Preserving Indigenous Languages English Language Essay

Preserving natural wrangles slope phraseology Essay legion(predicate) times when you be asked to describe your hereditary pattern it may non include run-in. In the United States we assume every person born here just chats English because it is the nationally accept verbiage. We expect to walking into the grocery store and be competent to direct on a conversation with the cashier or ask an unmarried for aid. This is not the case everywhere. Many places such as Oaxaca, Mexico bring on more(prenominal) than one recognized homegrown address. Many native Indians cannot expect to walk into t hold and break the cashier at the store speak the homogeneous words as them. The issue of language preservation is increasing all-inclusively by the years. Language plays a hefty roll in culture, it has an extensive background, factors bring ining against and for the preservation, and whether we like to acknowledge it or not plays a epochal role within our government. Many of us do not catch how important something as simple as language really is.In the world today at that place argon currently between 6-10,000 unalike languages and this all depends on what is considered a dialect vs. a language (Vazquez). This does not include the unkn let languages or the ones that argon al supposey bemused. Oaxaca is a introduce of great linguistic diversity. There atomic number 18 16 indigenous languages and 17 including Spanish that are recognized in Oaxaca (Vazquez). Those however are exclusively the languages the government recognizes. The recognized indigenous languages of Oaxaca consist of Nhuatl (the languages of 1 million speakers throughout central Mexico),Zapoteca ( verbalise by 400,000 people and has 5 regional dialects), Mixteca (320,000 speakers and 29 dialects throughout Oaxaca, Guerrero and Puebla), Mazateca (spoken by 150,000 people in Oaxaca, Veracruz and Puebla), Chinanteco (6 dialectal variants and 77,000 speakers), Mixe (70,000 speake rs and 4 dialects), Amuzgo (spoken in Oaxaca and Guerrero by approximately 20,000 people), Chatino (20,000 speakers and 3 dialects), Zoque (spoken in Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco by 20,000 speakers), Chicateco (14,000 speakers), Popolaca (has 12,000 speakers in Puebla and Oaxaca), Chontal (2 dialects and 10,000 speakers), Huave (10,000 speakers in southwest Oaxaca), Triqui (8,000 speakers throughout Oaxaca, Mexico City, Baja California, Sonora and the U.S), Chocho (3,000 speakers in Oaxaca), and Ixcateco (just 2,000 speakers in Oaxaca) (Languages employ in Oaxaca, Mexico). As you can see there are a variety and dialects of indigenous languages in Oaxaca. There are numerous forces that work against the preservation of languages and even fewer forces that are working to preserve it. This make waters a large issue for the indigenous peoples.Language shift or language death can be sudden or gradual collectable to colonization and globalization (Vazquez). Schooling is not an option in Oaxaca it is demand however, there are very few forces to ensure education is received. When Children from villages and itsy-bitsy towns attend school, they are taught in the nationally recognized language of Spanish. Many children who many have learned their native language are therefore forced to learn an early(a) language. Their parents cannot speak any language other than the native language, leaving the children as translators with the rest of the world. In Oaxaca, approximately 10-15% do not speak Spanish, 70% are bilingual, and wholly 15% speak only Spanish (Vazquez). The the Statesn idea encourages being bilingual in Mexico and this can have a negative effect. The act of being able to communicate with persons outside of your family is done through Spanish, not Triqui or Mixe, etcetera. globalisation teaches people that their native language is useless, it has no value to the outside world, this fancy gets into the villages where the elders quit teaching their native language in order to lodge to a new world. This concept not only is the idea of globalization, scarcely the loss of experience.Globalization goes as far as to include those migrants to American who came from small villages. Those migrants are individuals who have come for work however, they must conciliate to American culture, a culture that frowns upon the different languages and its a culture that expects outsiders to hold to it. These migrants spend a great deal of time in America to return with money to their villages taking with them learned American culture to teach, this and then adapts into the small villages with endangered languages.Another contri aloneing factor to the loss of language is the outside world delegitimizing language. Many languages are unknown or self-generated. The unwritten languages are ignored as if they do not exist because they cannot be written. Many native speakers are not literate therefore the communicatory assortment of language is their o nly form of communication they have no need for written language. According to Dr. Vazquez unwritten languages are ignored but people continue to draw from languages they have delegitimized, add an accent, legitimize it and create a written newsworthiness. This act not only startles to tell villagers, your language does not exist but it then tells them that since we as higher people have changed this it can now be a written word however, it still gives no credit to the idea that it was a language to begin with.The article Vanishing Voices refers to language as an identity, the king of a person to match himself. If people are no longer able to represent themselves, they are no longer able to communicate and they then begin to recidivate a part of their humanity. This is all part of the process of losing language. while there are factors working against the preservation of language, there are people who are working towards preserving it.The first step in the preservation of lang uage is to plus literacy. The more people can read and write the more they are going to want