Abstract
This article focuses on language displacement in the High Mountains of Central Veracruz. It begins by presenting a brief historical account of the Nahuatl presence in the region in order to distinguish this group from other Nahuatl-speaking groups. Later, it describes the situation of language loss that is currently underway and argues that the gains of the indigenous movement in the last two decades, such as the intercultural system of education, have not translated into a process of language revitalization. It focuses on the lower linguistic status of Nahuatl in the region as a key factor in language displacement, caused by (a) a hierarchical value system associated with different language domains, (b) the absence of Nahuatl in educational spaces, and (c) the current low vitality of Nahuatl. The article concludes with some actions being taken at the Intercultural University of Veracruz to address the deep causes of language displacement.
Tomasewaltlahtol yoltok iwan miak ipati. Inin tlahtolli otechkahtewillihkeh toachtokohkolwan iwan yeh ihtik okitlatihkeh miak wewe ixtlamachtilistli. Axan miakeh techillisnekih totlahtol ayakmo miak ipati. Kihtowah masewaltlahtolmeh amo ihtokeh iwan moneki tikinilkawaskeh. Ihkon, miakeh yi okinilkahkeh iwan oksekimeh pinawah iwan amo kinekih ma kittakan yehwan tlapowah masewaltlahtol. Inin tlen titlahyowiliah ipan totlal, Tzonkolihkan Tepeyotl, itech in tlalnankotonalli Veracruz.
The Nahuatl language is alive and valuable. This language was given to us by our grandfathers, who used it to preserve old knowledge. Today, many will tell us that our language is no longer valuable. They will say that indigenous languages cannot stand on their own, and we need to leave them behind. Thus, many have forgotten them and others are ashamed of speaking them and do not want to be seen as Nahuatl speakers. This is what afflicts our territory in the region of Zongolica in the state of Veracruz.
In the region of the High Mountains of Veracruz, there is a system of “bilingual” and “intercultural” education in place targeting the Nahuatl indigenous population. However, the communities are now choosing not to speak their own language. There seems to be a process of linguistic and cultural assimilation underway, and not surprisingly, the system of education seems to be at the center. In a time where intercultural education has become widespread in institutional discourses, one must ask a series of questions. How much can education be truly interculturalized if language is not taken into account? How can a dialogue between cultures occur when one of the parts can no longer express itself in its own language, and thus, can no longer apprehend reality through its own cultural codes? What are intercultural universities doing to revitalize indigenous languages?
This essay focuses on language displacement in Central Veracruz and its relationship to the practice of education in indigenous schools. It is divided in four sections. It begins with a brief historical account of the Nahuatl people of the High Mountains of Veracruz. In order to understand how language, culture, and identity are related in this region, it is important to know who the Nahuas are and how they came to form a particular cultural unity. Having established this, it discusses the current situation of language displacement in the region and argues that the gains of the indigenous movement, such as linguistic rights and intercultural education have not translated in the empowerment of aboriginal people. The third section looks closer at the “social status” of Nahuatl vis-à-vis Spanish and argues that Nahuatl speakers have internalized a hierarchical value system where their own language is undervalued, while exposing some of the factors that promote this low language status. The article concludes with a description of some of the strategies that are being implemented at the Intercultural University of Veracruz (UVI) in order to counter language displacement.
The Nahuatl people of the High Mountains of Veracruz
The Mountains of Zongolica or Sierra de Zongolica are located in the part of Veracruz that intersects with the states of Puebla and Oaxaca. It is a mountainous range that comes out of the Sierra Madre Oriental and comprises 17 municipalities in an area of about 1000 km2. The UVI works with these communities as well as those in the municipality of Ixhuatlancillo, and other surrounding communities near the Valley of Orizaba. I will refer to this region as the High Mountains of Veracruz. This region is rich in biocultural diversity, as it not only has a wide array of flora and fauna, but it is also a region with a Nahuatl-speaking population of 250,000 people, 1 whose history goes back about 1500 years. The region can be thought of as a “region of refuge” (Aguirre Beltrán, 1973), that is, a marginalized region of difficult access where indigenous peoples were able to maintain a large part of their language and culture due to such isolation.
