216
–â•fiindigenous collaborators 59n1
–â•fiParticipatory Action Research 15
–â•fiPeruvian and Bolivian linguists and
educators 200
Colombia
–â•fiBora people 65
–â•fiindigenous rights 197, 198, 207
–â•filocal archives 64
–â•fitransnational indigenous groups 200
Comisión Para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos
Indígenas (CDI) 221, 222
Common European Framework of Reference
for Languages 124–125
community-based language research. see
also specific projects
–â•ficategorizing speakers 147–148
–â•fichallenges 13–14, 67–69, 72–73
–â•ficollaboration 13, 15, 21, 22, 95, 166
–â•ficommunity-researcher gap 21–22, 174–177
–â•fidefinition 114
–â•fiideological differences, within
communities 216–217, 233, 240–241
–â•fiintroduction 18–20, 165–166
–â•fiParticipatory Action Research 15
–â•firesearcher rationale 167–168
–â•fishift toward 21, 112
Community-Based Language Research
(CBLR) 21
community-based language revitalization. see
also specific projects
–â•ficommunity-led activities 103–104
–â•ficurrent trends 188–190
–â•fiethical issues 177–187, 219, 239–241
–â•filinguistic authority 226
–â•fipolitics of 67–69, 216–217
–â•fisuccess factors 166, 215
–â•fisuggestions 104–105
community creation 268–269
community expectations
–â•fias factor in language endangerment 3
community-external researcher
–â•fias advocate 168, 177–187
–â•ficollaboration with community 166
–â•ficommunicating research results to the
community 188–189
–â•ficulturally-appropriate engagement with
community 190
–â•fiethics 166, 167–168, 177–187
–â•fihow to approach indigenous
communities 202–205
–â•fiimpact on community 189
–â•finecessary steps before starting a
project 202–207
–â•finot having right to be an advocate 188
–â•firespect for rights of indigenous
populations 205–207
–â•firesponsibility to community 188
–â•firole 337n29
community motivation
–â•ficommunity recognition 251
–â•fias continuum 16
–â•fifactors in 65
–â•filanguage documentation and
revitalization 248, 267–269
–â•filanguage endangerment 3, 15–18
–â•fipolitical and social activism 251, 253
–â•fivs. researchers’ motivation 19, 33, 76,
174–177, 248–249
–â•firole of external researchers in 18, 167–168
–â•fiand success of revitalization efforts 215,
331–332
community portals 60, 62–63, 63f
complex sentences 149
CONACULTA (National Council for Culture and
Arts) 128n6
350   Index
Consejo del Pueblo Xinka de Guatemala
(Council of the Xinkan People of
Guatemala; COPXIG) 255, 256, 257, 261
Consejo de Mayores (Council of Elders),
Ayotitlán, Mexico 114, 119, 127–128, 132
Consejo Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes
(CECA; State Council for Arts and
Culture) 128
Convention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198, 201–202, 205–206
Conzemius, Eduard 314
COPXIG. see Consejo del Pueblo Xinka de
Guatemala
Cortés Jiménez, Celiflora 294
Costa, James 217, 240–241
Council for the Development of the
Indigenous peoples of the San Martin
region (CODEPISAM) 203
Council of Elders. see Consejo de Mayores
Council of the Xinkan People of Guatemala.
see Consejo del Pueblo Xinka de
Guatemala
country, definition of term 11n11
Couto de Magalhães, General 30
Creoles. see Kriol (language)
Crevels, Mily 5–6
criminal groups, hampering research 73
Crippen, James A. 168, 177
Cristero War 118
critically endangered languages 7t
crowd-sourced data 62, 76–77
Cruz, Emiliana 2, 294
Cruz, Hilaria 177
Crystal, David 250–251
Csató, Eva A. 64
Cuautitlán de García Barragán, Mexico 112,
115–116, 122
cultural identity. see indigenous identity
cultural marginalization 251, 291
Czaykowska-Higgins, E. 21, 95, 114–115, 167
Danielsen, Swintha 160
data accessibility. see under archives
degree of study (of Brazilian indigenous
languages) 46
degrees of fluency, criteria 50
Dentel, Laure 36
developing languages 8t
Díaz, Porfirio 118
digital archive. see archives, digital
Dixon, Robert. M. W. 45
DOBES program
–â•fiattacks on 40–41
–â•fiBrazil 8, 31, 32t, 39–40, 39n4, 41
–â•fiMexico 8
–â•fiPeru 65
–â•fiSouth America 8
Dobrin, Lise M. 101, 166, 168, 189, 190, 291
documentation. see language documentation
Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen (DOBES)
program. see DOBES program
Dolores, Modesta 328
domains of language use
–â•fiChatino 279–280
–â•filanguage revitalization 1
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 170–171, 173,
180
–â•fiand vitality counts 7t, 8t
–â•fiWixárika 104
Doña Trinidad. see Beltrán, Doña Trinidad
Don Feliciano. see Soler, Don Feliciano
Don Felipe. see Sánchez, Don Felipe
Dorian, Nancy 109–110, 146, 225–226, 239
dormant languages 7t, 117
Dorsey, James Owen 225
drug traffickers, hampering research 73
Dupaningan Agta 177
Durango (state), Mexico
–â•fiHuichol people 85, 87
–â•fiNahuatl (language) 117
Dwyer, Arienne M. 12, 202–203, 239–240
dying languages 8t
Eastern Chatino 276, 276n4, 282, 294
Ecuador
–â•fiConvention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198
–â•fiindigenous rights 197, 198
education. see also bilingual education;
schools
–â•fihidden curriculum 323, 323n19
–â•fihigher education 323–326
–â•filanguage revitalization efforts 320–327
–â•fiand language shift 92, 316–317
Index   351
–â•filanguage standardization 326–327
–â•fiprimary education 258–259, 322
–â•fisecondary education 322–323
educational NGOs 204–205
EGIDS. see Expanded Graded
Intergenerational Disruption Scale
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional
(EZLN) 127n4
ELAR (Endangered Languages Archive) 8
ELCat (Catalog of Endangered Languages) 6,
6n8, 7t, 249
El Colorín, Mexico 89f
–â•fiadult literacy workshops 98, 98f, 100f
–â•fibilingual population 88t
–â•ficultural revitalization 104
–â•fidistribution of houses 92–93
–â•fieconomic activity 89, 91–92
–â•fieducation 88t
–â•filack of teachers 14
–â•filanguage revitalization 93–103
–â•filanguage revitalization actions 101–103,
102f, 103f
–â•filanguage shift 82, 90–93
–â•filanguage teaching 97–101, 98f, 99f, 100f,
104
–â•filinguistic landscape 95–97, 96f
–â•filocation 86m, 87, 88, 89
–â•fimonolingual population 88t
–â•fipopulation 88, 88t
–â•firelocation 89, 91, 92–93
–â•fischool 92, 99, 99n13
–â•fiWixárika language vitality 81–82, 83n2,
88–93, 88t, 91t
ELDD. see endangered language
documentation and description
El Desemboque, Mexico 12, 59n1, 69–70, 74
ELDP (Endangered Languages Documentation
Programme)
–â•fiBrazil 8, 31, 32t, 34–36
–â•fiCentral America 8
–â•fiMexico 294
–â•fiSouth America 8
ELF. see Endangered Language Fund
El Sauz, Mexico 82
empowering research model 114–115
endangered language documentation and
description (ELDD)
–â•filanguage revitalization 298
–â•fiLatin American 274
–â•fiand migration 273, 274
–â•fiTataltepec narrative 292–294
–â•fiZacatepec narrative 294–297
Endangered Language Fund (ELF) 8, 32–33,
184–185
endangered languages. see also ELCat
(Catalog of Endangered Languages);
language endangerment; specific
languages
–â•fiBrazil 45
–â•ficauses and consequences 1
–â•fidefinition 7t
–â•filanguage documentation 143–164,
249–251
–â•filatent-speakers, value in language
knowledge of 15
–â•fiMexico 84
–â•finumber and percentage of 7t, 249
–â•fias secondary classification 268
–â•fitypology of speakers 146–147, 147t
–â•fivariation 143–164
Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) 8
Endangered Languages Documentation
Programme. see ELDP
English (language)
–â•fifavoritism toward 17, 172, 274, 283, 287,
289–290
–â•fifieldworkers teaching 299
–â•fias language of education 317
ethical research
–â•fiaccess to indigenous communities 208, 211
–â•fiadvocacy 166–168, 177–187, 188–189
–â•fichallenges in 216–217
–â•ficollaboration 21, 167, 216
–â•ficommunity-based model 21
–â•ficommunity-external researcher 166,
167–168, 177–187
–â•fihigh-migration communities 290–292
–â•fiinformed consent 21, 22–23
–â•fiinstitutional guidelines 195
–â•fiintroduction 20–23
–â•filanguage endangerment 3, 20–23, 94n11
–â•filanguage revitalization 177–187, 219,
239–241
–â•filinguist-focused model 21
352   Index
–â•firesponsibility to community 12, 21, 59–60,
188