to read and write within their own language. The increment of literacy leads to inscriptionation of the language not only in written form but in electronic form via computers there are many different exteriorizes towards preserving these languages.In 1987 the Oaxaca Native Literacy Project was founded by H. Russell Bernard and Jesus Salinas Pedraza (Foundation For Endgangerd Lanugages). The realize began before its foundation, in 1971 Salinas and Bernard began working on a ascertain to document the Nyahnyu culture in Nyahnyu. They developed a writing system for Nyahnyu and Salinas wrote quaternary books nearly the culture of the people of the Mezquital Valley. In 1989 the books were published in English. In 1987, expression on their book collaboration, Salinas and Bernard conceived of the Oaxaca Native Literacy Center a place where Indian people from around the Americas could learn to read and write their own languages using microcomputers. Their idea was for Indians to write, print and publish their own works, in their own languages, on topics of their choice. They would write their own histories and record their knowledge for their children and for all our children as well. The center began operation in 1989 with support from the National Bureau of Indian statement and the Center for Advanced Studies in Anthropology in Mexico from the Interamerican Indian comprise and from the Jessie Ball Du Pont Foundation. Salinas runs the center, along with Josefa Gonzalez Ventura, a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca. Together they train other Indians to use computers, to write and to print books in Indian languages. In 1993 the project incorporated as a not-for-profit organization called coeliac the Centro Editorial de Literatura Indigena, A.C. The A.C. stands for tie beam Civil, which means not-for-for-profit corporation. All five board members of CELIAC are native speake rs of Mexican Indian languages. In January 1994, CELIAC moved into its own building in Oaxaca. The building houses up to 16 persons. There are gutter facilities for men and women, an ample kitchen, office space, meeting rooms, and computer work rooms. Indigenous authors spend time in residence at CELIAC and CELIAC is now a publishing house for indigenous literature, written in indigenous languages. CELIAC markets its books to scholars, libraries, and individuals. Proceeds from the sale of the books help restrict the project going. Books are sold directly by CELIAC and all silver go directly to the project. So far, over 150 people speakers of a dozen languages (Mixtec, Chinantec, Aymara, Quichua, and others) from countries across Latin America (Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador) have spent from 4 weeks to six months in residence at CELIAC (Foundation For Endgangerd Lanugages).The project is major(ip) in documenting languages electronically as well as increasi ng the ability of native speakers to become literate in their own language. According to Gasper Rivera, To keep a language alive, writing it is fundamental, (Mixtec Revival Mexican Indigenous Language on the Rise).Oaxaca as well has a Mexican government-funded Academy of the Mixtec Language that teaches Mixtec speakers how to read and write their language. Prez Castro explains that a written script for Mixtec result help inhabitants from different villages communicate with one another, since the creation of a standardized lexicon will smooth over linguistic variants in the rugged countryside where the language originated (Mixtec Revival Mexican Indigenous Language on the Rise). The practical benefits of a written language are obvious, says Domnguez. From public health messages to family correspondence, the writing of our language is a historical necessity. (Mixtec Revival Mexican Indigenous Language on the Rise). Although the project ignores the different dialects of the Mixtec l anguage, it does help decrease the illiteracy rating of the population.Language seems as though it would be strictly a cultural problem. Although it is a cultural problem, it is also a political issue. Many Politics are centralized around developing the culture as well as the language in which it is portrayed. The government is involved because it decides which languages are recognized languages. This creates a problem because the languages that are recognized receive more preservation efforts, where the languages that are not recognized are left to go extinct without a second thought by the government. Governments need to recognize all spoken languages and create efforts towards preserving them.A look back to biblical times tells us that at one time there was only one language. While this may seem the ideal it is not the case today. Throughout the years we have relied on recorded history to teach us about our ancestors and about cultures of the past. Where there has been a lack of recorded history we have relied on artifacts. We use these artifacts as a way to tell us about the lives and cultures of the past. How much easier it would be to communicate history and preserve a culture if these artifacts were accompanied by the written word. Literacy is the primary culprit to lost languages. As literacy becomes far more across-the-boardspread, so will language preservation. Education is the foundation on which language preservation will stand. To preserve a language there must be education and literacy. This not only leads to people having pride in their culture but will also create a gateway in which to study these cultures in the future. Cultures that have widespread literacy are far more likely to survive and be passed on from generation to generation. Foundations such as CELIAC have recognized this need and are addressing the challenges however, this is just one foundation. Many more will be needed to accomplish the literacy challenge on a wide scale. Althou gh education and literacy cannot guarantee that all languages will be preserved, it will roughly certainly give the future generations a way to study those cultures and languages that are lost.