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<br />Moderador/a: Carlos Subirats (U. Autónoma Barcelona), Mar Cruz
(U. Barcelona)
<br />Editoras: Paloma Garrido (U. Rey Juan Carlos), Laura Romero (UB)
<br />Programación, desarrollo: Marc Ortega (UAB)
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Venezuela), Yvette Bürki (U. Bern, Suiza), María Luisa Calero (U.
Córdoba, España), Luis Cortés (U. Almería)
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EE.UU), Miroslava Cruz (U. Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, México),
Matthias Raab (UB), Antonio Ríos (UAB)
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<br /><b>Infoling 4.68 (2014)</b><br />ISSN: 1576-3404 </font>
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<br /><hr /><b>Medios de comunicación:</b><br />English, Aljazeera.
2012. Guatemala: The Maya<br /><b>URL:</b> <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/20124161358285740.html"
target="_blank">http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/20124161358285740.html</a><br
/><b>Referencia:</b> Aljazeera English. Living the Language<br
/><b>Información de:</b> <infoling@infoling.org><br
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/><b>Reproducción del texto o información</b><br /><p> De: <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/2012416121435209463.html"
target="_blank">http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/2012416121435209463.html</a>
y <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/20124161358285740.html"
target="_blank">http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/2012/04/20124161358285740.html</a><br
/><br /><b>Language: At threat of extinction</b> <br /><br />Every
second week a language dies. It does so after a period of decline, as
one speaker after another passes away until, eventually, only a sole
keeper of thousands of years of knowledge and culture remains. When
that person dies, a civilisation dies with them.<br /><br />The earth
is covered by the territories of some 200 independent states, but the
number of nations and languages is far greater: over 6,000. However,
only one third of these languages are in constant use and most
linguistics scholars agree that by the end of the 21st century around
half of today's languages will be gone, for even if books and writings
are preserved, without somebody who knows how to pronounce the words
within them they will soon fall out of use.<br /><br />"The bottom
line is whether a language is being transmitted to the younger
generation," says Christopher Moseley, a linguistics scholar and the
editor-in-chief of the <i>Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger</i>
published by UNESCO. "Everything depends on that. It's really the
basic part of the equation."<br /><br />And the legacy of colonialism
is a thread that runs through all of the especially endangered
languages - for each belongs to a nation subjected to the influence of
European colonial powers during recent centuries. Colonial
administrations seeking to unify the territory under their control
needed a common administrative language. That, according to Moseley,
usually included a common education system and featured the exclusion
of anything indigenous.<br /><br />But language extinction is in no
way an entirely modern or post-colonial phenomenon. Languages have
always come and gone - just as nations and civilisations have come to
power, been assimilated or faced defeat over the centuries. <i>What is
new, however, is the massive rate at which languages around the world
are losing their speakers</i>.<br /><br />But it is possible to
resuscitate a language. The most prominent example of this is Hebrew.
The Jewish tongue went from being a dead liturgical language,
comparable to Latin, to the native language of millions of people.
This process did not happen overnight. With a great amount of effort
and funds invested in education and awareness-raising, the language
was revived over the course of a century. But there are also examples
of languages proving much harder to elevate, even when the full weight
of a European government is thrown behind it. In the Republic of
Ireland, the Irish language is the country's first official language
and a mandatory subject in the education system. Despite this,
according to official census statistics, the majority of the country's
citizens never speak it outside of school. Only some 50,000 people out
of a total population of 4.6 million speak Irish on a daily basis. <br
/><br />Today, thousands of nations and communities around the world
struggle to keep their languages alive. Most of them are unlikely to
succeed. Apart from a few exceptions, national and provincial
governments do not place the preservation of indigenous languages high
on their agendas. When a language dies, a specific understanding of
the world and in many cases a culture formed throughout centuries and
even millennia dies with it. But the individuals and communities
featured in the <i>Living the Language</i> series (<a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/"
target="_blank">http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/</a>)
serve as proof that much can be done to preserve dying languages by
the people on the ground.<br /><br /><b>Guatemala: The Maya</b> <br
/><b>Many Mayans complain of feeling like foreigners in their own land
- a sentiment compounded by the dominance of Spanish</b><br /><br
/>During colonisation, the Mayans faced a grim defeat after a
prolonged struggle against the Spanish Conquistadors. Their sacred
sites were destroyed, their writings were burned. But the people are
still there, using their ancient languages and practicing their
culture. In Guatemala, a country ravaged by civil war for most of the
past 50 years, the Mayans make up around half of the population. The
civil war, fought largely around the issue of Mayan rights to land and
status, has left deep wounds on a society that has not yet managed to
shake off its colonial past. Being Maya in Guatemala is much like
being a foreigner in your own country, some say.<br /><br />The fields
of education, politics and the media all belong exclusively to the
Spanish language, while smiling white faces and messages in Spanish
look down on the Guatemalan people from billboards across the country.
"Our languages and culture are not being included [in public life],"
says Saq'chen Roberto Montejo. "This is one way of making us
invisible." The Maya communities speak more than 20 different
languages - each of them is technically accepted by the state, but
little effort to promote them takes place in practice.<br /><br />In
comparison to the bloody days of the civil war, when indigenous rights
were virtually non-existent, the past two decades have seen
developments in the place occupied by the Maya in Guatemalan society.
But Maya communities still lack access to health care and social
services. "Decolonisation is a process that does not happen
overnight," says school principal Alvaro Coj. "We have been working on
it for over 20 years, and we still don't have all the answers."<br
/><br /><b>Living the Language</b> can be seen on Al Jazeera English
(<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/"
target="_blank">http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/livingthelanguage/</a>)
each week at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2230; Wednesday: 0930;
Thursday: 0330; Friday: 1630; Saturday: 2230; Sunday: 0930; Monday:
0330</p><br /><b>Área temática:</b> Otras especialidades<br /><br
/><b>Información en la web de Infoling:</b><br /> <a
href="http://www.infoling.org/informacion/Media29.html"
target="_blank">
http://www.infoling.org/informacion/Media29.html</a></body></html>