ethnographic anthropology 190–191
Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig)
–â•fiChatino languages 276n4, 277
–â•ficlassifications of languages 7
–â•finumber of languages in Central America 5
–â•finumber of languages in South America 6
–â•finumber of languages in the Caribbean 5
–â•finumber of living languages in Mexico 5
–â•fi“uncontacted” peoples 197, 198
–â•fivitality counts and characterizations 8t
etymologies. see folk etymologies and
histories
Euskera (Basque) 317, 317n15
Expanded Graded Intergenerational
Disruption Scale (EGIDS) 7, 117, 277
extinct languages 5, 249
EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación
Nacional) 127n4
federal, definition of term 11n11
Fendly, Gloria 329
Fennig, Charles D. see Ethnologue (Lewis,
Simons, and Fennig)
FEPREKSAM (Kechwa Peoples Federation of
San Martin) 199
fieldwork, linguistic. see also
community-based language research
–â•fiapproaching indigenous
communities 202–205
–â•fiethnography-based 190–191
–â•fievolution of 111, 112, 114, 216
–â•finecessary steps before starting a
project 202–207
–â•firespect for indigenous rights 205–207
–â•fiscientist vs. activist orientation 217
–â•fisuggestions for 202–205, 298–299
Fleck, David 198
Flores, José Antonio 101
Flores Salvatierra, María Magdalena 128
fluency, degrees of 50
fluent speakers
–â•fidefinition 147t, 148
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 14, 143, 148–152, 156,
158–160, 158t
flutes, in instrumental speech 38
folk etymologies and histories 257–258
FORMABIAP 205, 210
former speakers 147t, 148, 157
frame of reference, geocentric 229
frame of reference, relative 229
France, language of education 317
Franchetto, Bruna
–â•fiELF projects 8
–â•fiPRODOCLIN 11, 39
–â•firesearch 2, 33, 39n4, 41
Frank Gómez, Eloy 318, 335–336
Freeland, Jane 318, 335–336
Freire, Paulo 339n32
French (language) 317
FUNAI (National Indian Foundation of
Brazil) 38, 39
funding agencies
–â•fiBrazil language documentation 31, 39, 49
–â•fiexpected outcomes 19
–â•fiintroduction 8, 11
Furbee, N. Louanna 1–2
Gabas, Nilson, Jr. 9, 45, 46
Galucio, Ana Vilacy 9, 45, 46
García, Fernando 210
Garifuna (language) 254, 308, 308m, 312,
318
Garrett, Andrew 76
Garza Cuarón, Beatriz 5
Gasquet-Cyrus, Mèdèric 217, 240–241
Gavião of Rondônia 36–39, 44, 45, 54–55
gender
gender, and linguistic authority 237–238
gender indexicals 150–151, 150t, 152, 155,
157, 160
genderlects 146, 160
gender roles 97
General Law of Linguistic Rights of Indigenous
People. see Ley General de Derechos
Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas
(Mexico)
genetic classification of languages 4, 48, 53,
260–261, 266
geocentric frame of reference 229
geographical distribution of speakers
–â•fidiscontinuous locations 200
–â•fias factor in language endangerment 3
Index   353
geopolitical borders, as factor in language
endangerment 3
ghost speakers (former speakers) 157,
296–297, 299
glottalized consonants 260, 264–266
Glottolog 5, 6
Gómez, Tomasa 329
González Compeán, José Luis 72
González Hernández, Margarita 295–296
Good, Jeff 62, 63f
Green, Thomas 315
Grenoble, Leonore A. 1–2, 132
Grinevald, Colette
–â•fiadvisory boards 41
–â•ficlassification of speakers 20, 146, 292,
295, 296, 297
–â•fion delivering fieldwork to a language
community 63
–â•fiethical research 20
group population and speaker numbers 45
GTDL (Grupo de Trabalho da Diversidade
Linguística; Workgroup on Linguistic
Diversity) 47–48, 53–54
Guarani. see Mbyá Guarani
Guatemala. see also Xinkan languages
–â•fiacademy supporting indigenous
languages 219
–â•fiAcuerdo sobre Identidad y Derechos de
los Pueblos Indígenas (Agreement
on Identity and Rights of Indigenous
Peoples) 254–255, 259
–â•ficivil and political unrest 253–254
–â•ficultural affirmation 247
–â•fiindigenous rights legislation 251, 254–255
–â•filanguage documentation funding 11
Guazacapán Xinka 247, 252–253, 262, 265t
Guerrero (state), Mexico
–â•fiNahuatl variety 9–10
Haig, Geoffrey 2
Hajek, John 12
Hale, Kenneth 2, 310, 311–312, 311t, 315
Hans and Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund. see
ELDP
Harakbut (language) 211
Haviland, John 71
Hernández-Green, Néstor 221
Hernández Reyes, Janet 180–184
Hidalgo (state), Mexico
–â•fiNahuatl speakers 10, 122
–â•fiOtomí variety 225
High Blackfoot 160
High Perené (language) 210
Himmelmann, Nikolaus 40–41
Hinton, Leanne 2, 146, 159, 167, 217
hispanista educators. see indigenista vs.
hispanista educators
Holton, Gary 166, 168, 189, 190
Hopi 218
Huastec 71–72
Huave (language family) 5
Huichol people
–â•fibackground 85–86
–â•ficommunity groupings 87
–â•fidistribution of houses 92–93
–â•fiEl Colorín, Mexico 88
–â•figeographic distribution 81, 83n3, 85–86,
86m
–â•filanguage shift 81–82
–â•fiSpanish speakers 87t
–â•fiWixárika language revitalization 85–87
–â•fiWixárika speakers 81, 86, 87t
–â•fiWixárika varieties 87
–â•fiWixárika vitality 81–82, 88–93
Huitoto (Murui) (language) 211
human resources, and revitalization
success 327–329
IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and
Statistics) 48, 51, 53–55
ICT (Information Communication
Technology) 60, 63–64
identity. see also indigenous identity
–â•fiidentity shift 314–316, 315n11, 316n12,
332, 334, 334n27
–â•fiimportance of language in 248
–â•fisociolinguistic context of 83, 252–259
ideological differences, within
communities 216–217, 223, 240–241
ideologies. see linguistic ideologies
ILV (Instituto Lingüístico de Verano) 220
INALI. see Instituto Nacional de Lenguas
Indígenas
Iñapari (language) 211
354   Index
INDEPA (Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo
de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y
Afroperuanos; National Institute for the
development of Andean, Amazonian and
Afroperuvian Peoples) 209n30
indigenista vs. hispanista
educators 219–220
indigenous communities. see also entries
beginning with community; rights
of indigenous people; transnational
indigenous groups
–â•fiaccess to archives 12, 59–60, 64–66,
69–70, 72–73, 76
–â•fiaccess to outcomes 63–64
–â•fiauthenticity as goal 20, 247–271
–â•ficommunity portals 60, 62–63, 63f
–â•fiindigenous-controlled organizations 202,
203
–â•filinguists’ approach to 202–205
–â•firelationship with country/state 195–196,
197, 205–207
–â•firespect for rights of 205–207
indigenous education system,
terminology 113n2
indigenous identity
–â•fiimportance of language in 248
–â•fiincentives for establishing 54, 131, 248,
251
–â•fiincrease in, in Mexico 82
–â•filanguage documentation as source of 256
–â•fiproving 131
–â•fiXinkan elementary school module 258–259
indigenous languages. see also language
surveys; specific languages
–â•fiBrazil situation 43–46
–â•fiinterpreters 206, 206n24
–â•fiPeru national language policy 210–211
Indigenous Languages Documentation
Project. see PRODOCLIN
indigenous rights. see rights of indigenous
people
INDL (National survey of languages,
Brazil) 46–51, 55
Information Communication Technology
(ICT) 60, 63–64
informed consent 21, 22–23, 42
infrastructure, and language
endangerment 3, 11–15
Institute for National Historical and Artistic
Patrimony (Brazil). see IPHAN
institutional archives 12, 70–71, 75
institutional languages 8t
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
see IBGE
Instituto de Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico
Nacional. see IPHAN
Instituto Lingüístico de Verano (ILV) 220. see
also Summer Institute of Linguistics
Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de
Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y
Afroperuanos 209n30
Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas
(INALI; National Institute of Indigenous
Languages) 5, 84, 87, 179–180
Instituto Socio Ambiental 45
Instituto Superior Pedagógico Público Loreto
(ISPPL) 205
instrumental speech 36–39
Inter-American Court of Human Rights 316n12
Intercultural University of the State of
Mexico 131
international documentation
programs 29–33, 39, 40
International Labor Organization
–â•fiConvention 169 198, 201–202, 205–206
International Mother Tongue Day 126, 131
