Promoting Maya in Yucatan and the need for ideological clarification

Josep Cru, Newcastle University

Language diversity in MexicoSource: Comisión para los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI). México 2000.

Yucatec Maya among Mexican indigenous languagesFeatures:

Relatively large number of speakers (786,113 speakers, INEGI 2010)

Fairly homogeneous and standardised

Hieroglyphic writing system in pre-Conquest times

Current trends:

Rapid and widespread language shift to Spanish

Ideological clarification

Concept suggested by Fishman in Reversing Language Shift (1991) and Can Threatened Languages Be Saved (2001) but undertheorised.

Diglossia as key concept linked with ideological clarification. The first goal of RLS is to attain diglossia, assuming prior ideological clarification. Steps 8 through 5 of GIDS scale (1991: 395). Step 6 (the home-family-nieghbourhood) is the basis of mother tongue transmission.

Fishman’s definition (2001: 17)

RLS movements must realise from the very outset of their ideological clarification that ethnolinguistic authenticity and identity must be associated with Xish versions of modern Yish-dominated pop-culture and consumerism (…) but, even more importantly, with a continuing ethnohumanistic, ethnoreligious and ethnocultural constellations of beliefs, behaviours and attitudes. (My emphasis)

Case study and elaborated definition of the conceptDauenhauer and Dauenhauer (1998) about Southeast Alaska situation:

[There is] a broad gap and disparity between verbally expressed goals on the one hand (generally advocating language and cultural preservation) and unstated but deeply felt emotions and anxieties on the other (generally advocating or contributing to abandonment). (1998: 62)

P. Kroskrity (2009) Language Renewal as Sites of Ideological Struggle

Language ideological clarification is the process of identifying issues of language ideological contestation within a heritage language community, including both beliefs and feelings that are indigenous to that community and those introduced by outsiders (such as linguists and government officials), that can negatively impact community efforts to successfully engage in language maintenance and renewal.

Ideologies of language promotion in Yucatán

Research methods: ethnographic work (interviews in the filed), discourse analysis (about 400 news items) and some quantitative information (census data)

Main features:

Timid and piecemeal language policies with lack of coordination among social actors and the different administrative levels in Mexico (federation, state and municipality).

Predominance of macro level and vertical strategies (top down, eg. Indemaya) Grassroots organisation is almost non-existent and weak.

These strategies reproduce classic models of language planning: action on (corpus, status, acquisition and prestige/image planning).

Some examples of vertical strategies

Request for granting official status to Maya (status planning).

Concern about the “quality” of the Maya language . Perceived need to create lacking specific terminology, neologism, dictionaries, pedagogical grammars. There is an Academy of the Maya Language (but under-resourced and understaffed) and possibility to create an Institute of the Maya Language? (corpus planning)

Emphasis on spreading “lectoescritura” (literacy) and the need to introduce Maya in the formal education system (acquisition planning).

Public discourses (language ideological debate) in the media on (re)valorising Maya (image / prestige planning) as an important component of the regional identity.

Some contradictions arising from vertical strategies

Spanish is not the official language ‘de iure’ in Mexico, according to the Mexican Constitution in force since1917. Maya is a national language, as is Spanish and all other indigenous language of Mexico. (LGDLPI 2003, article 4).

Focus on the “code” and language essentialisation gives rise to purist ideologies that may have a negative impact on language reproduction (xe’ek’ Maya and jach Maya).

A large majority of Maya speakers are not literate in the language and use only in its oral form.

The formal education system has historically been monolingual, centralised and prescriptivist and the most important homogenising tool of the nation-state.

Official rhetoric values the Maya past but Maya cuture is often folklorised and commodified for tourist consumption.

Alternatives to vertical language promotion

More attention needed to the micro level, to the final agents of revitalisation.

Emphasis on tactics, movements that stem from the grassroots instead of strategies that are dictated from official institutions and power structures (De Certeau “The Practice of Everyday Life”).

Promotion of (horizontal) grassroots initiatives which stress local meaning (use of local communicative practices: riddles, “tsikbal” (storytelling).

Inclusive policies based on oral uses of the language, going beyond “belle-letrism”, without neglecting the development of literacy.

Oral domains of use to explore in more depth: radio, theatre, music.

Audio-visual proposals: video, cinema.

Use of social media: email, sms, facebook, blogs, wikis.

Advantages of horizontal tactics

Emphasis on orality, on non-institutionalised and spontaneous uses of language.

More flexibility allowed to the non-normative use of oral varieties.

More attractive and popular domains for young people, who are key in the process of language maintenance and transmission.

The status of the language is raised. Counterexample to stereotypes associated with minoritised languages (backward, outdated, spoken by the elderly, etc.).

In the case of the Internet, deterritorialization and consolidation of a digital community that uses Maya, which is important as well for growing transnational users (migration to USA).

Responsibility and agency fall on the speakers rather than in the institutions.

Conclusions I

Ideological clarification is an essential step to anticipate dilemmas contradictions arising from current ideologies underpinning the promotion of Maya in Yucatan. A tool to reach some kind of consensus?

People interested in promoting Maya must be aware of the limitations of revitalising a minoritised language through the formal education system; of the secondary role of literacy as a social practice as compared to orality; and of the interest laden use of Maya culture revalorisation as an institutional discursive strategy.

The aim of language revitalisation is to project the language into the future rather than idealising a “pre-contact” past.

To take advantage of alternative domains of use (information technologies, social media and artistic expressions) which are attractive to young people.

Conclusions II

Grassroots organisation (both face-to-face and virtual) is crucial to plan horizontal tactics. Top down policies are usually hierarchical paternalistic, and based on a tolerance approach. Coordination around revitalisation tactics is much needed, particulary in the framework of a corporativist nation-state.

It is important to strike a balance between language legitimation and institutionalisation and language essentialisation.

Language minoritisation is often a consequence of marginalisation and subordination stemming from sociopolitical and economic processes. Therefore, language revitalisation must go hand in hand with broader cultural, social, political and economic changes if it is to be successful.

http://vimeo.com/38869130Hip hop hits the Maya Highlands

http://lenguasindigenas.mx/index.php

Acervo lenguas indígenas

Dios bo'otik / Níib óolal