33.3156, Review: Anthropological Linguistics(LF) Language Documentation(LF): The Last Language on Earth; Kelly (2021)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-3156. Mon Oct 17 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.3156, Review: Anthropological Linguistics(LF) Language Documentation(LF): The Last Language on Earth; Kelly (2021)

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Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2022 21:21:52
From: Brooke Mullins [mullins.brooke.97 at gmail.com]
Subject: The Last Language on Earth: Kelly (2021)

 
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AUTHOR: Piers  Kelly
TITLE: The Last Language on Earth
SUBTITLE: Linguistic Utopianism in the Philippines
SERIES TITLE: Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Brooke Alyssa Mullins, Northeastern Illinois University

SUMMARY

Piers Kelly’s book “The Last Language on Earth: Linguistic Utopianism in the
Philippines” is a thorough and enlightening introduction to and detailed
history and inspection of the language known as Eskayan. Eskayan is a small
language in the Bohol province in the Philippines spoken and written by the
Eskaya people in isolated mountain villages. This book aims to investigate not
only the language itself but also the culture surrounding the language and the
contexts in which the language arose historically. Kelly begins by stating
that while his initial goal was to create a thorough description of the
Eskayan language, he ultimately aimed to evaluate the Eskayan language while
locating “its speakers within the broader ethnolinguistic context of the
Philippines” (pg. xxviii). This book goes beyond a simple description of a
language and into the soul of the people who speak and write it. It is clear
that Kelly has a fond appreciation of the Eskaya and their linguistic
attitudes.

Chapter One serves as a summary of the entire book and lets the reader know
what to expect. It introduces readers to the historical figure known as Pinay,
who is said to be the person responsible for creating Eskayan through a divine
order. This book is written with the expectation that the reader will have no
prior knowledge of the languages of the Philippines, and Kelly makes sure to
be very clear and detailed when introducing new information. The chapters are
divided into three sections. Part I focuses largely on the societal and
linguistic aspects surrounding Eskayan in terms of public perceptions of
Eskayan, as well as giving cultural context on the local Bohol communities. In
addition, the effects of colonization by the Spanish and Americans of the
Eskaya people are considered. Part II focuses on the language itself and
breaks down the orthography, writing-centric culture, and lexicon, before
investigating Eskayan literature and traditional historiography. Part III
begins by giving a very detailed account of how the language may have been
assembled by both Pinay and his modern spokesman and medium, Mariano Datahan.
It discusses how Eskayan was able to become an established language for the
isolated mountain communities of Biabas, Taytay, and Cadapdapan, before
summarizing the details of the books and postulating what the future holds for
the Eskayan language and people. 

Part I begins with Chapter Two, which sets the stage for the modern linguistic
field in the Philippines by examining how colonial Spaniards viewed the
wealthy linguistic diversity of the Philippines as a disadvantage and how
languages were quickly seen as indicating one’s moral temperament. Kelly
discusses how Tagalog rose to power as a national language before detailing
how both the colonial Spanish and the colonial Americans made attempts to
teach the Filipino people their respective languages. This is in contrast to
Eskayan, which was “revealed” at a time of upheaval in Bohol due to the
oppressive invading colonizers. Eskayan was initially not granted any modicum
of attention and would remain largely unknown to the people of the Philippines
until the 1980s. 

Chapter Three discusses the circumstances in which the previously unknown
Eskaya were “discovered,” both locally and nationally, and delves into the
controversies and opinions that arose surrounding this “discovery.” In 1980,
government advisors aiming to implement a set of policies were touring the
Bohol province and came across a mountainous and densely forested community of
Eskaya. As word spread, the National Museum of the Philippines visited Biabas,
an Eskayan community, and soon thereafter many independent researchers took
interest as well. Some researchers claimed that the newfound communities were
remnants of a pre-Hispanic indigenous past who were custodians of a forgotten
language and script, but others wrote the community off as nothing more than a
cult. Others declared that these communities were primitive and needed
government intervention to raise them out of poverty. There were also many
theories about the Eskayan language as well. Some believed it to be a form of
secret code to keep outsiders away, and one researcher named Logarta believed
the “exotic” language was a ploy to gain government patronage. The community
faced great discrimination from both the media and the government and found
themselves having to defend against accusations of cult-hood and having to
prove their indigenous identities.