Internet archives, access issues 12–13, 69,
74
in trouble languages 8t
Inventário Nacional da Diversidade
Linguística. see INDL
IPHAN (Institute for National Historical and
Artistic Patrimony) 47, 49, 50, 51–52
Iquitu (language) 211
IRB/REB documents 22
Ireland, language of education 317
Iroquoian languages 61–62
Isconahua (language) 197, 197n4, 198, 211
ISPPL. see Instituto Superior Pedagógico
Público Loreto
Index   355
Jalisco (state), Mexico. see also Ayotitlán,
Mexico; Nahuatl (language); Tuxpan,
Mexico
–â•fiHuichol people 85, 86, 87
Jamieson, Mark 314–315
Jaqaru (language) 211
Jemez Pueblo 218
Jesuits, language documentation in Brazil 30
Jiménez Jiménez, Jesús 293
Juchitán (Isthmus) Zapotec 170
jukebox archives 12, 60, 66–67, 69–70
Jumaytepeque Xinka 252–253
Junín (province), Peru 199
Juruna 50, 51t
Jutiapa Xinka 252
Kahnawake 219
Kamla-Bilwi, Nicaragua 324, 325
Kaqchikel (Mayan) 262, 262n4
Karawala, Nicaragua 308, 311n8, 315, 315n11,
316
Kaufman, Terrence 169, 266, 293
Kechwa peoples 199, 203
Kechwa Peoples Federation of San Martin
(FEPREKSAM) 199
Koch-Grünberg, Theodor 30
Kokama-Kokamilla (language). see Kukama-
Kukamiria (language)
Koskinen, Arja 310, 311t, 312n9
Kriol (language)
–â•fias autochtonous 318
–â•figeographic distribution 308, 308m
–â•filanguage shift 312, 334n27
–â•fiin linguistic hierarchy 312, 314
–â•fispelling of 312n9
Kroskrity, Paul V. 217, 240
Kugapakori. see Nanti (language)
Kuikuro 33, 39n4, 41
Kukama-Kukamiria (language)
–â•ficategories of speakers 20, 147–157
–â•ficlitics 148–149, 148n4, 155
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 20
–â•ficommunity-researcher collaboration 21
–â•fidialects 145
–â•fias endangered 145
–â•fifluent speakers 14, 143, 148–152, 156,
158–160, 158t
–â•figender indexicals 150–151, 150t, 152, 155,
157, 160
–â•figeographic distribution 144–145, 145m
–â•fighost (former) speakers 157
–â•fiindigenous rights 210
–â•fiintroduction 10–11, 143–144
–â•fiKukama dialect 145
–â•fiKukamiria dialect 145
–â•filatent-speakers 14, 15, 144, 146, 152–154,
158–161, 158t
–â•filocal context 144–145, 145m
–â•fineo-speakers 143, 154–157, 158–159, 158t
–â•finominalization 149–150
–â•finumber of speakers 145
–â•fipatterns 158t
–â•fisubordination 149–150
–â•fisuffixes 149, 155
–â•fisymbolic use of 157
–â•fias transnational 18
–â•fivariation tolerated 159
Kukamiria language. see Kukama-Kukamiria
(language)
labor migration. see migration
Lacandón 8
ladinos 254–255, 267, 307n2
La Huasteca region, Mexico 10, 122
Lamas Kechwa (language) 199
Lamas Oliva, Paulina 111, 113
Language Archiving Technology (LAT)
software 43
language change 14, 144, 159–160, 161, 199
language classifications 44–45
language decay 147, 160, 161
language description
–â•ficommunity rumors concerning 68
–â•ficontents 259, 261
–â•fidata sharing 70, 72
–â•fithreats to 41
language documentation. see also specific
countries and languages
–â•fibest practices 250
–â•fichallenges 134
–â•ficommunity motivation 253, 256, 259–260,
267–269
–â•fiendangered languages 1, 143–164,
249–251
356   Index
–â•fifunding 8, 11
–â•fiin high-migration communities 290–299
–â•fiand indigenous identity 248
–â•fiLatin America, factors unique to 2
–â•fimethodologies 35, 37, 134
–â•fimotivation 250–251
–â•finon-fluent speakers, importance of 143,
158–159, 160–161, 299
–â•firecent projects 8
–â•firesources needed for 11–14
–â•firesults 250
language endangerment. see also
endangered languages
–â•fiand accelerated language change 159–160
–â•ficommunity engagement and
motivation 15–18
–â•fi‘correct’ response 250
–â•fiethical issues 20–23
–â•fiexpected outcomes 18–20
–â•fiand infrastructure 11–15
–â•filanguage documentation and
revitalization 9–23
–â•fiin Latin America 3, 6–11
–â•fiand linguistic diversity 9–11
–â•fimotivation for work in 250–251
–â•fiand resources 11–15
–â•fiunrecognized by community 165–194
language maintenance
–â•ficommunity ideology 300, 337
–â•fiand isolation of community 81–82
–â•fiMayangna 315, 318
–â•fiNahuatl 110
–â•fiNicaragua 305, 315, 318
–â•fiPeru 196
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 19, 165–166,
168, 180, 186, 188
–â•fiuse of documentary products in 60,
290–291
–â•fiXinkan 269
language reclamation
–â•fibilingual school programs 10
–â•fichallenges 110, 132
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 16,
174
–â•ficontexts 110
–â•fidependence on related languages 15
–â•filanguage documentation as necessary
for 13
–â•fivs. language revitalization 136
–â•fiMexican government policies 136–137
–â•fiNahua communities, Mexico 10, 109–141
–â•fisymbolic memory 119–121, 133
language revitalization
–â•fiaccelerating language change 144
–â•fiauthority in 240–241
–â•fibest practices 250
–â•fichallenges 259, 291, 291n21
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 95,
215, 219, 250–251, 253, 267–269,
331–332
–â•fiendangered languages 1, 249–251
–â•fias ineffective, in Nicaragua 314, 318
–â•fivs. language reclamation 136
–â•filanguage standardization 326–327
–â•fiin Latin America 2, 218–220
–â•filegal system 318–320
–â•filinguist as mediator 239–240
–â•filinguistic authority 226
–â•filiteracy and institutionalized
education 320–327
–â•fias long-term project 298–299
–â•fimemorialization vs. regeneration 241
–â•fiin Mexico 9–10, 82–84
–â•fimicropolitics of 216–217, 236–238
–â•finon-fluent speakers 14
–â•fiin North America 218–220, 240
–â•fiprescriptive aspects 217–218
–â•firesearch and local human
resources 327–329
–â•firesources needed for 11–14, 330
–â•firesults 250
–â•fisuccess, factors in 318–332, 338
–â•fi“taking the main square” 101–103, 102f,
103f
–â•fiTataltepec de Valdés, Oaxaca,
Mexico 292–293
–â•fivarieties (linguistic and dialectal
diversity) 309–310
language samples 49, 50, 120, 232
language shift
–â•fiand age of population 90–91
–â•fiChatino 274, 274nn2–3, 280
Index   357
–â•fichildren as agents of 176, 182–183,
186–187
–â•ficommunity responsibility 95
–â•fiCristero War as factor in 118
–â•fidistribution of houses as factor in 92–93
–â•fieconomic influences 91–92, 93–94
–â•fieducation as factor in 92, 316–317
–â•fiand isolation 81–82
–â•fiKriol (language) 312, 334n27
–â•filast speaker 136
–â•fiand linguistic hierarchy 311–314, 317
–â•fiand linguistic ideology 314–318, 334n27
–â•fimarginalization as factor in 291
–â•fimasked by social and cultural practices 2
–â•fiMexican Revolution as factor in 118
–â•fiMexico 82–84
–â•fiand migration 273
–â•fiNahuatl 112, 118–119
–â•fiNicaragua 305, 312, 314–318, 329
–â•fiPanamahka (language) 316, 332–333
–â•fiPeru 199
–â•fiprocesses of 81
–â•fiRama (language) 312
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 173, 175–176,
186–187
–â•fiand symbolic memory 136
–â•fiTuahka (language) 310n7, 314, 315, 316,
329n22, 332–333
–â•fiTuxpan, Mexico 112, 118–119
–â•fiUlwa (language) 312, 315, 315n11
–â•fivectors of transmission 315–317, 334n28
–â•fias welcomed by indigenous
community 93–94
–â•fiWixárika (language) 81–82, 86, 90–93
language standardization and
normalization 325n21, 326–327
language surveys
–â•fiBrazil 47–49
–â•ficontent specifications 48–49, 52, 53
–â•ficosts 51, 51t
–â•fimethodology 49–50
language transmission. see transmission, of
language
language vitality
–â•fiChatino 277–280, 278f, 279n8
–â•ficommunity-researcher concerns, gap
between 174–177
–â•ficounts and characterizations 7t, 8t
–â•fimethodology 89–90
–â•fiand migration 165, 168, 169, 171–174
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 165, 168, 169,
171–177
–â•fiTataltepec Chatino 277–280, 278f, 279n8
–â•fiWixárika 81–82, 83n2, 88–93, 88t, 91t
Lastra, Yolanda 5, 117, 225
last speaker 136, 147t
latent-speakers (semi-speakers)
–â•fidefinition 146, 147t, 148, 152
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 14, 15, 144, 146,
152–154, 158–161, 158t
–â•firole in revitalization 15, 226
–â•fistructural innovations 160
–â•fiZacatepec Chatino 297, 299
Latin America
–â•fiELF projects 8
–â•figenetic diversity 2, 4
–â•filanguage documentation 2, 8, 9–23
–â•filanguage endangerment 3, 6–23
–â•filanguage revitalization 2, 9–23, 218–220