It is important to mention that the Nahuatl communities of this part of Mexico are not directly related to the Mexica or Aztec, as many could have believed by their language. Many people tend to think that anything Nahuatl is automatically related to the Aztecs. This misconception is largely due to the construction of the myth of origin of the Mexican Nation promoted by the State in the late 19th and early 20th century. Due to the State’s necessity to create social cohesion, the myth of the Aztecs (also known as Mexica) was promoted as the source for national identity. The source of legitimacy of the whole nation was based on the idea of a chosen people, whose ancestors found an eagle eating a serpent in the middle of a lake that would become the heart of Mexico. This story, however, has little to do with the majority of the people in today’s Mexico. This is also the case for the Nahuatl-speaking people. Not all Nahuas are Aztecs or Mexicas. The Nahuas of the High Mountains of Central Veracruz are certainly not. They have a long history of their own that precedes the arrival of the Mexica.
The first Nahuatl-speaking people to arrive in this region were probably the “Olmeca-Xicalanca” who very likely spoke an Eastern variant of the Nahuatl language. It is important to notice that the Nahuatl split into at least two groups, Western and Eastern Nahuatl, before they migrated to Mesoamerica (Manrique, 1994; Suárez, 1983). The Eastern Nahuatl people were the first to arrive in the central region sometime between 600 and 800 AC. The Olmeca-Xicalanca populated Cacaxtla and passed through Cholula into the region of Central Veracruz, where they settled and stayed for about 500 years (García Márquez, 2014). By the 12th century AC, a new group of Nahuatl-speaking people arrived in the region and displaced the Olmeca-Xicalanca. This new group of Nahuas were known as the Nonoalca; we know of their existence mostly through the Historia Tolteca Chichimeca (Kirchhoff and Rendon, 1976), which narrates the story of the migrations of the people who left Tollan after its collapse.
According to the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, the Nonoalca lived in the great Tollan as a subordinate group. They called themselves “macehualmeh” and were under the rule of the Tolteca. The last tlahtoani to rule Tollan, named Huemac, summoned the Nonoalca and asked them to find him a woman whose hips measured four hands wide. The Nonoalca looked among their women and presented four of them to Huemac, who in turn told them that none of them met his expectations. The Nonoalca felt offended and ended up killing Huemac. This provoked a long-term conflict between the Tolteca and the Nonoalca who decided to leave Tollan under the leadership of Xelhuan.
Approximately in the year 1050, the Nonoalca fled and arrived in a place called Tenpantzacapan, where today meet the states of Puebla, Veracruz, and Oaxaca. Here, they split into at least three groups, the Teohuahqueh, Tzoncoliuhqueh-Chalchiuhcalcah, and Cozcatecah, which populated three centers, known today as Tehuacan, Zongolica, and Cozcatlan, respectively. The whole of this region became known as “Nonoalco.” The Nonoalca, who spoke a Central dialect of Nahuatl, dominated and displaced the previous Eastern Nahuatl-speaking people. The Nonoalca dialect largely makes up the way Nahuatl is spoken today in the region, although there are still other two Nahuatl dialects that influenced this language variant.
By the year 1450, when the Mexica were dominating the Central Valley of Mexico, the Tlaxcalteca sent groups of warriors to establish themselves in Central Veracruz and counter increasing Mexica expansionism. The current town of Ixhuatlancillo, which is next to Orizaba, was originally a Tlaxcalteca stronghold. The Mexica were never able to completely dominate the region of Zongolica, and only conquered three towns (Ahawilizapan, Poxcuauhtlan, and Cotaxtla). The Nonoalca often allied with the Tlaxcalteca in order to repel the Mexica influence, thus acquiring different Tlaxcalteca traits in their language.
Finally, well into the Colonial period, a group of Guerrero Nahuatl speakers introduced their dialect in the region. During the 19th century, a rich landowner named Aniceto Benavides brought numerous groups of Nahuatl Peasants from Guerrero to work his hacienda. These peasants stayed and maintained their own variant of Nahuatl.
With time and constant interaction, these different dialects came closer and closer and derived into the way Nahuatl is spoken in the region today. While the Nonoalca influence is probably the most visible one, there are traits of all these other variants that are still identifiable in the region. What is important to remark, however, is that all of this region shares one history and as such can be thought of as a cultural unity. This is valid not only for the Nahuatl communities in Central Veracruz, but also for those located in the Tehuacan region in Puebla and the Mazateca mountain in Oaxaca.
