Raising the status of indigenous languages – the case of Quechua
I came across this clip yesterday about a 14 year-old Peruvian girl who has managed to transform the socially accepted view that Quechua, the language of the Incas, is only spoken by the uneducated and indigenous populations. Her version of Michael Jackson’s ‘The way you make me feel’ has gone viral on YouTube and has had a particular impact on the way young people in Peru view the language. It reminded me of the things Fitri was sharing with us at the ‘Bring it back home’ event about vernacular languages in Indonesia. Also very interesting in terms of the role of technology in these issues.
It is indeed fascinating. I think that there is increasing awareness of the tragedy that language death is, and of how technology might be in language revitalisation.
This article reminds me of something I read about an app used to revitalise Sami, a family of heritage Scandinavian languages that is nearly extinct. According to the article, one challenge with preserving the language is that the speakers are geographically dispersed, so the app (which allows them to upload words and phrases, and video clips of users speaking the language) gives learners access to a language models, as well as a sense of community.
In the face of language policies that are inimical to linguistic diversity, and public discourse that questions the cost-effectiveness of having ‘too many’ languages, such initiatives are some cause for optimism, I think.
Fascinating. Sad to see how particular languages are associated with particular (and in this case often negative) connotations. As the monolingual ontology (that Canagarajah speaks so eloquently about in his 2013 “Translingual practice”, Routledge) continues to dominate much thinking (especially in the Centre, the Global North etc) about language, identity, nationality, culture and territory, one consequence is this negative connotation for languages like Quechua (which are not only important as major languages with many millions of users but which are also so important for those individuals whose experience of the world is shaped by and expressed through them).