–â•filinguistic background 4–9
–â•filinguistic diversity 4–6, 9–11
–â•filinguistic diversity and language
endangerment 9–11
–â•fimultilingualism, historic 281
–â•finumber of languages 4–6
–â•firesources, infrastructure and language
endangerment 11–15
–â•fivitality counts and characterizations 7t, 8t
LAT (Language Archiving Technology)
software 43
Law 1381 (Colombia) 207
Law 29735 (Peru) 206–207, 208
The Leaders of Great Tuxpan (Tlayacanque
huey Tochpan) 121
legislation. see also rights of indigenous
people
–â•fiColombia 207
–â•fiGuatemala 251, 254–255
–â•fiMexico 84, 84n4, 92, 135
–â•fiNicaragua 318–320
–â•fiPeru 205–207, 208–209, 211
–â•fiand success of revitalization
efforts 318–320
–â•fiVenezuela 205
358   Index

Lehmann, Walter 310, 314, 326 –â•fimutual intelligibility as determining

León, Lourdes de 77n7 factor 44
Lewis, M. Paul. see Ethnologue (Lewis, –â•fiSouth America 5–6
Simons, and Fennig) linguistic hierarchy
Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de –â•fidominant languages 317n16
los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law of –â•fiand language shift 311–314, 317
Linguistic Rights of Indigenous People, –â•fiNicaragua 311–314, 325–326, 333–334,
Mexico) 84, 84n4, 92, 135 336
linguistic attitudes. see attitudes linguistic ideologies
linguistic authority –â•fiin academic community 338, 338n31
–â•fifrom academic knowledge 235 –â•ficlarifying 240–241
–â•fiand gender 237–238 –â•ficonscious vs. unconscious 223n2
–â•fihierarchical view 223, 231–233 –â•ficontext-dependent 333–334, 334n27
–â•fiideologies of 231–236 –â•fiin dominant culture 338
–â•fiinformants 225 –â•fifavored languages 317, 317n16
–â•fiof linguists 217 –â•fiinternal and external (to the
–â•filocal languages 317, 317n15 community) 216–217, 223, 240–241,
–â•fimemory as 236 338
–â•fimodernist view 223, 233–235 –â•fiin language revitalization 305–344
–â•fipurist view 223, 233–235 –â•filanguage shift 314–318, 334n27
–â•fiin San Jerónimo Acazulco, Mexico 223, –â•fivs. linguistic attitudes 333, 333n26, 335
231–236, 237, 240–241 –â•fifrom lived experience 239
–â•fiand success of revitalization –â•fiMayangna languages 332–336
projects 215–216 –â•fiMiskitu 314–316, 315n11, 316n12, 332, 334,
–â•fisupernatural 234 334n27
–â•fitraditionalist view 223, 235–236 –â•firevitalization success 217, 314, 318, 338
–â•fiof written texts 218 –â•fisocial power structures 315, 333, 334–335,
linguistic competence 336
–â•fibilingualism continuum 124 –â•fitransmission of 315–316
–â•fiBrazil 55 –â•fiuse of term 333n25
–â•fidegrees of 225–226 –â•fivalue hierarchy 315
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 151, 154, 159 linguistic isolates 5, 260–261
–â•fiNahuatl 110, 122, 137 linguistic landscape
–â•fiOtomí 238, 239, 241 –â•fiAyotitlán, Mexico 110, 128–130, 129f
–â•fiSpanish 175 –â•fiEl Colorín, Mexico 95–97, 96f
–â•fiand speaker type 146 linguistic prescription 217–218
–â•fiWixárika 91f, 99 linguistic revitalization. see language
linguistic diversity revitalization
–â•fiBrazil 6, 9, 43–46, 53–54 linguistic rights. see rights of indigenous
–â•fiCaribbean 5 people
–â•fiCentral America 5 Linguistic Society of America 2–3
–â•ficonfusion concerning 43–44, 53 linguistic variation
–â•fiand language endangerment 3, 9–11 –â•fiand authenticity 159
–â•fiLatin America 4–6, 9–11 –â•fiChatino 10, 276
–â•fiMexico 4–5 –â•fidialectal and individual 224–225
–â•fiMiddle America 5 –â•fiintra-speaker variation 225–226
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 159
Index   359
–â•fimorphological variation 230–231
–â•fiNahuatl 9–10, 67–68, 116–117, 133
–â•fiOtomí 10, 225–231, 227f, 239–240
–â•fiphonological variation 226–227, 227f
–â•fispatial language 228–230
–â•fiZapotec languages 10, 13
linguists, suggestions for
–â•fiapproaching indigenous
communities 202–205
–â•fibefore starting a project 202–207
–â•filong-term involvement 298–299
–â•firespect for the rights of indigenous
populations 205–207
–â•fispeaker types 299
–â•fiteaching English 299
Linguists for Nicaragua 328, 329
literacy
–â•fiand academia’s biases 337–338
–â•fiand orality-based cultures 337–338,
337n30
–â•fiand revitalization success 320–327
local language archive 13, 64–65, 73
Loos, Eugene 198
Lopez, Felipe H. 169, 171
López Cruz, Ausencia 186
López Hernández, Angelina 179
López Mejía, Cecilia 293
Los Angeles, California, San Lucas Quiaviní
Zapotec in
–â•fifamily language patterns 173, 176, 186–187
–â•fifuture revitalization activities 186
–â•fiintroduction 17–18
–â•filanguage shift 186–187
–â•filanguage transmission 165, 169, 176
–â•fimigration 171–174
Low Perené (language) 210
Macro-Chibcha 309
Madera, Mónica 119
Maijuna (Orejón) (language) 211
Maíz, Efrén 221, 235, 237, 241
Manantlán Biosphere Reserve 116
marginalization 251, 291
Martínez Mateo, Modesta 293
Martínez Nicolás, José Ángel 184–186
Martínez Quiroz, Alicia 293
Mashco-Piro (language) 197, 197n4, 198
Mason, John A. 309
Mastanahua (language) 197, 197n4, 198
Matagalpan (language) 309
Mateo Mejía, Flavia 278n7, 293–294
Matlatzinca/Tlawika (language) 220
Matsigenka (language) 197, 197n4, 198
Mattoso Câmara, Joaquim, Jr. 30
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics 12,
40, 43, 65, 70
Mayan (language family) 5, 84, 219, 262,
262n4, 266
Mayan communities 254–255
Mayangna (language) 305–344
–â•fiaccess to resources 330
–â•fibilingual education 321, 322, 325
–â•ficommunity engagement and
motivation 331–332
–â•fiin context 306–314
–â•figeographic distribution 307m, 308, 308m
–â•fihigher education 323–326
–â•fias language of education 317
–â•filanguage shift 314–318, 334n27
–â•filegal system 318–320
–â•filinguistic family 309
–â•filinguistic hierarchy 311–314, 334
–â•filinguistic ideologies 332–336
–â•filiteracy and institutionalized
education 320–327
–â•finumber of speakers 310–311, 311n8, 311t
–â•fipolitical participation of speakers 324n20,
331, 331n23
–â•fiprimary education 322
–â•firesearch and local human
resources 327–329
–â•firevitalization efforts, factors in success
of 318–332
–â•fisecondary education 322–323
–â•fiself-identity and nation building 308
–â•fistandardization 326–327
–â•fivarieties 309–310
Mayangna Nation (Nicaragua) 308, 308n5
Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna 21, 327,
328–329, 329n22, 331, 334
Mazahua (language) 220
Mazzotti, Jose Antonio 198
Mbyá Guarani 51t
McLean, Melba 328
360   Index
McQuown, Norman A. 5
Meechan, Marjorie 153
Meira, Sérgio 33
memorialization 232, 241
memory, symbolic. see symbolic memory
Mesoamerican Linguistic Area 260, 266–267,
281
mestizo
–â•fiChatino communities 277, 278
–â•fidefinition and usage 277n5, 307n2
–â•fiNicaragua 307, 307n2, 312
metalinguistic ideologies 215
methodologies
–â•ficategorizing speakers 147–148
–â•fiChatino communities 275
–â•fidocumentation of whistled speech of
Rondônia, Brazil 37
–â•fiEl Colorín language vitality study 89–90
–â•fiimpact on community 94
–â•filanguage documentation 35, 37, 134
–â•filanguage surveys 49–50
–â•filanguage vitality 89–90
–â•fimigration rates 285, 286n14
–â•fiNahuatl language reclamation 111–115
–â•fireunion of remaining speakers 35
Mexicano (language). see Nahuatl (language)
Mexican Revolution, and language shift 118
Mexican Secretariat of Public Education. see
Secretaría de Educación Pública
Mexican Social Security Institute 288
Mexico. see also specific languages and
peoples
–â•fiarchives 12, 67–75
–â•fiassimilation policies 82, 219–220, 282,
282n12
–â•fibilingual education policies 15, 92, 123,
135–136, 137, 181, 282
–â•fiCensus (1990) 172, 173t
–â•fiCensus (2010) 81, 172, 173t, 178n4, 179
–â•fiDOBES projects 8
–â•fiELAR projects 8
–â•fiindigenous identification 82–83, 83n2,
221, 222
–â•fiindigenous population 86, 86n5
–â•fiindigenous rights 84, 84n4, 92, 135,
205n23
–â•filanguage as primary indicator of
ethnicity 315
–â•filanguage documentation funding 11
–â•filanguage documentation projects 8
–â•filanguage families 5
–â•filanguage policy 135
–â•filanguage shift 82–84
–â•filinguistic revitalization 82–84
–â•filinguistic standards 220
