Indigenous Language Loss and Revitalization in Tecate, Baja California

Indigenous Language Loss and Revitalization in Tecate, Baja California PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indians of Mexico
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
As indigenous people prepare themselves for the 21 st century, many face the problem of language loss as one of their greatest challenges. As is the case with indigenous languages and cultures around the globe, the Kumeyaay language of northern Baja California is in danger of disappearing altogether in the next few years. Almost all the speakers are elderly, and many are in poor health. There are two major questions that guided this study: (1) How do conditions in the lives of bearers of endangered indigenous languages (and other community members) affect the decline of heritage languages? What is the impact of these factors on a selected indigenous community? (2) How will language revitalization and dialogue give indigenous people back their voice and raise their social consciousness in order to overcome the oppression under which they live? How will this occur in a selected community? During a six-year process of creating trust through dialogue and interaction with a Kumeyaay family, the researcher helped facilitate the family's creation of a project to learn their heritage language. During this time, narratives were collected which show the raising of the members' consciousness vis-à-vis the historicity of their situation and their transformation from shame and separation to pride in their heritage and a reuniting of the family. Through the voice and testimonio of the participating language bearer/teacher, this study documents his life and his transformation from rejection of his heritage and language to promotion of the language and its accompanying heritage to both his family and the community at large. Through narratives of family members, it also documents the fact that the family, with the leadership and tutelage of this family patriarch, has begun to bring the language and its accompanying culture back from the brink of extinction. Looking to the future, it is hoped that, using this study as a model, others may formulate similar projects which will change the culture of loss into a culture of promise.

Indigenous Language Loss and Revitalization in Tecate, Baja California

Indigenous Language Loss and Revitalization in Tecate, Baja California PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Indians of Mexico
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
As indigenous people prepare themselves for the 21 st century, many face the problem of language loss as one of their greatest challenges. As is the case with indigenous languages and cultures around the globe, the Kumeyaay language of northern Baja California is in danger of disappearing altogether in the next few years. Almost all the speakers are elderly, and many are in poor health. There are two major questions that guided this study: (1) How do conditions in the lives of bearers of endangered indigenous languages (and other community members) affect the decline of heritage languages? What is the impact of these factors on a selected indigenous community? (2) How will language revitalization and dialogue give indigenous people back their voice and raise their social consciousness in order to overcome the oppression under which they live? How will this occur in a selected community? During a six-year process of creating trust through dialogue and interaction with a Kumeyaay family, the researcher helped facilitate the family's creation of a project to learn their heritage language. During this time, narratives were collected which show the raising of the members' consciousness vis-à-vis the historicity of their situation and their transformation from shame and separation to pride in their heritage and a reuniting of the family. Through the voice and testimonio of the participating language bearer/teacher, this study documents his life and his transformation from rejection of his heritage and language to promotion of the language and its accompanying heritage to both his family and the community at large. Through narratives of family members, it also documents the fact that the family, with the leadership and tutelage of this family patriarch, has begun to bring the language and its accompanying culture back from the brink of extinction. Looking to the future, it is hoped that, using this study as a model, others may formulate similar projects which will change the culture of loss into a culture of promise.

Ethnographic Contributions to the Study of Endangered Languages

Ethnographic Contributions to the Study of Endangered Languages PDF Author: Tania Granadillo
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816550980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
It is a feature of the twenty-first century that world languages are displacing local languages at an alarming rate, transforming social relations and complicating cultural transmission in the process. This language shift—the gradual abandonment of minority languages in favor of national or international languages—is often in response to inequalities in power, signaling a pressure to conform to the political and economic structures represented by the newly dominant languages. In its most extreme form, language shift can result in language death and thus the permanent loss of traditional knowledge and lifeways. To combat this, indigenous and scholarly communities around the world have undertaken various efforts, from archiving and lexicography to the creation of educational and cultural programs. What works in one community, however, may not work in another. Indeed, while the causes of language endangerment may be familiar, the responses to it depend on “highly specific local conditions and opportunities.” In keeping with this premise, the editors of this volume insist that to understand language endangerment, “researchers and communities must come to understand what is happening to the speakers, not just what is happening to the language.” The eleven case studies assembled here strive to fill a gap in the study of endangered languages by providing much-needed sociohistorical and ethnographic context and thus connecting specific language phenomena to larger national and international issues. The goal is to provide theoretical and methodological tools for researchers and organizers to best address the specific needs of communities facing language endangerment. The case studies here span regions as diverse as Kenya, Siberia, Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Venezuela, the United States, and Germany. The volume includes a foreword by linguistic anthropologist Jane Hill and an afterword by poet and linguist Ofelia Zepeda.

