The Indigenous Languages Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin

The Indigenous Languages Initiative at The University of Texas at Austin by Ryan Sullivant The Teaching of Indigenous Languages at UT ON A CHILLY morning in April, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. These four languages (along Manuela Tahay walks into her with English) are the native tongues of only about 13 percent of the classroom wearing a gray coat world’s population. For some, this state of afairs refects a missed over an embroidered blouse and opportunity to educate students more broadly on the many diferent wraparound skirt typical of the languages spoken worldwide. One entity that would like to see less traditional dress in her hometown commonly taught languages (LCTLs) in more U.S. university curricula of Nahualá in Guatemala. Tahay is the U.S. Department of Education, which awards Title VI funds to is Maya, and she is here to teach institutions so that they can improve language instruction programs her native language of K’ichee’ to in LCTLs and area studies, ofering U.S. college graduates a deeper T 1 a group of students at The University of Texas at Austin. She hands and broader understanding of the languages and cultures that may each student a photograph of typical Guatemalan market scenes have been overlooked previously. Building on UT’s particular expertise and asks them to describe the action they see. This exercise is all and association with Latin America, LILLAS Benson has applied for about building sentences with both a subject and a verb, no small Title VI funds to teach the indigenous languages of Latin America feat given the complex K’ichee’ verb, which is assembled by adding both on the Forty Acres and during immersive summer programs. a handful of prefxes and sufxes indicating diferent grammatical Spanish and Portuguese are the predominant languages in Latin features to a root. Then the students have to put their assembled America, whose very name refers to these Romance languages. words into the correct order in this language where verbs begin However, the region’s strong association with these two European sentences. Tahay’s students perform the task splendidly, describing languages obscures the fact that Latin America is a place of great a woman sitting in front of a basket of chiles for sale as Kuk’ayij ik le linguistic diversity. Over 700 indigenous languages are spoken in orres T ixoq, and a man carrying a bundle of vegetables as Karerej wa le achi. Latin America, and the region contains two hotbeds of linguistic na A Learning languages has long been part of the collegiate experi- diversity: Mesoamerica and the Amazon basin (Lewis, Simons, and ence and is frequently required of students, but most students in Fennig 2014). On the South American mainland, only Uruguay lacks hoto by by hoto P the United States elect to study one of just a handful of languages: an indigenous language spoken within its borders. llilas enson portal 30 Tahay’s K’ichee’ courses are part of a larger Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the development of similar curricula for the push at The University of Texas to give stu- language education coordinator for the Indig- languages taught at UT in addition to possibly dents the opportunity to study the indigenous enous Languages Initiative, hopes to be able increasing the number of indigenous language languages of Latin America. Beginning in to introduce Quechua not long after, and sees instructors that the university can employ. the fall of 2014, students will be able to many good candidates for future oferings, Many of Latin America’s indigenous sign up for K’ichee’ courses ofered through including Chile’s Mapundugun3 and one of languages are spoken by relatively few peo- Latin American studies to satisfy their uni- the Zapotec languages spoken aboriginally ple—half of these languages are spoken by versity foreign language requirements, same in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state and now fewer than 2,500 individuals—but some are as Spanish, German, or any other language also spoken in the U.S. by sizable communi- spoken by great numbers. K’ichee’ and the ofered at UT. The courses that are ofered ties in Los Angeles. Andean language Aymara are each spoken by through this Indigenous Languages Initiative Many Latin American indigenous languages over 2 million people, and Guaraní is spoken have a pedagogical focus on communication are now written. Some, such as Nahuatl, Zapo- by some 4.8 million in Paraguay. Nearly as skills, student interaction with native speak- tec, and Mixtec (among others), have been many people are native speakers of Swed- ers, and grammar. In practice this means literary languages since the early colonial ish (8.7 million) as Quechua (8.9 million). that on my visit to her classroom, Tahay’s period, with some Mayan languages written But number of