–â•fimigration rates 286
–â•fiMinistry of Education 92
–â•fiNational Registry of Population
and Personal Identification
(RENAPO) 290n18
–â•finumber of languages 4–5
–â•finumber of living languages 5
–â•fiSecretaría de Educación Pública 220
Mexico (state), Mexico. see San Mateo
Almomoloa, Mexico
Mexikan 83n3
Meyer, Julien 36, 39
Michoacán (state), Mexico
–â•fiNahuatl (language) 117
micro-political tensions. see tensions,
micro-political
Middle America
–â•fidefinition 5
–â•finumber of languages 5
migration
–â•figeographically displaced
communities 200–201
–â•fiand language documentation 273–304
–â•fiand language shift 273
–â•fiand language vitality 168, 171–174
–â•fimonetary value of English 289
–â•fiprecluding language revitalization 274
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 165, 168, 169,
171–174
–â•fiSan Marcos Zacatepec 283–289, 285f
–â•fisatellite communities 273
–â•fiseparation of families 284, 284n13
–â•fiTataltepec de Valdés 283–289, 285f,
288nn16–17, 289f
–â•fiundocumented 287n15
Ministry of Culture (Brazil) 47
Ministry of Culture (Peru) 199, 206n24, 207,
208–211
Index   361
Ministry of Education (Mexico) 92
Ministry of Education (Nicaragua) 321n18,
322, 324, 327, 330
Ministry of Education (Peru) 200, 203–204,
205, 207, 208–211, 209n30
Miskitu (language)
–â•figeographic distribution 308, 308m
–â•fihigher education 325–326
–â•filanguage and identity shift to 314–316,
315n11, 316n12, 332, 334, 334n27
–â•filanguage family 309
–â•fias language of religion 313, 334
–â•fiin linguistic hierarchy 312, 314, 334, 335,
336
missionary linguists 30, 31
Misumalpan (language family) 309. see also
Mayangna (language)
Mixe community, Ayutla, Oaxaca, Mexico 177
Mixe-Zoquean (language family) 5
Mixtec (language) 281, 282
Modern Blackfoot 160
Mohawk immersion schools 219
Moore, Denny 9, 45, 46, 51, 54, 55
Moore, Robert E. 232
Morales López, Alicia 184
Moravian missionaries 313
morphological typology 260, 261–262
motivation of community. see community
motivation
motivation of researchers 15, 250–251
mouth bows, in instrumental speech 38
Mueller, Karl A. 315n11
multilingualism
–â•fibenefits of 190–191
–â•filinguistic hierarchy 314, 334, 339
–â•fiin Zacatepec and Tataltepec 280–283
multimedia
–â•fidata accessibility 74–75
–â•fiInformation and Communication
Technology 60, 63–64
–â•fiNenek Project 71–72
Muniche (language) 211
Munro, Pamela 169
Murui (Huitoto) (language) 211
Murunahua (language) 197, 198, 211
Museu do Índio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 39,
40, 41, 43
Museu Emílio Goeldi, Brazil 34–36, 39, 41,
43
Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 30, 31,
39, 40, 41
music, instrumental speech 36–39
Muysken, Pieter 41
Nadezhda K. Krupskaya Literacy Prize 321n17
Nahua people 198
Nahuatl (language) 109–141. see also
Ayotitlán, Mexico; San Mateo
Almomoloa, Mexico; Tuxpan, Mexico
–â•fiarchives 12
–â•fibilingual dictionary 124
–â•fibilingual education 114, 121–127, 135–136,
137
–â•fichallenges 13, 15, 132–136
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 16
–â•ficommunity profiles 115–121
–â•fidialect subgroups 116–117, 133
–â•fidictionary 10
–â•fiEastern Periphery 117
–â•fifuture 132–136
–â•figeographic distribution 115–116
–â•fiintroduction 10, 13, 109–111
–â•filanguage shift 112, 118–119
–â•filinguistic variation 9–10, 67–68, 116–117,
133
–â•filocation 83n3, 117
–â•fimultilingualism, historic 281
–â•fiNahuatl as a second language courses 127,
130–131, 137
–â•fireclamation initiatives 121–136, 129f, 137
–â•fireclamation projects and methods 111–115
–â•firesearch attention 84
–â•fisociolinguistic profile 116–117
–â•fisuccesses 110
–â•fisymbolic memory 119–121, 133, 136
–â•fiin Uto-Aztecan language family 116
–â•fivocabulary 120
–â•fiWestern Periphery 10, 117, 133
Nahuatl Language Library (Amoxcalli
Nahuatlahtolli), Ayotitlán,
Mexico 127–128
names for ethnic groups
–â•ficonfusion with names of languages 44
–â•fiin surveys 53
362   Index
names of languages
–â•fialternate names 5
–â•fichanges over time 310
–â•ficonfusion with names for ethnic groups 44
–â•fiindigenous language names 44–45, 54
–â•fiin surveys 48, 53
Nanti (language) 197, 197n4, 198, 211
Nathan, David 64
nation, definition of term 11n11
National Anthropological Archives 174
National Council for Culture and Arts
(CONACULTA) 128n6
National Indian Foundation (Brazil). see FUNAI
National Institute for the Development of
Andean, Amazonian and Afroperuvian
Peoples 209n30
National Institute of Indigenous Languages.
see Instituto Nacional de Lenguas
Indígenas
National Pedagogic University. see
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
National Registry of Population and Personal
Identification (RENAPO) 290n18
National Science Foundation
–â•fiBrazil language documentation
projects 32–33
–â•fiDocumenting Endangered Languages
(NSF-DEL) 8, 143n2, 290, 292
–â•fiIsconahua (language) documentation
grant 198
National survey of languages (Brazil). see
INDL
Navajo (Athabaskan) 159, 160
Nayarit (state), Mexico. see also El Colorín,
Mexico; Wixárika (language)
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 16
–â•fiHuichol people 81, 81n1, 85, 86, 87
–â•fiNahuatl (language) 117
–â•fischool instruction, language of 92
NEH-NSF Documenting Endangered
Languages fellowship 143n2
Nelson, Dana Kristine 111, 113
Nenek Project 71–72
neo-speakers
–â•fidefinition 147t, 148
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 143, 154–157, 158–159,
158t
–â•fias teachers 143
New Blackfoot 160
new speakers 305, 305n1
New York State
–â•fiOnondaga 61–62, 61n2
NGOs, educational 204–205
Nicaragua. see also Mayangna (language)
–â•fiAtlantic Coast languages 306–308, 308m,
311–312, 319
–â•fibilingual education 14–15, 319, 320–322,
321n18, 324
–â•fiCensus (2005) 310, 311, 311t
–â•ficolonial era 312–314, 334
–â•ficultural and linguistic legislation 318–320
–â•fihigher education 323–326
–â•filanguage distribution 306–308, 307m,
308m
–â•filanguage revitalization 305, 314
–â•filanguage shift 305, 312, 314–318
–â•filanguage-specific educational
system 320–327
–â•filinguistic hierarchy 311–314
–â•fiLiteracy Campaign 320–321, 320n17
–â•fiMinistry of Education 321n18, 322, 324,
327, 330
–â•fiprimary education 322
–â•firegions 307–308, 308n4
–â•fisecondary education 322–323
–â•fiWestern Pacifico languages 306–307,
307m, 307n3
Nimuendajú, Curt 30
Niño Santana, Melissa 111, 113
NNAILA. see Northeastern North American
Languages Archive
nominalization 149–150
nongovernmental organizations. see NGOs,
educational
normal, definition 325n21
Normalización de la Lengua Mayangna
(Tuahka y Panamahka) 326
normalization 325n21, 326
North Chiquimulilla Xinka 252
Northeastern North American Languages
Archive (NNAILA) 12, 61–63
Northern Sumu. see Mayangna (language)
Norwood, Susan 306, 311, 314, 333
Index   363

NSF-DEL. see National Science Foundation, –â•fimorphological variation 230–231

Documenting Endangered Languages –â•fiorthography 226n3, 234
Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua 324 –â•fiOtomí Council of Ndöngǘ 222, 224–231
–â•fiphonological variation 226–227, 227f
Oaxaca (state), Mexico. see also Chatino; San –â•fispatial language, variation in 228–230
Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec –â•fispeaker typologies 239–240
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 17 –â•fiterminology 225
–â•fihistoric multilingualism 281 –â•fiToluca Valley 220, 222
–â•fiJuchitán (Isthmus) Zapotec 170 –â•fivarieties 220, 224–225
–â•fimigration rates 286 outcomes
–â•fimurals 287–288 –â•fiaccessibility to, in Mexico 59–79
obsolescence 144, 145, 146, 160 –â•fiarchives 35, 38, 39
Ocaina (language) 211 –â•fibenefiting community 35, 36, 38, 42
Ocotán de la Sierra, Mexico 87 –â•fibenefiting linguists 36, 41, 42
Office for the Assistance of Indigenous –â•fimeasuring 18–20
Communities. see Unidad de Apoyo a las –â•fimultimedia products 64, 74–75
Comunidades Indígenas –â•fiPRODOCLIN 42
Old Blackfoot 160
old speakers 305, 305n1 Pacto del Valle de Matlatzinca (Pact of the
Omagua (language) 211 Matlatzinca Valley) 222