Language displacement in Central Veracruz
In spite of the harsh conditions under which the Nonoalca Nahuatl communities lived during the colonial period, they were able to maintain their language strong and alive for more than three centuries. Ironically, when New Spain became independent, these communities along with most other indigenous peoples, did not see their cultures flourish, but rather saw them become a hindrance for the new State. Later, during the 20th century, the Postrevolutionary State, imbued with the liberal ideologies of the time that predicated modernization, saw indigenous peoples as a fading remnant of a long distant past that should be overcome. Thus, they implemented a series of policies known as políticas indigenistas. These State Policies glorified the indigenous past while scolding contemporary Indians as backward people. The State implemented the so-called Indigenous Education or Bilingual Education, which was aimed at transforming Nahuatl-speaking individuals into Spanish-speaking citizens.
Today’s grandfathers and grandmothers learned to despise their own language. They were told that in order for them to be modern and to progress, they would have to leave behind their language and culture. However, in 1992, with the 500th anniversary of the European invasion of America, the indigenous peoples of Mexico emerged as a renewed social and political actor with a revitalized sense of identity. Two years later, the Zapatista indigenous uprising in Chiapas and its demand for autonomy and dignity, set the stage for the creation of a new discourse on the role of indigenous peoples in Modern Mexico. All of a sudden, indigenous peoples started to question the idea that they had to stop being indigenous, and stop speaking their own language, in order to modernize. While many of the demands put forward by the indigenous movement, such as those expressed in the San Andres Accords, were disdained and dismissed by the government, increasing indigenous political activism led the State to create some reforms. These reforms were not close to what aboriginal peoples were demanding, but nonetheless, they resulted in small gains and benefits, such as the recognition of indigenous autonomy in Article 2 of the Mexican Constitution and the Statute on Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples approved in 2003. With these reforms, the government recognized the right of all indigenous people to use their own language in any public affair, such as education, work, healthcare, etc. The discourse that sustained Indigenista public policies was no longer politically acceptable, and it was changed into a discourse about “indigenous development.” The Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) became the Comisión Para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI).
In tone with the times, the education system changed its discourse about “indigenous education” or “bilingual education” into one about “intercultural education.” The concept of “interculturality” grew stronger as it seemed to suggest that education should not be oriented toward assimilation, but rather toward a respect of both interacting cultures (indigenous and mestizo). In 2005, the University of Veracruz, through the Institute of Research on Education created the UVI. At about the same time, many other States created their own Intercultural Universities, which were aimed at offering a type of higher education that took into consideration the particularities of indigenous peoples.
The concept of interculturality began to gain ground and permeated different public institutions. However, the discursive omnipresence of this concept did not necessarily translate into a real movement toward the empowerment of indigenous peoples. For instance, while most Intercultural Universities offer programs on Language and Culture, none of them actually uses the indigenous language as a means of instruction in the classroom. One might have expected that in order to have an education that values and seeks to revitalize indigenous ancestral knowledge, this would have to be taught in the language with which that knowledge is encoded.
The situation is even more dramatic in the schools of basic and middle education. Just recently I visited the town of Tehuipango, where Nahuatl is practically spoken by everyone. I, and some UVI students, stayed at the shelter for indigenous children who come from far away communities to study. There, I realized that while all children spoke Nahuatl fluently, they all played and talked to each other in Spanish. I asked a couple of them why they did not use Nahuatl, and they answered that if they did, the teachers would reprimand them because they did not understand the language. It must be noted that these kids are enrolled in the “Intercultural Indigenous Education” system. According to the State, the education given in these schools should be “bilingual,” but as I could observe, that was not the case. Not only was Nahuatl absent from the classrooms, but it was also being repressed.
This situation is not particular to the town of Tehuipango. Another time a young Secondary School boy came to look for me at the UVI to ask me for advice, since his Spanish-speaking teacher had forbidden Nahuatl in her class and would sanction them if they spoke it in front of her. I could not help but to think about the contradiction between the increasingly accepted discourse on interculturality and the general practice of forcing students to speak Spanish in the so-called “bilingual” or “intercultural” schools. If anything, a teacher that is hired to teach Nahuatl-speaking kids, in a Nahuatl territory, should speak and teach in Nahuatl. The obvious question that remains is what will happen with this generation? They will grow up used to using Spanish, and in a few decades, they will also be using it in the markets, streets, workplaces, etc., thus paving the way for language displacement.