speakers is not the only mea- students greeted each other in K’ichee’ and sure of the importance of a language since, spent some time asking each other Jas xab’an as Romero points out, languages spoken by iwir? “What did you do yesterday?” to gain smaller populations are often “spoken by practice in the kinds of situations in which nearly everyone in their respective area[s],” they can expect to use the language. They making them invaluable for anyone interested also meet individually with the instructor to in the culture or history of the people. practice their listening skills with a native Studying these languages and cultures not speaker, as well as study lists of vocabulary only helps students learn more about difer- and the thornier points of grammar, such ent parts of the world, but also allows for the as the formation of antipassive verbs and voices of these indigenous communities to the proper use of pronouns in this ergative be heard, as all too often they are left out of language.2 policy and social discussions. The denial of Though study of a language’s grammar indigenous communities’ voices in regional and memorization of lists of vocabulary are or national discourses frequently takes the unavoidably necessary to develop profciency, form of denial that the communities have a having the opportunity to immerse oneself in language. Hale remarks on this sentiment, a language allows for the seeds planted dur- saying, “These languages are becoming ing those hours of classroom instruction to smaller because the people that speak them sprout and bloom into truly fuent language are discriminated against. Their language is skills. In discussing his own immersion when said to be inferior or incapable of express- learning the Miskitu language of Nicaragua, ing complex ideas. The more we value these LLILAS Benson director Charlie Hale said, languages and teach them and learn them, “It’s a great experience. You’re just working the more people there will be to work on on [learning the language] all the time, and their behalf.” you can feel yourself advancing day by day Romero also notes that, “with millions when you can ask for a drink of water when of indigenous Latin Americans living and you couldn’t the day before.” The students in working in the U.S., there is an increasing UT’s K’ichee’ program will have the oppor- interest [in indigenous language instruc- tunity to do just that at a summer program K’ichee’ instructor Manuela “Nela” Tahay tion] among migrant advocacy groups, law in Guatemala administered by UT in concert enforcement ofcials, and Latino activists.” with Vanderbilt University, the University of in hieroglyphs since well before the arrival of Given his knowledge of K’ichee’, Kaqchikel, New Mexico, and Tulane University. Europeans. Very few have instructional text- and Q’eqchi’—all Mayan languages—Romero K’ichee’ is just the frst indigenous lan- books suitable for teaching the language at a himself is often asked to interpret for indig- guage to be taught at UT. Beginning in the university level, though a few textbooks, such enous Latin Americans with a weak grasp of fall of 2015, Nahuatl—a language of Central as Cali chiu? for Valley Zapotec and La ütz Spanish. Mexico that was spoken in an earlier form awäch? for Kaqchikel Maya, have been devel- by the Aztecs, and is a distant relative of oped (see, respectively, Munro, Lillehaugen, Research on Indigenous Languages at UT the Comanche language once widely spo- and López 2007; and Brown, Maxwell, and Research on indigenous languages at UT is ken in Texas—will be added to the roster. Little 2006). Romero suggests that a successful carried out through the Center for Indigenous Sergio Romero, assistant professor in the application for Title VI grants could allow for Languages of Latin America (CILLA), directed 31 llilas enson portal by Professor of Linguistics Nora England. CILLA has worked to foster this research by hosting a biennial international conference on Latin American indigenous linguistics that attracts scholars from all over the U.S., Latin America, and beyond. In recent years, it has emerged as one of the preeminent confer- ences of its feld, and has been particularly successful in including indigenous Latin Americans as well. At the last conference, in 2013, nearly 18 percent of the attendees were themselves native speakers of an indigenous language. Many of the indigenous languages of Latin America are endangered, as speakers in those communities shift from speaking the local language to another language. Occasionally the shift is to another indigenous language, such as Tucano or Nheengatu in the Ama- zon and Guaraní in the Chaco, but in most cases the shift is to Spanish or Portuguese. Some estimates of language shift predict that half of the languages spoken today will not be spoken one hundred years from now (Krauss 1992).

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