Omaha 225 Padilla Pérez, Roberto 186
O’Meara, Carolyn 62 Paiter. see Suruí of Rondônia
online archives. see Internet archives Panamahka (language)
Onondaga 61–62, 61n2 –â•fiaccess to resources 330
Orejón (language) 210 –â•fibilingual education 322, 324, 326–327
Oro Eo At 44 –â•ficommunity engagement and
Oro Mon 44 motivation 331–332
Oro Nao’ 44 –â•figeographic distribution 309
Oro Waram 44 –â•fihigher education 324, 327
Oro Waram Xijien 44 –â•fiillegal sale of communal land 332
ORPIAN 203 –â•filanguage normalization 326–327
orthography –â•filanguage shift 316, 332–333
–â•fiOtomí 226n3, 234, 238 –â•filinguistic hierarchy 312, 335, 336
–â•fiTataltepec Chatino 294, 294n25 –â•fiMayangna Yulbarangyang Balna 329
–â•fiValley Zapotec languages 186 –â•fimonolingual dictionary 329
Otomanguean (language family) 5, 224, 275. –â•finumber of speakers 310, 311n8, 311t
see also Chatino –â•fipolitical participation of speakers 320,
Otomí Council of Ndöngǘ 222, 224–231 324n20
Otomí languages. see also San Jerónimo Panoan languages 197–198
Acazulco, Mexico PAPXIG. see Parlamento del Pueblo Xinkan de
–â•fieducational materials 221 Guatemala
–â•figrammar 221 Parintintin (language) 45
–â•fiintra-speaker variation 225–226 Parlamento del Pueblo Xinkan de Guatemala
–â•fiintroduction 10 (PAPXIG; Parliament of the Xinkan People
–â•filevels of fluency, and revitalization 14 of Guatemala) 255, 256, 257, 261
–â•filinguistic documentation 224–225 Parra Gutiérrez, Rodrigo 111, 113
–â•filinguistic variation 10, 226–231, 227f Participatory Action Research 15, 329, 331
364   Index
passive speaker. see latent-speaker
PDLMA (Project for the Documentation of the
Languages of MesoAmerica) 293
PEBI programs (Programa de Educación
Bilingüe Intercultural; Program
for Bilingual Intercultural
Education) 320–323, 324, 326
Penfield, Susan D. 167
People of the Center project 8, 65
Peru. see also Kukama-Kukamiria (language)
–â•fiAmazonia 205
–â•fiBora people 65
–â•fiConvention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198, 205–206
–â•fiDOBES project 65
–â•fiethno-linguistic map, development of 47,
196, 208–210, 209n30
–â•fiindigenous communities, geographic
distribution 199–201
–â•fiindigenous communities, integration into
larger society 197–199
–â•fiindigenous communities,
self-perception 201–202
–â•fiindigenous communities, spectrum
of 196–202
–â•fiindigenous rights 197, 198–199, 205–207,
208–209
–â•filanguage shift 199
–â•fiLinguistic Rights Law (29735) 206,
208–209
–â•filocal archives 64
–â•fiMinistry of Culture 199, 206n24, 207,
208–211
–â•fiMinistry of Education 200, 203–204, 205,
207, 208–211, 209n30
–â•fiNational Commission 198
–â•finational government level linguistic
projects 208–211
–â•fiNational Institute of Statistics and
Informatics (INEI) 209
–â•finational language policy, development
of 196, 208, 210–211
–â•fiPeople of the Centre project 8, 65
–â•fiPrior Language Consultation Law 206, 211
–â•fitransnational indigenous groups 200
–â•fi“uncontacted” peoples 197–198
Peter, Lizette 159
Philippines
–â•fiDupaningan Agta 177
phonological variation. see linguistic
variation
Pilot projects, INDL 51t
Pipil people. see Xinkan community
Pochutec (language) 281
political authority, and linguistic
authenticity 232–233
Pontifical Catholic University of Peru 198, 201
Poplack, Shana 153, 154n6
postposition 155
Pride, Leslie and Kitty 293, 293n24
primary data, definition 76–77
Prior Language Consultation Law 206, 211
PRODOCLIN (Projeto de Documentacao
de Linguas Indigenas; Indigenous
Languages Documentation Project) 11,
39–43, 42t
PRODOCULT (Projeto de Documentacao de
Culturas Indigenas) 41
PROEIB Andes (Program in Bilingual
Intercultural Education) 200
PROGDOC 41, 43
Programa Alianza para la Educación Rural
Ruta del Sol (NGO) 204–205
Programa de Educación Bilingüe Intercultural.
see PEBI programs
Program for Bilingual Intercultural Education.
see PEBI programs
Program in Bilingual Intercultural Education
(PROEIB Andes) 200
Project for the Documentation of
the Languages of MesoAmerica
(PDLMA) 293
Project on the Indigenous Languages of
Central America (PROLIBCA) 311n8
Projeto de Documentação de Culturas
Indígenas (PRODOCULT) 41
Projeto de Documentação de Línguas
Indígenas. see PRODOCLIN
PROLIBCA (Project on the Indigenous
Languages of Central America) 311n8
Proto-Xinkan 259–260
Puerto Escondido, Mexico 289
Pukllasunchis (NGO) 204
Punta Chueca, Sonora, Mexico 59n1
Index   365
purism 223, 233–235, 237
Puruborá (language) 33–36
Puruborá Documentation Project 34–36
Quechua languages 200, 210
Queretaro (state), Mexico
–â•fiOtomí variety 225
Quesada, J. Diego 311n8
RALMEX (Red de Archivos de Lenguas de
Mexico) 75
Rama (language) 308, 308m, 312
reclamation. see language reclamation
Recuperación de Espacios para la Lengua
Náhuatl o Mexicana en Ayotitlán
(Recovery of Language Domains for the
Nahuatl or Mexican Language) 128
Red de Archivos de Lenguas de Mexico
(RALMEX) 75
reduction, speaker base 165, 169, 172, 173
regeneration 241
relative frame of reference 229
relativized linguistic hierarchy 311–314
–â•fiformal education 316–317, 325–326
–â•fireligion 313, 334
rememberers (typology of speaker)
–â•fidefinition 109n1, 147t
–â•fiNahua communities 109, 109n1, 110, 117,
133–134
remittances 286–287
RENAPO 290n18
reported speech 151, 152, 158t
Reserva de la Biósfera de la Sierra de
Manantlán 116
Resígaro (language) 211
results. see outcomes
revitalization. see language revitalization
Rice, Keren 2, 8, 21, 138, 167–168, 190
rights of indigenous people
–â•fiBolivia 197, 198, 205
–â•fiBrazil 197
–â•fiColombia 197, 198, 207
–â•fiConvention 169 (International Labor
Organization) 198, 201–202, 205–206
–â•fiEcuador 197, 198
–â•fiGuatemala 251, 254–255, 259
–â•fiKukama-Kukamiria 211
–â•filanguage rights 197
–â•fiMexico 84, 84n4, 92, 135, 205n23
–â•fiPeru 197, 198–199, 205–207, 208–209
–â•firesearchers’ respect for 205–207
–â•fiUnited Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples 205
–â•fiVenezuela 197, 205
Ríos, Santín 68n3
Ríos Palma, Guillermina 68–69, 68n3
rivers, and language shift 316
roads, and language shift 316
Robinson, Laura C. 168, 177
Rodrigues, Aryon 40–41, 45, 48
Rogers, Chris 259–260, 267n6
Rojas Arias, Rocío 111, 112, 114, 119, 120, 123
Romero Vargas, Germán 334n28
Rondônia, Brazil
–â•fiethnic groups 44
–â•fiPuruborá language documentation 33–36
–â•fiwhistled and instrumental speech of the
Gavião and Suruí 36–39
Rosita, Nicaragua
–â•fiaccess to resources 330
–â•fihigher education 324, 325, 326
–â•fiMinistry of Education office 322, 327
–â•fiPEBI program office 322, 327
–â•fipolitical participation 320, 324n20
Runsten, David 171
rusty speaker. see latent-speaker
Sachse, Frauke 267n6
safe languages 7t
Salamanca, Danilo 307n3
Salazar Santana, Antonio 68, 68n3
Salomón, Elizabeth 329
San Andrés Coamiata, Mexico 87
San Baltazar Guelavila, Mexico 181
Sánchez, Don Felipe
–â•fibackground 224, 233–234
–â•filinguistic ideology 239, 241
–â•fimodernist and purist view of
authority 233–235
–â•fimorphological variation 230
–â•fiphonological variation 227, 227f
–â•firelationship with others 231, 234, 237–239
–â•fias teacher 233–235, 236
Sánchez, Liliana 199, 200
366   Index
Sandinistas
–â•fiCIDCA 327
–â•fihigher education 323–324
–â•fiLiteracy Campaign 320–321, 320n17
San Jerónimo Acazulco, Mexico
–â•fiauthority in 13–14, 223, 240–241
–â•ficommunity description 221
–â•ficonflicts and solutions 236–239
–â•fihierarchical view of authority 231–233
–â•filife histories, language attitudes and
linguistic variation 215–245
–â•fimicropolitics of language
revitalization 216–217, 236–238
–â•fimodernist and purist view of
authority 233–235
–â•fiOtomí Council of Ndöngǘ and the
revitalization project 222, 224–231
–â•fiOtomí language classes 233
–â•fipolitical authorities 221–222
–â•firevitalization as linguistic
prescription 217–218
–â•fispeaker typologies 239–240
–â•fitraditionalist view of authority 235–236
San Juan Guelavía, Mexico 287
San Juan Guelavía Zapotec. see San Lucas
Quiaviní Zapotec
San Juan Quiahije Chatino community,