It is true that today, in our region, there are some organizations and government agencies, such as the Agencia Veracruzana de las Lenguas Indígenas (AVELI), that say they are interested in revitalizing Nahuatl. However, oftentimes such efforts fall short in that they are not able to reach the structural roots of language displacement in the region. For instance, it is important but not quite as effective, to launch campaigns oriented at sensibilizing Nahuatl speakers on the importance of using their own language. Nonetheless, their rejection is not happening in a vacuum. The issue is not a matter of convincing people to speak their own language. There are deeper reasons that are causing people to choose not to speak their language, thus provoking language displacement, and few are willing to take them seriously because it implies a great effort to address them.
The reasons that provoke language displacement are deeply linked to the socioeconomic conditions of the group that speaks the language. According to Giles et al. (1977), the ethnolinguistic vitality of a group will determine whether or not its members chose to maintain their own language. This ethnolinguistic vitality is conditioned by (a) the status of the group, (b) demographic factors, and (c) institutional support. In the Mountains of Zongolica, demographics may not be a factor in language displacement but the colonial heritage has placed the Nahuatl people in a subordinated position in relation to the Spanish mestizo groups. According to Giles et al. (1977), status can be distinguished by four categories: (a) economic status, (b) social status, (c) sociohistorical status, and 4) linguistic status.
Indigenous people in Mexico are clearly at a disadvantage in all four of these categories. As González Casanova (1965) and Stavenhagen (1996) have long argued, indigenous people in Mexico are living in a situation of “internal colonialism,” which means that they continue to live as colonial subjects (socioeconomically and politically subordinated). The group that dominates them is no longer a foreign power, but rather the Mestizo Spanish-speaking majority. In the High Mountains of Zongolica, this is also the case. The closest urban center, the city of Orizaba, sees hundreds of Nahuatl people commuting everyday to sell their goods at low prices in order to earn a basic living. They are constantly subjected to all sorts of abuses and discrimination for being Nahuatl, so much that many chose not to use their language in order to not reveal themselves as Nahuatl speakers. Nahuatl women often have to work as domestic workers or earn their living as street vendors. They are constantly harassed by the local authorities on the grounds that they make the city ugly because they wear their traditional clothing. It is evident that the status of the Nahuatl of Central Veracruz is dramatically lower than that of the dominant group. This, in addition to the lack of institutional support for the Nahuatl puts the ethnolinguistic vitality of this group at a critical point. Thus, it becomes evident why the children of Tehuipango would rather use the language associated with the group with higher status.
Factors that lead to a lower linguistic status of the Nahuatl language
If we are to focus more on the reasons why the linguistic status of Nahuatl is dramatically low, we would find that Nahuatl speakers themselves have internalized the idea that their own language is somehow inferior than Spanish. In fact, there seems to be a hierarchical value system in which Nahuatl is at the bottom, as a symbol of backwardness, Spanish is in the middle, as a symbol for belonging to the dominant society, and English is at the top as a symbol of upward social mobility. There are different factors that reinforce this perception.
Language domain hierarchical valorization
The first one has to do with where language is used. These three languages are assigned to different language domains. For instance, English is the language associated with technology, tourism, business, youth, and pop culture. Using English words has become a part of the language register used by elite and upper-class youth. It is a symbol of high status. This language is mandatory in all schools in Mexico, including those with monolingual Nahuatl speakers. It is considered a really favourable asset for competing in the labor market. In turn, Spanish is associated with politics, law, education, science, work, culture, and almost every dimension of social life in the region. It is the only language recognized as valid for public affairs. Finally, Nahuatl is relegated to agriculture, tradition and family. 2
Nahuatl children learn at a very early age that their mother tongue is considered informal and can only be used in very few domains, usually associated with lower status. For instance, being campesino is considered less than working as a professional. Therefore, the language of campesinos is considered lower than that of professionals. Children learn that socially valued domains are Spanish dominated and if they want to pursue a higher social mobility, they would not only have to dominate Spanish, but also learn English. Nahuatl, in their eyes, will not assure them any type of recognition or social mobility.