Part II begins with Chapter Four, which concerns how the Eskayan language is
used in modern times. Eskayan is primarily a written language but is also used
for prayer, singing, speech-making, and traditional education. Interestingly,
in domestic settings, most Eskaya speak with the widespread Boholano-Visayan,
a language very common in the Bohol region and one of the many dialects of the
larger Visayan language. The author outlines what makes Boholano-Visayan
unique before discussing the domains in which the different languages in Bohol
are employed. Esakayan, however, is primarily found in three small villages:
Biabas, Taytay, and Cadapdapan. Eskayan is not learned as a first language but
rather must be learned in educational settings; all the fluent speakers of
Eskayan became proficient thanks to volunteer-run classes where “literacy is a
necessary precondition for full participation in the Eskayan speech community”
(pg. 83). In fact, it is believed that the written word holds more authority
over spoken language. 

Chapter Five delves into the writing system itself. Since the written form is
seen as the truest and most authentic form of language according to the
Eskaya, this chapter is where the author finally gets into the meat of the
language being analyzed. Literature in Eskayan communities speaks of an
individual named Pinay who is said to have been instructed to create a
language and a script out of the human body. In other words, the design of the
script is said to be in the shape of various organs or poses. While Pinay
himself remains a figure of speculative discussion, Kelly respects Eskayan
beliefs and refers to him as the creator of the language. The writing system
created by Pinay is split into the Abidiha, which contains forty-six letters,
and the Simplit, which contains around one thousand letters. The former is
claimed by the author to have been designed as a cipher for transliterating
either Spanish or a Spanish orthography of Visayan. In fact, there are many
sounds in Eskayan that are not found in Visayan but are found in Spanish and
English, implying that the Eskayan script seemingly aimed to mimic (yet also
exceed) the European systems. Kelly contextualizes this by demonstrating how
the Eskayan system arose in the context of the social upheaval caused by
dizzying waves of colonization by the Spanish and Americans. Kelly suggests
deliberation in the creation of Eskayan as a way to form an insider’s code to
both mimic yet reject colonial languages being imposed upon them. 

This is further demonstrated by the Eskayan lexicon, which is discussed in
Chapter Six. Kelly describes the lexicon of Eskayan as a kind of “plaster
cast” over Visayan; a lexicon with at least three thousand items purposely
made to sound foreign to Visayan via a Hispanic syllable structure and with a
handful of borrowings from Spanish and English. After explaining how parallel
translations of Eskayan and Visayan have word-for-word calques, Kelly raises
the question of whether Eskayan is truly an independent language or “simply a
special way to speak Visayan” (pg. 109). Moving beyond that discussion, Kelly
shows the Visayan, Spanish, and English influences on Eskayan via wordlists
clearly showing inspiration mainly, yet not always, via phonetics. However,
these direct influences often differ slightly in either phonetic or semantic
content and are not often “true” borrowings. The words have ultimately been
altered in some way. Kelly claims that Pinay’s goal was to establish an
insider code by strategically appropriating colonial languages. Part II is
wrapped up in Chapter Seven, which offers translations of seven key texts in
the Eskayan community. These texts range from the Abidiha to creation lore,
and each text provides insight into the literary mindsets of the community in
which they were written. 

Part III begins with Chapter Eight, which covers an incredibly thorough
history of Mariano Datahan. After Pinay is said to have created Eskayan, it is
believed the language was lost and all records were hidden in a cave. It is
claimed that Mariano Datahan rediscovered the language and was the figure
responsible for bringing it back to the people. The history given surrounding
this language rebirth is dense and very detailed. It begins at Datahan’s youth
as a poor child working as a sacristan to a priest before rising to prestige
through his repeated resistance to colonial powers, land ownership, and
charismatic personality. The chapter explains in much detail how illness and
instability from invading forces caused residents of the coastal town Loon to
move westward to Biabas. Near the end of the chapter, Kelly begins to discuss
how Pinay and Datahan may in fact be one and the same as the creator of
Eskayan, by closely analyzing the specific details of the language’s contents
and the timeline of societal events within Datahan’s lifetime. This chapter is
heavy with historical detail yet proposes a logical explanation to a possible
origin of Eskayan. As Kelly says on page 212, “Datahan and Pinay are alternate
manifestations of the same person.”