Yucatec Maya Language Revitalization Efforts Among Professional Educators in the State of Yucatán, México

Yucatec Maya Language Revitalization Efforts Among Professional Educators in the State of Yucatán, México PDF Author: Felipe Acosta-Munoz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783346031044
Category :
Languages : de
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, North Carolina State University, language: English, abstract: Indigenous languages throughout the Americas are endangered. For instance, in Mexico 16% of the national population spoke an indigenous language in 1930; that is more than 14 million people at that time. In 2015, only 6.6% of the total population or 7'382.785 people currently speak an indigenous language in Mexico. Even for Yucatec Maya, the second most spoken indigenous language in Mexico with more than 795, 000 speakers, intergenerational transmission of the language to new generations is compromised. In the summer of 2018, I completed my research in the state of Yucatan, with the purpose of gathering data on the efforts educators, social scientists, and other proactive participants engaged in to revitalize Yucatec Maya. A second purpose was to obtain the ideologies and experiences they bring to their profession in its revitalization. My field methods included observation, informant interviewing, and collecting of printed material in Yucatec Maya as well as digital collection of material by taking photos, and I collected my data in the urban centers of Merida and Valladolid. Despite lukewarm efforts of financial support for Maya language revitalization from the government, my data shows that my participants unanimously agree that there is insufficient legislative enforcing action to secure the linguistic and cultural rights of Maya speakers in Yucatan as delineated in the Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas (General Law of Indigenous Peoples' Linguistic Rights) in Mexico. Among the linguistic and cultural rights my participants identify as weak there is poor infrastructure and insufficient number of indigenous schools, lack of sufficient qualified educators to teach Maya, lack of meaningful Maya pedagogic material production and distribution, and an almost non-existent offering of public ser

The Living Work of Teachers

The Living Work of Teachers PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education, Bilingual
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This publication presents a series of articles that examine the ideological, belief, and value systems of bilingual educators, parents, and school leaders in addressing the educational development and attainment of English language learners.1

Recuperando Nuestro Idioma

Recuperando Nuestro Idioma PDF Author: Perla García Miranda
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
This thesis will discuss the factors that lead to language shift from Zapotec to Spanish in San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya (SJT), and the challenges faced by language revitalization efforts that have emerged in the home and migrant communities. Today hundreds of Indigenous languages are widely spoken across the Americas; however, in the last century an increasing amount of language shift to the nation-state language has taken place in many Indigenous communities. In the Zapotec community of San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya (SJT), located in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, about 40% of the town's population currently speaks Zapotec. However, the majority of speakers within this percentage are elders and adults. This means that the transmission of the Zapotec language to children has declined while Spanish language socialization has increased and is now the norm. Due to socioeconomic factors and neoliberal reforms in Mexico, many community members have migrated to other Mexican states and the United States which has furthered removed Zapotec speakers from the home community. The data for this research is based on 28 open-ended interviews with elders, adults, youth, children, and language activists and participant observation in SJT during the summer of 2013. I argue that the public education implemented by the Post-Revolutionary Mexican state in Tlacochahuaya during the 1930s influenced a language shift to Spanish. Many of those who had a negative schooling experience during this era, which prohibited and punished the use of the Zapotec language in the classroom, choose to raise their children with Spanish. In SJT from 2009-2011 Zapotec tutoring lessons for children were offered by a retired teacher, and since March 2013 migrants residing in Los Angeles, CA have been uploading Zapotec language tutorials on YouTube. Although there is awareness of language loss, I argue that these efforts have been hindered by the absence of a healing process regarding negative schooling experiences and dismantling the language ideologies that continue to devalue the Zapotec language. This case study contributes to the literature of languages shift and revitalization by suggesting that both home and migrant communities have crucial roles in Indigenous language maintenance.

Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 678

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Book Description


Speaking of Endangered Languages

Speaking of Endangered Languages PDF Author: Anne Goodfellow
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 9781443812382
Category : Language maintenance
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Speaking of Endangered Languages: Issues in Revitalization provides an overview of the current state of various indigenous languages around the world, describes some local responses to maintaining them, and in some cases suggests a re-examination of the goals and content of indigenous language retention programs. Each chapter presents a case study of a threatened language and possibilities for continued vitality through a description of the history of culture contact in a particular language community, early attempts at assimilationist-style education, the current language situation in the community, and recent local grassroots efforts at language revival and maintenance. Some also include examples of differences between past and present spoken forms of the language, and the implications of these for present and future generations of indigenous language learners. The authors are all actively engaged in research on the maintenance of indigenous languages, and many of them do applied work in communities as well. It is hoped that the ideas and approaches presented in this book will encourage others working in the field of indigenous language revitalization and maintenance to keep up their efforts, and in so doing consider approaches to indigenous language education that operate at the local level and involve various members of the community.

Nahuatl Nations

Nahuatl Nations PDF Author: Magnus Pharao Hansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780197746189
Category : Indians of Mexico
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"The Nahuatl language is one of Mexico's official national languages, and as the language of the Aztecs, it holds a special place in the nations national imagination. But it is also the language of many indigenous micro-nations scattered throughout the country, and even across the borders into the US. So what happens when the Mexican state that has long worked to eradicate indigenous languages decides to support and revitalize indigenous languages, and does this help or damage the ability of indigenous communities to keep their languages alive? Based on long-term ethnography, this book is about how the Nahuatl language plays a role in the political life of different kinds of communities - from the Mexican nation, to indigenous towns and regions, and to the Mexican diaspora in the US. It is also about how politics play a role in the life of a language. It argues that to understand why some indigenous languages become endangered and disappear while others remain vital community languages, we must understand the political relations between the speech communities and the national community, and the way that the language is integrated into the fabric of indigenous community life. Engaging with indigenous scholarship on political sovereignty of indigenous peoples it introduces the concept of "semiotic sovereignty" to analyse the semiotic relations between indigenous political communities and nation state politics. It argues that for indigenous communities it is of crucial importance to control its own semiotic resources, prominently including language"--

One Voice, Many Voices

One Voice, Many Voices PDF Author: T. L. McCarty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description


MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures

MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Languages, Modern
Languages : en
Pages : 2426

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Book Description