Presentaci

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Promoting Maya in Yucatan and the need for
ideological clarification
Josep Cru, Newcastle University
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Language diversity in Mexico
Source Comisión para los Derechos de los Pueblos
Indígenas (CDI). México 2000.
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Yucatec Maya among Mexican indigenous languages
Features 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
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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.

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Fishmans 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)
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Case study and elaborated definition of the
concept
Dauenhauer 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.
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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).  
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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.
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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 (xeek 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.
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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.
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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.

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

• http//lenguasindigenas.mx/index.php
• Acervo lenguas indígenas

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Dios bo'otik / Níib óolal