It was a bit nerve wracking walking to the university this morning as there were police everywhere, as well as riot police, ambulances and nurses in preparation for today’s student strike. The are protesting to get better education for future generations as part of the upcoming elections. At the university, the classrooms were blocked to disallow the teachers entering, but we were a special case so went in. We had a class on indigenous languages, which was so interesting. There are 65 languages in Colombia and 1 million indigenous people. 600,000 of them speak those indigenous languages and some languages are sadly beginning to become extinct. For some, they speak their language at home, Spanish at school and English at church. There are 13 linguistic families those native languages pertain to and the languages that survive are those that are living in isolated communities. 25 of the indigenous languages are found in the small region of Vaupes. One issue is indigenous people marrying someone who speaks Spanish, which interrupts it being passed down to the next generation. In addition, people leave their community in the country to work in the city and the language gets lost that way too. We also talked about how TV really interrupts the transmission of indigenous language as children watch TV rather than talking to (and learning from) their elders. We also learnt about the importance of the rubber trees in Colombia. The demand for the rubber turned many indigenous tribes into slaves to manufacture the rubber. From there it turned violent and lots of natives disappeared. Some of those communities separated trying to flee from being slaves and the language was hence lost as they are not all together in their communities. We looked at all the languages and the areas they are spoken in. Some have as little as 14 speakers remaining and some are monolingual in that language while others speak up to 8 other languages. One tribe, had so few people left who spoke their native language that when one of elders died last year it made national news. A lot of land has been taken away from indigenous areas to be turned into cocaine farms from paramilitary groups. With the peace agreement signed between those groups and the government, the government has recently set up a new department which aims at buying land and giving it back to the indigenous. It is said all conflict in Colombia is over land and looking after the native people also helps in the conservation of the language. ![]() The chemicals they put into cocaine is contaminating the water the tribes depend on and in some areas they are in ‘lock down’ letting no one in or out. Many indigenous end up working in the drug trade as they have nothing else to do in that region. The university has now set up a campus in these regions to encourage indigenous people to study rather than get drawn into the drug trade. The Ika language is linked to a group that wear white and hats that represent the snow capped mountains. They live in a special area really close to the Carribean Sea (hot) but also close to the snowy mountains. They carry bags to collect Coca leaves (the leaf which is used to manufacture cocaine), which are sacred to them. Coca leaves aren’t just cocaine though. They have many medicinal purposes including helping with altitude sickness. Saying that Coca is just cocaine would be like saying all grapes are wine. They have a census here in Colombia but it isn’t very effective as it doesn’t reach isolated areas and some don’t understand Spanish (the language it is written in) so it is hard to define how many speak each language. It is also hard define if you are a speaker o that language as how much do you have to speak to say you speak it. Most native languages are generally only spoken (not written) but some alphabets have been created (mainly by investigators of the language). Some are trying to keep their language alive through music (lyrics through rap or rock). Music is important for many groups as a form of healing. He talked about a tree one tribe uses which makes you high (the flowers) and then you see things, then it makes you vomit. They see it as a cleansing of bad spirits. They sing and chant around you when you are on it. If Spaniards hadn’t arrived in Colombia then everyone would probably speak Quechua language as it was rapidly spreading through Peru around that time. All over Colombia you can find Quechua selling their medicinal products and bracelets babies wear to defend off sickness which are made of stones and animal teeth. The macu tribe are the ones that speak lots of languages but are seen as the lowest socio economic group of all and are used as servants and no one from outside the tribe would marry then. They are the only real nomadic known group. For indigenous, food is really important as they use it to make alcohol as well as to eat. Chicha (alcoholic drink made from corn) takes only 3-4 days to ferment. Many elders walk around barefoot. They live mainly in 2 bedroom houses with an outside kitchen as they cook on open fires. Part of the government programme is giving them resources to build their own houses as there is no point in building a house for them that doesn’t fit their needs. They generally don’t have formalized bathrooms. What is helping the continuation of languages is tribes not allowing members to marry from within their tribe for fear of incest. So they marry outside of the tribe which is helping the next generation learn more than one indigenous language. The languages which are in trouble are the ones with an ageing population as when they die the language will too. The Pisamira language only has 30-50 speakers but that number doesn’t seem to have risen or fallen over the last few years as it is getting passed down from generation to generation. Part of the conservation of the languages has involved bringing back lost traditions, like festivals, creating children songs (and videos) in the language as well as stories and computer programmes with basic dialogues. We briefly heard one language and it sounded interesting (hard to describe but with click sounds). There were certain laws set up for indigenous people in 2010 saying you can’t discriminate because of their native language. They are allowed indigenous names on official documents (in the past their names were changes to other names – sometimes offensive words – without their will). They can use their language at hospitals, court and public administration. They have a 10 year plan to protect languages, but it is a very expensive plan. 36 languages are at risk of extinction. We then heard all the noise of the student protest coming through. Lots of signs and drums and people but a lot calmer than I imagined. They walk the 5km to the main square near congress and the president’s residence. The traffic was soo blocked as the police allowed the students to walk along the main street. A huge bowl of bean soup, rice, fried banana, avocado and juice for lunch for $9000 pesos ($4.50) then a class in the afternoon about use of IT in the classroom. It was very boy focused with games such as plagues and comics, which I just don’t think my students would be that into.
A lazy night in (after a visit to the supermarket to get some lollies as gifts) and a granadilla (similar to a passionfruit) for dinner and an icecream after my huge lunch. I am sick of taking my own toilet paper/tissues to the bathroom or having to pre-estimate how much I need before I go in. Surely paper in the cubicle wouldn’t lead to people using it too excessively?? ~Abbie Law
1 Comment
Duncan
31/5/2018 10:41:34 pm
It is quite upsetting to learn about the indigenous peoples plight. Perhaps we could get you to talk about it to the year 10s.
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