This is also confirmed when they see that there are no media in Nahuatl. TV and printed media are completely monopolized by Spanish. Movies and Internet are English dominated. There is only one radio station in the region, Radio XEZON, that will use both Spanish and Nahuatl.
Nahuatl is also thought to be an “oral” language, while Spanish is considered a “written” one, a language of knowledge. This is also confirmed when the communities see that there are no books, newspapers, magazines, or any other written material in Nahuatl, while all texts and other written materials, appear in Spanish. In fact, the great majority of Nahuatl speakers feel uneasy writing their own language, as they were never taught to write it. In the eyes of Nahuatl speakers, their language is informal and private, while Spanish is formal and public.
Language and basic education
The second factor has to do with how languages are used to learn. Education cannot be dissociated from the language in which it is given. Language is not only the vehicle in which knowledge is transmitted; rather, language has a direct impact in the way we apprehend reality through knowledge (Sapir, 2004; Whorf et al., 2012). In this way, if we learn in English, we will represent our world through the codes inscribed in that language. If Spanish is used as the vehicle of learning, those who learn will construct their world with the codes of the Spanish language (and thus, with the cultural codes of the dominant group). If Nahuatl children learn in Spanish, they will learn to see the world through the lens of an external culture and will not acquire the cultural codes of their own Nahuatl culture with which to interpret the world of knowledge that they are given. Furthermore, if Nahuatl-speaking kids are taught in a foreign language that they do not dominate, this will constitute a barrier, which will prevent them from fully acquiring what is being taught, thus appearing as not capable of fully learning. This in turn will reinforce racist and classist preconceptions.
In the High Mountains region, Nahuatl is not used in classrooms despite the fact that this is a Nahuatl-speaking region. As I have mentioned, many teachers do not speak the language. The officialist Teachers’ Union does not require teachers to speak Nahuatl in order to hire them. Sometimes, they are given a test where the applicants have to write down the meaning of a few words in Nahuatl. This, however, in no way ensures that the teacher has functional competence to use Nahuatl as a means of instruction. Furthermore, those who do speak Nahuatl might not use it because they lack the appropriate language register for an academic setting, including the necessary lexicon. The so-called bilingualism announced by the government authorities is thus not present in these schools. If anything, Nahuatl is sometimes a class topic in elementary schools, but the main instruction is carried out in Spanish. Furthermore, as soon as the kids leave elementary schools, Nahuatl is completely left behind. Nahuatl is not spoken nor seen as a class topic in secondary or preparatory schools.
In spite of its appellative “bilingualism,” this system is actively working for the displacement of Nahuatl. According to Appel and Muysken (1996: 97), there are two models or approaches to bilingual education: the “pluralist model,” which aims at maintaining the minority language, and the “transition” or “assimilation” model, where the minority language is seen as a disease that must be cured. In the first approach, the minority language is the language of instruction, while the dominant language is taught as a course or a class topic. In the “assimilation” model, the arrangement is the opposite; instruction is given in the dominant language while the minority language is only a course or class topic. As we have seen, the system of indigenous education in our region works under an assimilation model. It is assumed that Spanish must be the language of instruction and that children must learn to communicate (speak and write) effectively in Spanish, while Nahuatl is only used as part of a course or a class topic that includes local poetry and local stories.
The problem, however, is profound. It is not enough that an individual teacher decides to use Nahuatl as a language of instruction. He or she will not be able to do so because there are no textbooks in Nahuatl other than the one put out by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), which only includes a few stories and poems. There are no specialized books that use Nahuatl to talk about history, biology, math, etc. Curricula are made in Spanish by Spanish-speaking experts. Evaluations are carried out in Spanish, and every resource used in classroom is also in this dominant language. It should not be strange, then, that after 12 years of basic education, the children reinforce their prejudices against Nahuatl, which is not a language of knowledge and education. They become accustomed to speaking Spanish and slowly start displacing their own mother tongue.
Another effect of this Spanish hegemonization of the indigenous education has to do with the low school achievement shown by Nahuatl-speaking kids who are taught in Spanish. According to Appel and Muysken (1996: 89), a disconnection between the family language and the school language brings negative consequences like lower school efficiency and achievement. This in turn reinforces the low status of the social group that speaks the minority language.