Oaxaca, Mexico 177, 279, 287
San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 165–194
–â•fibilingual education 170, 180–185
–â•fibilingualism rates 170, 175
–â•fichild population, reduction in 172, 173t
–â•fichild speakers, decline in 172–173
–â•ficollaboration difficulties 13
–â•ficommunity priorities vs. researchers’
interests 19, 174–177
–â•ficommunity-researcher collaboration 22
–â•ficompared to other Zapotec
languages 169–170
–â•fiin context of current revitalization
trends 188–190
–â•fidomains of use 170–171
–â•fiethical issues 22–23, 188–190
–â•fiethnographic overview 168–174
–â•fifuture prospects 185–187
–â•fihealth care information audio CDs 178–179
–â•filanguage endangerment 17–18
–â•filanguage revitalization 187
–â•filanguage shift 173, 175–176
–â•filanguage variation 13
–â•filanguage vitality, lack of community
concern about 174–177
–â•fimigration and language vitality 165, 168,
169, 171–174
–â•fimigration from 286
–â•finumber of speakers 165, 169
–â•fipopulation 172
–â•firationale for study 167–168
–â•firesearcher as advocate 177–187
–â•fischools 14, 170, 178, 180–185
–â•fiSpanish usage 170–171, 178
–â•fias transnational 165
–â•fivowel phonation and tone 169–170
San Luis Potosi, Mexico 71–72
San Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca,
Mexico 273–304. see also Zacatepec
Chatino
–â•fibilingualism 282
–â•fiChatino language revitalization efforts 295
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 17
–â•fiEnglish in 172, 283, 287, 289–290
–â•filabor migration 283–289, 285f, 286n14
–â•fimethods 275
–â•fimultilingualism 280–283
–â•fipopulation 277
–â•fischools 282–283
–â•fisociolinguistic overview 275–290
San Martin region, Peru 203
San Mateo Almomoloa, Mexico
–â•fiarchives 12, 67–69, 74
–â•fiindigenous collaborators 59n1
–â•finegative attitude toward outside
teachers 9–10, 14, 67–69
schooling. see education
schools
–â•fiarchives housed in 12, 68–69, 69n4, 74
–â•ficontributing to language shift 92
–â•fiGuatemala 258–259
–â•fiPeru 203–204
–â•fisupport for, as support for
language 180–185
–â•fiteacher training, lack of 14
Index   367
SEAR (Sistema de Educación Autonómico
Regional; Autonomous Regional System
of Education) 319, 323
Secoya (language) 211
Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP;
Mexican Secretariat of Public
Education) 113, 121–123, 220
security risks 73
Seifart, Frank 64–65, 76
Seki, Luci 31
self-perception of indigenous peoples 197,
201–202
semi-speaker. see latent-speaker
SEP. see Secretaría de Educación Pública
Seri (language family) 5, 12, 69–70, 74, 75
severely endangered languages 7t
Shawi peoples 203
Shell, Olive A. 198
Shipibo-Konibo (language) 200–201
Shiwilu (language) 211
Sicoli, Mark 291, 315
signage. see linguistic landscape
SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics). see
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)
Simons, Gary F. see Ethnologue (Lewis,
Simons, and Fennig)
simple clause 155–156, 157
Sinacantán Xinka 252
Sistema de Educación Autonómico Regional.
see SEAR
Sistema de Educación Bilingüe e Intercultural
(Bilingual-Intercultural Educational
System) 113
Siuna, Nicaragua 324, 325
SLQZ. see San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec
Smith-Stark, Thomas 169, 266
Šmuwič (Barbareño Chumash) 174
Snethlage, Emilie 30
social networks, as model interface for
community portals 60, 62–63, 63f,
71–72, 76–77
Society for the Study of the Languages of
America 2–3
sociolinguistics
–â•ficontext of identity 17, 252–259
–â•fiethnography-based 190–191
–â•filinguistic variation 225
Soler, Don Feliciano
–â•fibackground 224, 231–232
–â•fihierarchical view of authority 231–233
–â•filinguistic ideology 239, 241
–â•fimorphological variation 230
–â•fiphonological variation 227, 227f
–â•firelationship with others 231, 234, 235,
237–239
–â•fispatial language 228
–â•fias Supreme Chief of San Jerónimo
Acazulco 224
songs. see instrumental speech
Sonora (state), Mexico. see El Desemboque,
Mexico
Soriano Cortés, Anatolio 296
South America
–â•fiDOBES projects 8
–â•fiELDP projects 8
–â•figenetic diversity 4
–â•filanguage documentation projects 8
–â•filinguistic diversity 4, 5–6
–â•filocal archives 64–66
–â•fiNSF-DEL projects 8
–â•finumber of language families 5–6
Southern Quechua-speaking
communities 200
Spain
–â•filanguage of education 317, 317n15
Spanish-only education 165, 168, 183, 282
spatial language 228–230
speaker numbers
–â•ficonfusion with population 45, 53
–â•fiestimates 45
–â•fioverestimates 55
standardization. see language
standardization and normalization
state, definition of term 11n11
State Council for Arts and Culture (Consejo
Estatal para la Cultura y las Artes) 128
States of Mexico. see specific state, such as
Oaxaca (state), Mexico
State University of Nayarit (Mexico) 81
Steinen, Karl von den 30
Stenzel, Kristine 2
storytelling, San Lucas Quiaviní,
Mexico 184–186
subordination 149–150
368   Index

success. see outcomes –â•fias highly endangered 10

suffixes 149, 155 –â•filanguage documentation 290–299
SUKAWALA (Sumu Kalpapakna Wahaini –â•filanguage shift discourses 280
Lani) 310, 311t –â•filocation 276m, 278
Sullivant, J. Ryan 292–294, 299 –â•fimethods 275
Sumalpan (language) 309 –â•fiorthography 294, 294n25
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) –â•fisociolinguistic overview 275–290
–â•fiaccord with Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, –â•fisuggestions for field linguists 298–299
Brazil 31 –â•fivitality 277–280, 278f, 279n8
–â•fiCashibo-Cacataibo works 198 Tataltepec de Valdés, Oaxaca,
–â•fiInstituto Lingüístico de Verano (ILV) 220 Mexico 273–304
–â•fiMastanahua (language) vocabulary 198 –â•fibilingualism 282
–â•fiMatsigenka (language) dictionary 198 –â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 17
–â•fimissionary-linguists 293 –â•fiEnglish in 17, 172, 283, 287, 289–290
–â•fistudy of Brazilian indigenous languages 31 –â•filabor migration 283–289, 285f, 286n14
Sumu (language) –â•filanguage revitalization 292–293
–â•filanguage shift 314–315, 315n11 –â•fimestizos 278, 278nn6–7
–â•filinguistic family 309 –â•fimethods 275
–â•filinguistic hierarchy 314 –â•fimultilingualism 280–283
–â•fiPEBI program (bilingual education) 321, –â•fipopulation 278
322 –â•fipro-migration mural 287–288, 288n17,
–â•fipolitical participation of speakers 331n23 289f
Sumu (language family) 309–310. see also –â•fischools 282–283
Mayangna (language); Ulwa (language) –â•fisociolinguistic overview 275–290
Sumu Kalpapakna Wahaini Lani. see Tateikietari 87
SUKAWALA Taushiro (language) 211
Suruí of Rondônia (Paiter) Tavárez, David 281n11
–â•filanguage classification 45 Tawahka (language) 309, 309n6, 310n7,
–â•filanguage documentation projects 36–39 311n8
–â•finumber of speakers of Paiter 55 Teenek/Huastec 71–72
–â•fiwhistled and instrumental speech 36–39 Telpochtin Teyolehualistli (Youth in
Survey of Linguistic Diversity (Brazil). see Motion) 113, 114, 128–129, 131, 139
INDL Tembé people 45
surveys. see language surveys tensions, micro-political 69, 73, 216–217,
Survival International 197–198 236–238
Swanton, Michael 281 Tepehuano 83n3
symbolic memory 119–121, 133, 136 Tequistlatec-Jicaque (language family) 5
symbolic use of language 157 Terhart, Lena 160
terminal speakers 146n3
“taking the main square” 101–103, 102f, 103f threatened languages 7t
talking instruments. see instrumental speech Tikuna people 199–200
Tarascan (language family) 5 Tlacolula de Matamoros, Mexico 171,
Tataltepec Chatino 273–304 182–183
–â•fiborrowed words 281 Tlalnepantla de Baz, Mexico 290
–â•fidemographics of speakers 277–279 Tlawika 220
–â•fidocumentation narrative 292–294 Tlayacanque huey Tochpan (The Leaders of
–â•fidomains of use 279–280 Great Tuxpan) 121
Index   369
Toluca Valley, Mexico 220. see also San
Jerónimo Acazulco
Topological Relations Picture Series
(TRPS) 228
Torá (language) 45
Totonac-Tepehua (language family) 5
training of human (indigenous)
resources 327–329
–â•fiInternet use 330
–â•filanguage documentation 134, 300
–â•filiteracy training 322
