Language, Education, and Cultural Identity on a Maya Community of Guatemala
Author : Julia Becker Richards
Publisher :
Page : 548 pages
File Size : 12,29 MB
Release : 1987
Category :
ISBN :
Author : Julia Becker Richards
Publisher :
Page : 548 pages
File Size : 12,29 MB
Release : 1987
Category :
ISBN :
Author : Julia Becker de Richards
Publisher :
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 24,34 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Bilingualism
ISBN :
Author : Julia Becker Richards
Publisher :
Page : 503 pages
File Size : 39,58 MB
Release : 1991
Category :
ISBN :
Author : Susan Garzon
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 27,51 MB
Release : 2010-07-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0292788991
The native Maya peoples of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize have been remarkably successful in maintaining their cultural identity during centuries of contact with and domination by outside groups. Yet change is occurring in all Mayan communities as contact with Spanish-speaking Ladino society increases. This book explores change and continuity in one of the most vital areas of Mayan culture—language use. The authors look specifically at Kaqchikel, one of the most commonly spoken Mayan languages. Following an examination of language contact situations among indigenous groups in the Americas, the authors proceed to a historical overview of the use of Kaqchikel in the Guatemalan Highlands. They then present case studies of three highland communities in which the balance is shifting between Kaqchikel and Spanish. Wuqu' Ajpub', a native Kaqchikel speaker, gives a personal account of growing up negotiating between the two languages and the different world views they encode. The authors conclude with a look at the Mayan language revitalization movement and offer a scenario in which Kaqchikel and other Mayan languages can continue to thrive.
Author : Brigittine M. French
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 14,78 MB
Release : 2010-04-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0816501130
In this valuable book, ethnographer and anthropologist Brigittine French mobilizes new critical-theoretical perspectives in linguistic anthropology, applying them to the politically charged context of contemporary Guatemala. Beginning with an examination of the “nationalist project” that has been ongoing since the end of the colonial period, French interrogates the “Guatemalan/indigenous binary.” In Guatemala, “Ladino” refers to the Spanish-speaking minority of the population, who are of mixed European, usually Spanish, and indigenous ancestry; “Indian” is understood to mean the majority of Guatemala’s population, who speak one of the twenty-one languages in the Maya linguistic groups of the country, although levels of bilingualism are very high among most Maya communities. As French shows, the Guatemalan state has actively promoted a racialized, essentialized notion of “Indians” as an undifferentiated, inherently inferior group that has stood stubbornly in the way of national progress, unity, and development—which are, implicitly, the goals of “true Guatemalans” (that is, Ladinos). French shows, with useful examples, how constructions of language and collective identity are in fact strategies undertaken to serve the goals of institutions (including the government, the military, the educational system, and the church) and social actors (including linguists, scholars, and activists). But by incorporating in-depth fieldwork with groups that speak Kaqchikel and K’iche’ along with analyses of Spanish-language discourses, Maya Ethnolinguistic Identity also shows how some individuals in urban, bilingual Indian communities have disrupted the essentializing projects of multiculturalism. And by focusing on ideologies of language, the author is able to explicitly link linguistic forms and functions with larger issues of consciousness, gender politics, social positions, and the forging of hegemonic power relations.
Author : Edward F. Fischer
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 33,24 MB
Release : 2010-06-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0292789238
Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala marks a new era in Guatemalan studies by offering an up-to-the-minute look at the pan-Maya movement and the future of the Maya people as they struggle to regain control over their cultural destiny. The successful emergence of what is in some senses a nationalism grounded in ethnicity and language has challenged scholars to reconsider their concepts of nationalism, community, and identity. Editors Edward F. Fischer and R. McKenna Brown have brought together essays by virtually all the leading U.S. experts on contemporary Maya communities and the top Maya scholars working in Guatemala today. Supplementing scholarly analysis of Mayan cultural activism is a position statement originating within the movement and more wide-ranging and personal reflections by anthropologists and linguists who have worked with the Maya over the years. Among the broader issues that come in for examination are the complex relations between U.S. Mayanists and the Mayan cultural movement, efforts to promote literacy in Mayan languages, the significance of woven textiles and native dress, the relations between language and national identity, and the cultural meanings that the present-day Maya have encountered in ancient Mayan texts and hieroglyphic writing.
Author : Christopher Keoni Warren
Publisher :
Page : 106 pages
File Size : 10,86 MB
Release : 1999
Category : Dissertations, Academic
ISBN :
Author : Víctor Gálvez Borrell
Publisher :
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 22,20 MB
Release : 1997
Category : Indigenous peoples
ISBN :
Author : Paul V. Kroskrity
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 44,16 MB
Release : 2009-04-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0816529167
Beliefs and feelings about language vary dramatically within and across Native American cultural groups and are an acknowledged part of the processes of language shift and language death. This volume samples the language ideologies of a wide range of Native American communities--from the Canadian Yukon to Guatemala--to show their role in sociocultural transformation. These studies take up such active issues as "insiderness" in Cherokee language ideologies, contradictions of space-time for the Northern Arapaho, language socialization and Paiute identity, and orthography choices and language renewal among the Kiowa. The authors--including members of indigenous speech communities who participate in language renewal efforts--discuss not only Native Americans' conscious language ideologies but also the often-revealing relationship between these beliefs and other more implicit realizations of language use as embedded in community practice. The chapters discuss the impact of contemporary language issues related to grammar, language use, the relation between language and social identity, and emergent language ideologies themselves in Native American speech communities. And although they portray obvious variation in attitudes toward language across communities, they also reveal commonalities--notably the emergent ideological process of iconization between a language and various national, ethnic, and tribal identities. As fewer Native Americans continue to speak their own language, this timely volume provides valuable grounded studies of language ideologies in action--those indigenous to Native communities as well as those imposed by outside institutions or language researchers. It considers the emergent interaction of indigenous and imported ideologies and the resulting effect on language beliefs, practices, and struggles in today's Indian Country as it demonstrates the practical implications of recognizing a multiplicity of indigenous language ideologies and their impact on heritage language maintenance and renewal.
Author : Tina Hickey
Publisher : Multilingual Matters
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 31,26 MB
Release : 1996
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781853593154
This book addresses many of the issues facing language teachers, researchers and policy makers in a world where languages are becoming extinct at an alarming rate and are frequently the focus for dispute and conflict.