Vitality of the language
The third factor has to do with the conditions in which speakers are using the Nahuatl language. As we saw earlier, teachers are not using Nahuatl as a language of instruction. This, however, is not necessarily due to a lack of interest by the teachers, but rather to the lack of activation. Even if the teachers wanted to use Nahuatl in the classroom, they don’t know the necessary lexicon, and they don’t know it because so far this lexicon does not exist. Specialized lexicon is not being generated for those language domains that are thought to be alien to Nahuatl. As a result, there are no specialized texts being generated in Nahuatl, and there are no specialized dialogues and discussions being carried out in Nahuatl. The end result is a strong dependency on Spanish texts and Spanish concepts.
To complicate matters, even nonspecialized texts are not being published in Nahuatl because it is not profitable. This does not mean that there are no Nahuatl speakers who could potentially consume texts in Nahuatl. The problem is that these individuals were never taught to read and write in Nahuatl. If Nahuatl is not used in the classrooms, this means that Nahuatl is not taught, thus, speakers ignore the grammar and orthography of their own language, but know those of a foreign, Spanish, language.
It should be noted here that to this date, there is no consensus on a standardized writing system for Nahuatl. There are different proposals but not one has achieved general agreement. Even if a writer was to use a particular Nahuatl grammar, the text could only be consumed by those few who know and use that type of writing. Others will use a different system and so on. This might seem like a minor problem but when we try to communicate by writing, we need to have a minimum agreement on how to represent the language in such a way that everyone can understand. As long as there is no agreement on a system of writing and speakers do not learn to write in Nahuatl, there will be no texts being published.
Finally, another barrier that impedes effective communication in Nahuatl is the increasing dialectal distance between a community and another. There is a certain belief that these dialect differences in the region make it impossible for a person of one town to speak in Nahuatl to someone of a different town. This makes people opt for Spanish when speaking to Nahuas from other communities, rather than attempting to understand other ways of speaking the language. Increasing dialect fragmentation, in turn, has an impact in both the subjective perception of the language as somehow inferior, and in the generation of a dialogue that derives in the creation of texts, lexicon, etc.
As we can see, in order to revert the notion that Nahuatl is an inferior language, and promote its increased usage, it is not enough to preach to the communities about the importance of speaking it. As long as these factors are not considered, the Nahuatl people of the region will continue to believe that it is better for them to speak Spanish than Nahuatl and will continue to progressively leave behind their mother tongue, provoking language displacement.
Revitalizing Nahuatl in the UVI
The UVI has a unique opportunity to make an impact in this territory. As I mentioned earlier, the great majority of the student population are native Nahuatl speakers who come from different communities. When they arrive in the first semester, many carry on their shoulders 12 years of assimilationist school education and will be ashamed of speaking Nahuatl or sometimes even deny being speakers. Slowly, after they advance in the program, they begin a process of self-decolonization, reverting the effects of their previous assimilationist schooling and begin to recuperate their language, thus strengthening their identity.
Although the curricula is still highly flawed in terms of language activation, as it does not take into account the necessary relationship between intercultural education and language activation, a group of Nahuatl-speaking scholars have come together to design a series of strategies to strengthen the Nahuatl language and neutralize language displacement in the region. The strategies implemented respond to the analysis presented earlier and seek to impact in how native speakers value their own language, thus acting on the deeper causes of language displacement, rather than merely exhorting students about how they should use their language.
Promoting writing and reading in Nahuatl
The first strategy seeks to take Nahuatl out of the oral cage in which it has been encapsulated. The idea that Nahuatl is only an oral language is misleading, as this language has been written for quite a few centuries now. In precolonial times, the tlahcuilohqueh used a nonalphabetic writing system that was based on pictograms, ideograms, and even syllables to register historical events. Later, during colonial times, Nahuatl was written using the newly introduced Latin characters. There was widespread production of written texts in Nahuatl all throughout colonial times. It is not until recently that Nahuatl has been pushed into exclusive orality. As it has been discussed, this causes speakers to believe their language is inferior than others who are thought to be written. In order to counter this notion, the University promotes the practice of reading and writing in Nahuatl.