–â•fimethods 101
–â•fimultimedia use 75
–â•fiPRODOCLIN 42
transmission, of language
–â•fiBrazil 45
–â•fiintergenerational 165, 169, 268
–â•fiinterruptions 143, 145, 247
–â•fioral 64
transnational indigenous groups
–â•fiaccessibility of archives to local people 65
–â•ficoordination difficulties 17–18
–â•fidiffering language policies 199–200
–â•fiinternal conflicts 310n7
–â•fiSan Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec 165
transportation, and language shift 316
Tripartite Model of Sociolinguistic
Research 168–169
TRPS (Topological Relations Picture
Series) 228
Tsunoda, Tasaku 146
Tuahka (language)
–â•fiaccess to resources 330
–â•fibilingual education 322, 324, 326–327
–â•ficommunity engagement and
motivation 331–332
–â•fihigher education 324, 327
–â•fiillegal sale of communal land 332
–â•filanguage family 309
–â•filanguage shift 310n7, 314, 315, 316,
329n22, 332–333
–â•filinguistic attitude 335
–â•filinguistic hierarchy 336
–â•fiin linguistic hierarchy 312, 335
–â•filinguistic ideology 318, 335
–â•fiMayangna Yulbarangyang Balna 328–329
–â•fimonolingual dictionary 329
–â•finormalization 309n6, 326–327
–â•finumber of speakers 310, 311n8, 311t
–â•fipolitical participation of speakers 320,
324n20
Tuapuritari-Wautiari 87
Tufts University 198
Tupian (language family) 34
Tupi-Mondé 44–45, 54–55
Tupinambarana (language) 54
Tuxpan, Mexico 109–141
–â•fibilingual schools 114, 121–127, 137
–â•fichallenges 125–126, 132–136
–â•ficommunity profile 115–121
–â•ficurrent projects 123–127, 123–132
–â•fifuture 132–136
–â•fihistory of initiatives 121–122
–â•filanguage reclamation 10, 110
–â•filanguage shift 112, 118–119
–â•filocation 115–116
–â•fiprojects and methods 111–115
–â•fisociolinguistic profile 116–117
–â•fisymbolic memory 119–121, 133
–â•fiYaoxocoyome Nahuatl (Young Nahuatl
Warriors) 126–127
types of speakers 146–147, 147t
Tzotzil-Spanish speakers 77n7
UACI. see Unidad de Apoyo a las
Comunidades Indígenas
UCA (Universidad Centroamericana) 328
UDG. see Universidad de Guadalajara
Ulcumayo district, Peru 199
Ulwa (language)
–â•figeographic distribution 308, 308m, 311n8
–â•filanguage shift 312, 315, 315n11
underdeveloped system 29
UNESCO
–â•fiAtlas of the World’s Languages in
Danger 45
–â•fiendangered language estimates 249
–â•filiteracy prizes 321n17
Unidad de Apoyo a las Comunidades
Indígenas (UACI; Office for
the Assistance of Indigenous
Communities) 113, 127, 130
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples 205
370   Index
United States
–â•fiboarding schools 317
–â•filanguage revitalization 218–219, 240
Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) 328
Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG; University
of Guadalajara) 111, 113, 124, 131
Universidad de la Región Atlántica y la Costa
Caribe de Nicaragua. see URACCAN
Universidad de San Simón, Bolivia 200
Universidad Intercultural del Estado de
México (Intercultural University of the
State of Mexico) 131
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México 81n1
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San
Marcos 209
Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN;
National Pedagogic University) 127,
127n5
University at Buffalo 61–62
University of Guadalajara. see Universidad de
Guadalajara
University of London School of Oriental and
Asian Studies. see ELDP
University of Texas
–â•fiArchive of the Indigenous Languages of the
Americas 75
–â•fiEastern Chatino surveys 294
University of the Atlantic Region and the
Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. see
URACCAN
University of Toronto’s Research Office 195
UPN. see Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
URACCAN (Universidad de la Región Atlántica
y la Costa Caribe de Nicaragua;University
of the Atlantic Region and the Caribbean
Coast of Nicaragua)
–â•fiaccess to resources 330
–â•ficampuses 324, 325
–â•fias center for endogenous research 328
–â•ficreation 323–324
–â•fiLinguistic Institute (IPILC) 326, 327, 328,
329n22, 331, 335–336
USA
–â•fiboarding schools 317
–â•filanguage revitalization 218–219, 240
Uto-Aztecan (language family) 5. see also
Nahuatl; Wixárika
Valley Zapotec languages 186
Van’t Hooft, Anuschka 72
variation. see linguistic variation
Vega Torres, Agustín 111, 114, 124–125
Venezuela
–â•fiindigenous rights 197, 205
Veracruz (state), Mexico
–â•fiNahuatl speakers 10, 122
vigorous languages 8t
Villard, Stéphanie 294–297, 299
vitality assessment 171, 172
Volkswagen Foundation. see DOBES program
vowel harmony 260, 262–264
vulnerable languages 7t
Wani (journal) 328
Wari’ 44
Wasakin, Nicaragua 322, 332
Wayne, Holm 159
Wayoro 49–50, 51t
Whaley, Lindsay J. 132, 216, 217
whistled speech 36–39
Wixárika (language) 81–108
–â•fiadult literacy workshops 98, 98f, 100f, 101
–â•fichildren’s classes 99–101, 100f, 104
–â•ficommunity engagement and motivation 16,
93–97, 103–104, 189
–â•figeographic distribution 83n3, 85m, 86m
–â•fiHuichol people 85–87, 86m, 87t
–â•filack of teachers 14
–â•filanguage revitalization 82–84, 101–103,
102f, 103f
–â•filanguage shift 81–82, 86, 90–93
–â•filanguage teaching 97–101, 98f, 99f, 100f,
104
–â•filinguistic landscape 95–97, 96f
–â•finumber of speakers 81, 86
–â•fiperceived competence of speakers 90, 91f
–â•firesearcher-community collaboration 21
–â•firole of schools in 95, 97n12
–â•fitextbook 98–99, 104–105
–â•fiin Uto-Aztecan family 87
–â•fivarieties 87
Index   371
–â•fivitality at El Colorín 81–82, 83n2, 88–93,
88t, 91t
Woodbury, Anthony C. 2, 41, 292, 294
Workgroup on Linguistic Diversity (Brazil).
see GTDL
World Health Organization 202
writing system, evaluation of adequacy 48,
52
Xatsietsarie-Puwarikatia 87
Xingu Park reserve, Brazil 39n4
Xinkan community 247–271
–â•ficommunity-researcher gap 21
–â•ficonflict with other native communities 249
–â•ficonflict with Spanish-speaking
population 249
–â•fielementary school module 258–259
–â•fiengagement and motivation 17, 20, 21, 248
–â•fiethical issues 189
–â•fiGuatemala 253–255
–â•filinguistic traits important to
identity 259–267
–â•fiself-identification 253, 254
–â•fisociolinguistic context of identity 17, 249,
252–259, 255–259, 261
–â•fiSunday gatherings 256, 263–264
–â•fiterminology 253
–â•fiyouth scholarships 257
Xinkan languages 247–271
–â•ficlassification 247n1
–â•fielementary school module 258–259
–â•fietymology 252n2
–â•fifolk etymologies and histories 257–258
–â•figlottalized consonants 264–266, 265t
–â•figrammatical elements 259–260
–â•filinguistic isolate 260–261
–â•fimorphological typology 261–262
–â•finumber of speakers 247
–â•fiperipheral status 266–267
–â•fiProto-Xinkan 259–260
–â•fiterminology 253
–â•fivowel harmony 262–264, 263t
Yamada, Racquel-María 20
Yaminahua (language) 211
Yáñez Rosales, Rosa
–â•fiAyotitlán fieldwork 112–113, 114, 122
–â•fitokens of Nahuatl vocabulary 120
–â•fiTuxpan fieldwork 112, 114, 119, 123, 132
–â•fiUDG Applied Linguistics Program 111
Yaoxocoyome Nahuatl (Young Nahuatl
Warriors) 126–127, 139
Yawalapiti (language) 45
Yine (language) 211
Yora (language) 197, 197n4, 198
Young Nahuatl Warriors. see Yaoxocoyome
Nahuatl
Youth in Motion. see Telpochtin
Teyolehualistli
Yupiltepeque Xinka 252–253
Yusku (language) 310
Zacatecas (state), Mexico
–â•fiHuichol people 85
Zacatepec Chatino 273–304. see also San
Marcos Zacatepec, Oaxaca, Mexico
–â•fidemographics of speakers 277–279
–â•fidomains of use 279–280
–â•fias highly endangered 10, 277
–â•filanguage documentation 290–299
–â•filanguage revitalization efforts 295
–â•filanguage shift 280
–â•filocation 276m, 277
–â•fisociolinguistic overview 275–290
–â•fisuggestions for field linguists 298–299
–â•fias transnational 17–18
–â•fivitality 277–280, 278f, 279n8
Zacharías, D. 200
Zapotec languages. see also San Lucas
Quiaviní Zapotec
–â•fiAsunción, Mexico 315
–â•ficomparisons 169–170
–â•fiintroduction 10
–â•filinguistic variation 10
–â•fiLos Angeles, California 17–18
–â•fiValley Zapotec languages 186
–â•fivowel phonation and tone 169–170
Zariquiey, Roberto 198
Zentella, Ana Celia 154
Zenzontepec Chatino 276, 293
Zoró peoples 44, 45
Zúñiga, M. 200