English Ayapanenco
English Ayapanenco
English Ayapanenco
Jhonnatan Rangel
25/09/2020, FEL24 1
Agenda 01 Critically endangered
languages
02 Zoque Ayapaneco
03 Revitalization
04 Orthography
development
05 Concluding remarks
Critically endangered
languages (CEL)
3
Vitality of the world’s languages
4%
Moseley 2010
Critically endangered languages 7
Zoque Ayapaneco
8
Mixe-zoque family
Zoque Ayapaneco 9
Ayapaneco: a CEL
• Spoken in Ayapa (5,500 inhabitants) by
approximately 8 remaining bilingual speakers (
Ayapaneco-Spanish) between the ages of 70 and
90 years old
o Disconnected “pockets” of speakers
o 0.2% of total population
Zoque Ayapaneco 11
Community-based revitalization
efforts
12
Actors
Elder speakers
Revitalization 13
Revitalization objectives
Revitalization 14
Emergence of new speakers
• Informal L2 classes (since 2012) centered on reading & writing
• Learners: children aged 6-12 who grew up in a monolingual
Spanish setting
• Teachers: elder speakers with limited Spanish literacy, and one
young adult heritage speaker who is literate in Spanish
Revitalization 15
Revitalization challenge
• Represent Ayapaneco in writing to support the
emergence of new speakers (via L2 classes) and to
produce language materials
Revitalization 16
Orthography development
17
Development process
Orthography development 18
Process
• Meetings with elders & heritage speaker
• Development workshops with heritage speaker/learners
o Pre-tests
o Vowels
o Consonants
o Word-formation & punctuation
Orthography development 19
Immediate users
• L2 learners whose first language is Spanish
• Heritage speakers
o Individuals from language minority groups who grow up
exposed to a minority language in the home and the
majority societal language(Montrul, 2015)
• Heritage speakers are the bridge between elder
speakers & new speakers, and between language
states: endangered-dormant-reawoken
Orthography development 20
Future users
• New speakers of Ayapaneco
o Individuals that learned the language in the context of
language revitalization activities (Bert & Grinevald, 2010)
• Their social and linguistic characteristics are yet to
be determined (Rangel, 2017)
o Relation to the language?
o Relation to the community?
o Language practices?
o Self-identification?
Orthography development 21
Domains of use
• Pedagogical materials
• Books
• Printed magazines
• Internet
• Social media: WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram
• Phone applications
Orthography development 22
Orthography depth
• Shallow orthography
o There is a correspondence between orthographic representation and
phonetic realization
• Advantages:
o Easier to learn for L2 learners/readers/writers of Ayapaneco because they
rely on phonetic realization to recognize words
• Considerations:
o It may blur graphic identity of morphemes. This is not a concern right now
but it could be for the long-term users
Orthography development 23
Language conventions
Orthography development 24
Language variation
• This orthography incorporates language variation
• Language variation in Ayapaneco is structured
around various highly complex parameters and is
part of the characteristics of the language (Rangel,
2019)
• Simplicity vs avoiding potential conflict
• No local norm regarding variation
Orthography development 25
Example
‘True voice/speech’
Orthography development 26
Transitional orthography
• Long-term vision: to transition to a deep
orthography once a generation of new speakers
develops its own language practices
• A database cataloguing all phonological
representations of common words will inform the
development of a deep orthography in the future if
needed
Shallow Deep
Orthography development
27
Concluding remarks
28
Concluding remarks
• 9% of the world’s 6,000+ languages are critically
endangered
• A revitalization process through second language
classes and pedagogical materials in this context
requires an orthography
• An orthography is a revitalization tool but not
necessarily an end in itself
• We must identify the users & domains of use for an
orthography
Concluding remarks 29
Concluding remarks
• There could be immediate & future users, and their
characteristics are different
• A transitional orthography allows this transition between
immediate & future users (fluid)
• Heritage speakers are the bridge between elder
speakers & new speakers, and between language
states: endangered-dormant-reawoken
• Language variation in critically endangered languages
follows complex parameters and could be a source of
conflict that cannot be overlooked in an orthography
Concluding remarks 30
Stay in touch
Jhonnatan_Rangel
jhonnatanrangel
@jhonnran
https://wils.hypotheses.org/
31
References
Bert, M., & Grinevald, C. (2010). Proposition de typologie des locuteurs de
LED, Faits de Langues, 35-36(1), 117-132.
Moseley, C. (2010). UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.
Online version:
http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas .
Montrul, S. (2015). The Acquisition of Heritage Languages. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Rangel, J. (2017). Les derniers locuteurs : au croisement
des typologies des locuteurs de langues en danger. Histoire
Epistémologie Langage, 39(1):107–133.
Rangel, J. (2019). Variations linguistiques et langue en
danger. Le cas du numte oote ou zoque ayapaneco dans
l’état de Tabasco, Mexique. Thèse de doctorat, INALCO.
32