Writing system
The first obstacle one encounters promoting Nahuatl writing is the lack of a consensus in the way it should be written. The UVI has chosen to work with the alphabet proposed by Andres Hasler Hangert (1995, 2001) and Yopihua Palacios et al. (2005), as it already has some consensus in the region and is also being used by the University in the Huasteca and Selvas regions. This writing system has an advantage over the so-called “classical” Nahuatl, which is not resolving the necessities of the communities. This system is more accessible to them as it simplifies writing and does not reproduce the “weaknesses” of Spanish writing, as does classical writing. Spanish, for example, has different sounds (“k” or “s”) that are represented with multiple letters (k, c, qu), (s, c, z). These are reduced to a single letter in Hasler’s system. In the same way, classical Nahuatl also uses many digraphs (ch, cu, hu, tl, tz) that are simplified in Hasler’s alphabet. 3
Local bilingual magazine
In December 2014 came out the first issue of a bilingual magazine titled “Toyolxayak.” This publication has texts both in Spanish and Nahuatl. These texts, however, are independent and none of them is translated. The magazine avoids translations in order to counter the perceived dependency of Nahuatl on Spanish. It seems that Nahuatl can only appear accompanied by its Spanish translation, as though, Nahuatl could not stand by itself. This magazine is directed to Nahuatl speakers and seeks to create a space for dialogue and discussion between the Nahuatl-speaking communities of the region. Therefore, it should not need any translation.
Students of UVI, teachers, and organic intellectuals are invited to write texts in Nahuatl. These texts are not only poems, folk tales, or legends. The idea is to use Nahuatl as a language of knowledge. The texts also include opinions, analyses, news, academic discussions, etc. This is countering the idea that Nahuatl cannot be used outside of the traditional domains. In turn, the magazine is used in some classes as a working text, with which students are more likely to engage, as it is themselves who are reading their own texts.
Poetic action in Nahuatl
In the late 1990s, the Mexican Poet Armando Alanis Pulido began a movement called “Acción Poética.” This is a cultural movement that seeks to counteract the poor reading culture in Mexico by bringing poetry out into the streets. The idea is to paint small poetic fragments in walls painted in white, resembling a piece of paper. Teachers and students at UVI realized that although this is a Nahuatl territory, there were practically no public spaces using written Nahuatl. One could travel anywhere in the region, and the written landscape will appear only in Spanish (public announcements, commercial advertisement, traffic signs, and so on). The “Acción Poética” movement seemed like a great opportunity to make Nahuatl visible in the public space. Thus students started to put fragments of Nahuatl poetry in public walls in the different municipalities of the region. The poetry is written by students and teachers and it is only written in Nahuatl. In this way, the Nahuatl people can see their language publically as an equal with Spanish. They also begin to be familiarized with the Nahuatl grammar used in the region.
Using Nahuatl as an academic language
The second strategy has to do with using Nahuatl and treating it as an academic language. This implies an approach that sees Nahuatl not only as an object of study but also as a language of instruction. In order to achieve that, the UVI has promoted the following.
Guidelines for academic writing in Nahuatl
When a student is required to write an essay or an academic article in Spanish, he or she is also required to write following a series of guidelines and criteria for an acceptable academic work. However, when he or she is required to write in Nahuatl, oftentimes, the teacher will not have the necessary tools to evaluate the writing. The students, then, will end up writing in Nahuatl as they see best fit, and often copying the way they speak, without using punctuation, spelling, whole sentences, etc. They start believing that writing in Spanish is serious, and is evaluated thoroughly, while Nahuatl is not that serious, and thus not evaluated. The end result is that Nahuatl texts are written without any rigor and are not successful in transmitting ideas to a reader. This reinforces the idea that Nahuatl is, somehow, an inferior language. To revert this, a series of guidelines were developed for acceptable Nahuatl academic writing. These criteria are presented and taught to all students, while exhorting them to write their theses, essays, and academic works in Nahuatl.
Thesis defense in Nahuatl
Students are also exhorted to defend their thesis in Nahuatl. Even if they were not comfortable enough with writing their thesis in this language, many will use it in the oral defense. This is important because it paves the way for Nahuatl to enter a new domain, thus creating the necessity for new lexicon and a new academic language register. It is also important because the families and friends who attend the defense learn that speaking Nahuatl is not in contradiction with a profession. They will observe the new professional use Nahuatl in a domain that they had previously believed it was reserved for Spanish.
