“We are already old, we are done and it is going to be over. That’s what I don’t want, for the language to be lost,” says Mrs. Beatriz Carrillo. She tells it surrounded by oaks, sitting at a wooden table outdoors, while she rests after a few hours of speaking to the recorder of Carlos Ivanhoe Gil, doctor in Linguistics and researcher at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC). . For about three years, Doña Beatriz and also Rosa María Silva, whom everyone calls Doña Nati, have been talking to that recorder. They speak so that Gil can record his words and make a dictionary of the Kumiay language.
Both are now over 70 years old and are Kumiays from San José de la Zorra, one of the indigenous communities in the State of Baja California, in northern Mexico, about three hours from the border with the United States. This people is originally from several regions of Baja California and also from others that are now part of California and Arizona, in the United States. Because the kumiays – a spelling that they prefer, compared to kumiai, as can also be found – have existed for a long time. more than either of those two countries. Now there is a population left in Mexico of about 1,200 people, of which 381 are speakers of the Kumiay language, according to data from the Mexican Government. That is, around 70% do not consider themselves fluent in the language of their people. And that data could be optimistic. Gil clarifies that, according to some researchers, the real figures do not reach 100 speakers.
Therefore, it is a language in danger of disappearing. Or put in a more technical way: a language in the process of linguistic displacement, which means that there are several circumstances that cause transmission between generations to stop. Although Gil sheds some light on that vision: “One thing is the speakers of the language and another thing is the linguistic community. I like to believe that the community goes further. The classical speakers are like Doña Nati and Doña Beatriz, but children also understand the language even if they do not speak it. I feel that it is a potential that is there, that in some way could be used so that the language continues to reproduce. And, sometimes, when we only count the active speakers of the language, that potential is made invisible.”
Gil is from La Paz, a town of incredible beaches, flora and fauna on a southern tip of the Baja California peninsula. That’s partly why he wanted to dedicate himself to studying the Kumiay language, because it is close to his place of origin. But also because very little is known about it: “There are almost no linguists who work in the north of Mexico, most of the studies have been carried out in the center and southeast. There has always been the idea that the most indigenous, pre-Hispanic Mexico is the one that is there,” he explains. It is the Mexico of the Mayans and the Aztecs mainly. That is why there is much more ignorance about the languages of the pre-Hispanic peoples of the north and northwest of the country, such as the Yumans.
circular work
The linguist wrote his thesis nearly 10 years ago about the phonology of kumiay, with people from San José de la Zorra, a small community in the municipality of Playas de Rosarito, dedicated to small agriculture, livestock and crafts. Some time later, he wanted this work to be circular in some way, so that its inhabitants also got something in return. According to the 2020 census, the majority of its population, 130 out of 167, are Kumiay, because it is part of their ancestral territory. Of them, 83 responded that they are indigenous language speakers.
In a meeting with them, they discussed what was most necessary. “People stated that they were losing their vocabulary, that they were using fewer and fewer words and incorporating more in Spanish. [lengua en la que el nivel de alfabetización de la comunidad es alto], and there was no way to record them and pass it on to the next generations.” That is why this dictionary project was launched, which is linked to the Program for Research and Applied Studies in Indigenous Languages (PIEALI). One of the objectives of that program is to create and implement policies within the Autonomous University of Baja California regarding linguistic rights.
“People stated that the lexicon was being lost, that they were using fewer and fewer words and incorporating more in Spanish and there was no way to pass it on to the next generations.”
Carlos Ivanhoe Gil, doctor in Linguistics and researcher at the Autonomous University of Baja California
The process has been complex, Gil describes: asking with vocabulary lists, in Spanish, for Doña Beatriz and Doña Nati to translate; record oral texts, and translate those texts together and then extract words from them; Also think and transcribe examples for each of the words, which refines the definition and differentiates it from others, to reflect nuances that Spanish does not have. For example, to talk about someone’s child, a different word is used if the parent is a man or a woman. The son of a woman is said s’aw (which refers to the fact that it was given birth by the woman) but that of a man is jomay.
Kumiay does not have a very long written tradition, it has been and continues to be largely an oral language. “Recently, its written use has increased, especially on social networks and cell phones. Spelling is being standardized, meaning that a word can sometimes be spelled in several ways; The standardization of writing is a complex process that can take many years before an agreement is reached. Despite this, people use written kumiay more and more and many see it as something important,” explains Gil.
The first edition of the dictionary includes approximately 2,000 words, with pronunciation, grammatical information, and examples. It is in the editorial process and is expected to appear in print later this year.
Dialectal differences
Doña Nati and Doña Beatriz laugh when they remember the times when they went to work “on the other side.” That is what it is called in northern Mexico to cross into the United States. They say that they went there about five days a week, to the Kumiay Viejas reservation, in San Diego County, California, and that they were paid $100 a day to teach how to make crafts and sell them. In order to understand each other with the American Kumiay, they brought translators, because the majority did not speak Spanish, only English, and because the Kumiay on that side, according to Doña Beatriz, is very different from that of San José de la Zorra: “If they speak, we do not understand each other”.
Yes, they can communicate with speakers of the language from other Mexican communities, such as San Antonio Necua, La Huerta and Juntas de Nejí, although there are dialect differences and each one has its own way of speaking. Doña Beatriz and Doña Nati learned their language at home, mainly from their mothers, but it seems that now the situation has changed a lot.
I try to talk to my children, but after a while they forget. I spoke to my husband in Kumiay, but he answered me in Spanish, that’s why they didn’t learn.
Doña Nati, Kumiay indigenous
“We, the older ones, talk about it more, but the children don’t. Yes, they understand, but they don’t speak it, they don’t like it,” says Doña Beatriz. Doña Nati’s children understand a few words: “I try to talk to them, but after a while they forget. I spoke to my husband in Kumiay, but he answered me in Spanish, that’s why they didn’t learn.” That is one of the current problems, that the transmission between generations has been truncated.
Both Doña Nati and Doña Beatriz worked as Kumiay teachers at their community school for years, and they say that now there is also a teacher who teaches it, but even so, it does not seem to be normalized as a vehicular language. That is why it is so important to leave it captured in a dictionary, before it is too late. So that, if one day, one of those childhoods changes their mind and wants to recover part of their culture, it is possible. As Gil says, that potential that is currently latent in the dictionary can manifest in the future.
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