Chapter Nine describes the period of time after the end of the
Philippine-American war, during which the U.S. administration began
successfully implementing public education systems in Bohol and how these
educational systems were an influence on the creation of Eskayan language
schools. Kelly argues, through careful reconstruction of historical facts,
that, perhaps due to the rising influence of English in Bohol, there was a
sense of cultural insecurity which urged Datahan forward in reconstructing
Eskayan to resist the language being imposed on Bohol by foreigners. Kelly
hypothesizes that the Abidiha was made known to Datahan in some manner in
order to write in Visayan and possibly Spanish, and only after the creation of
this initial orthographic system did the lexicon begin to fall into place
along with the Simplit. This possibility emphasizes how, from the very
beginning of Eskayan, writing was the epicenter of focus rather than speaking.
The Eskayan language was built up by the hands of rural countrymen who
previously were not privileged enough to receive formal education. This
language then became a symbol of anti-colonial resistance and prestige as well
as cultural resilience and pride. The conclusion of the book, Chapter Ten,
echoes these same sentiments. The Eskaya became masters of
mimicry-and-rejection (pg. 239) and, while their communities still face the
all-too-common discrimination that indigenous peoples often experience across
the globe, there is hope in their future to remain resilient with their
language as one of their main defenses against outside pressures to fully
conform. 

EVALUATION

At the beginning of the book, Piers Kelly states that his goal is to to
evaluate the Eskayan language while locating “its speakers within the broader
ethnolinguistic context of the Philippines” (pg. xxviii). Kelly was able to
successfully do this by carefully and dutifully presenting not only the
Eskayan language in vivid detail but also by paying careful attention to the
historical and current cultural and societal issues surrounding the Eskayan
language and people as far back as he was able to accurately research. Kelly
demonstrates how languages cannot be truly understood outside of the context
in which they arose and are currently being used. In addition, Kelly
demonstrates the power of the Eskaya to hold their ground against colonization
and negative media attention to create and protect their language and culture.

This book is excellent for linguists interested in learning more about
artificial languages and the context in which one such language can establish
itself securely within a community. It is also intended for those interested
in learning about the different peoples and cultures in the world that do not
receive as much media attention as larger communities and nations. It offers a
unique insight into isolated human civilizations and breaks down stereotypes
of “exoticism” that can often be found when outside individuals research
smaller communities. There is also an exhaustive amount of historical detail
concerning the Bohol province and its battle against varying waves of
colonization. 

Kelly has provided a cohesive report and story of the Eskaya people. No stone
was left unturned, and it is evident that the author went to great lengths in
order to represent the Eskayan language and its people with respect and to
give a detail-oriented historical account. Kelly was very clear when there
were gaps in the available historical documents and often offered hypotheses
to fill in those gaps with acceptable rationale for said hypotheses. When the
author found inconsistencies in his sources, he explained corrections and
clarifications where they can be found. If there were to be one criticism, it
would be that sometimes the attention to historical detail may come across as
too dense. Names of historical figures, events, and places were sometimes hard
to keep track of without prior background knowledge of local Boholano history.
While all these details eventually build into the points Kelly makes, some
sections of the book require reading through more than once due to the volume
of new information being offered all at once. 

Overall, this book serves as an excellent, cohesive source of information
about the Eskayan language, with a wonderfully rich amount of information
about the Eskaya people as well. By the end of reading this book, you will not
only have a good understanding of the Eskayan language’s origin, lexicon,
writing system, and literature, but you will also receive a sense of the
ideals and hopes of the Eskaya. The work goes beyond a simple description of a
language and into the spirit of the speakers’ identities and outlooks on life.
As Piers Kelly states on page 168, “The Eskayan language and script [are] not
simply a strategic counter to the linguistic imposition of colonial languages
but a matrix for an independent political vision.”


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Brooke Mullins is a graduate student at Northeastern Illinois University
currently conducting research on Online Linguistic Landscapes at Hispanic
Serving Institutions in the U.S.A. as a Research Assistant. She is interested
in evolutionary linguistics, Great Ape communication, language documentation
and preservation, and sociolinguistics. Upon graduating from Northeastern
Illinois University with her Master of Arts in Linguistics, she aims to pursue
a Ph.D. in Neurolinguistics while furthering her focus on Great Ape
communications and evolutionary linguistics.





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