Research colloquiums in Nahuatl
In the same way, students are required to present their research findings in a colloquium at the end of the semester, where they will have to use Nahuatl to explain the methodology, theoretical framework, and findings of the research they are undertaking. After presenting, a dialogue is promoted where other students will interact using Nahuatl and will discover new ways to use their language to convey a part of reality that they had never talked about in Nahuatl.
Program on language and education
Recently, the UVI began working on the design of a new program that will form experts in the Nahuatl language and will have the necessary tools to use this language in the context education. It is envisioned that this program will offer a series of specialization options, such as “bilingual education,” “design and creation of material aids for education,” “mediation, translation and interpretation,” etc. This program is expected to be taught in Nahuatl, placing the language in the full context of higher education. This will require teachers who are fully capable of using Nahuatl to talk about the different areas of study in the program, as well as the creation of textbooks and other materials for the students to not depend on Spanish. If done in this way, this program could be a historical landmark in the revitalization of Nahuatl, as no other program exists in Mexico that completely uses Nahuatl as a language of knowledge and instruction.
Promoting interdialectal dialogue
In order to diminish dialectal distance between different Nahuatl-speaking communities, the UVI began organizing spaces of interdialectal dialogue in Nahuatl. In these dialogues, students from different Nahuatl-speaking regions (Huasteca and Selvas) participate and talk to each other using their own dialectal variant, but familiarizing themselves with different ways of speaking Nahuatl, acquiring new lexicon and learning to use a more neutral language register. A topic is chosen in advance, and students prepare a brief presentation to spark the discussion. They are also taught in advance some characteristic elements of speech used in the different variants. The result is that students from one region become familiar with other dialects and incorporate new lexicon and synonyms in their speech.
Teaching Nahuatl to nonspeakers
It is not enough to work with Nahuatl speakers to change their negative perception of their own language when Spanish speakers are the ones who promote this perception by looking down on the Nahuatl language. It is common to hear Spanish speakers refer to Nahuatl as a dialect with no utility. This is why the university also promotes Nahuatl classes among Spanish-speaking students and teachers, as well as the general public. The students who do not speak Nahuatl are expected to learn Nahuatl during their time at UVI. This, however, is a recent approach. When the program was designed, the team did not see the full extent of the problem of displacement, nor the importance of the language in an intercultural program. Thus, they only assigned one course in one semester for learning the language. Evidently, one course taken during four months is not enough to learn any language, much less, a subordinated language in a colonized context. Nonetheless, there are courses offered outside of the curriculum, directed not only to students but also to the general public. Teachers are exhorted to use the language in the classrooms, so that Spanish-speaking students can also practice the language and continue learning it.
Diploma program in mediation, translation, and interpretation
On September 2014, the UVI offered a diploma program in mediation, translation, and interpretation. This diploma was directed at Nahuatl-speaking professionals who are working in the region and do tasks that require them to adopt a role of linguistic and cultural mediators, but have not necessarily been trained for it. Those who enrolled for the program were schoolteachers, radio hosts, public ministry staff, etc.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is important to realize that the linguistic rights and other achievements, such as the growing intercultural awareness have not necessarily translated into public policies that truly promote language revitalization from its root factors. On the contrary, Nahuatl seems to be at risk of displacement as these deeper factors are acting upon the subjective perception that speakers have of their own language, choosing not to continue using it. There are particular language domains of higher status where Spanish is the only language used, such as schools, workplaces, government, etc. Nahuatl is virtually absent from higher education, with the exception of those places where it is seen as an object of study of anthropological interest. There are no linguistic policies directed at revitalizing the language in terms of lexicon, activation, metalinguistic regulation, etc. However, as we have shown, the lack of government commitment with indigenous languages does not necessarily mean that these are condemned to complete displacement. Institutions of higher education, such as the UVI, which are committed to the intercultural development of indigenous communities are at position where they can lead the efforts to revamp aboriginal languages. The UVI has recently begun implementing a series of strategies oriented toward the strengthening of the Nahuatl language. These strategies are not merely superficial actions but rather respond to an analysis of the deeper factors that cause language displacement in the region. Indeed, if the displacement of Nahuatl is to be avoided, it is important to create strategies that go beyond the typical workshop where speakers are preached about the importance of their language or the typical book of poetry and folk tales. It is necessary to look at the problem seriously and decolonize the structures that are assigning Nahuatl an inferior social status.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.