Echoes of the Past: The Struggle to Save Mayan Languages in Guatemala
Introduction
Throughout the course of Guatemala’s history, numerous cultural and linguistic suppressions have shaped the history of Mayan languages in the country. Brutal attacks against the Maya were a feature of the Guatemalan Civil War. After decades of conflict, the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords included the intention of improving the rights and integration of Indigenous Peoples. However, it did not eliminate all obstacles facing the preservation of Mayan languages. The diverse Indigenous population of Guatemala today faces tremendous challenges in preserving their language heritage due to economic pressures, outward migration, and the dominance of the Spanish language. Nonetheless, several programs, such as digital initiatives and internet activism, are attempting to preserve and revitalize these endangered languages.
Historical Context
Mayan culture and languages have faced severe suppression and decline from the time of the Spanish Conquest of Guatemala up to the present. Years of modern conflict have profoundly impacted the Mayan languages today due to violence and discrimination against Maya communities. The subsequent rise of far-left guerrilla insurgencies inspired by the Cuban revolution kick-started the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. In the early 1960s, according to the Strategic Studies Institute US Army War College, these far-left guerilla forces included the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR) and the Revolutionary Movement 13th November (MR-13). During the conflict, they continued to fight against right-wing death squads and the government military after forming the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in 1982.
According to scholars Arriaza and Arias, who specialize in cultural studies, the Guatemalan Civil War mirrored the Spanish Conquest of 1524, when a concerted attempt was made to physically exterminate the Maya and eradicate any traces of their culture from those who survived. Maya communities were the primary victims of the conflict, often targeted by military governments and right-wing death squads because of a perceived connection with leftist rebel groups. This misconception made the country's struggle in the 1980s particularly bloody as security forces launched a massive counterinsurgency. During the bloodiest years of the civil war, 1981–83, scholars estimate that 100,000 Mayans were killed. Following the end of the civil war in 1996, a UN-backed truth commission study found that the security forces had carried out acts of genocide and violence against Maya communities, including attacking evacuating residents and bombing villages.
The end of the conflict brought about the Guatemalan Peace Accords, which sought to increase education, economic opportunity, democratic involvement, and social inclusion for Indigenous Peoples. The Accord of the Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples specifically mandated the promotion of bilingual and multicultural education, including the teaching of Indigenous languages, and guaranteed Indigenous involvement in educational decision-making, such as the employment and preparation of bilingual teachers and administrators. Despite these provisions, Maya communities in Guatemala continue to face various obstacles to preserving their language and culture.
Current State of Mayan Languages
Roughly 41% of Guatemala's population are Indigenous People. According to the 2018 Guatemalan Census, twenty-two different Mayan languages are spoken by Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala. These languages range in the number of speakers, with some having hundreds of thousands of speakers while others having fewer than five thousand speakers. However, the diversity within the Maya population makes it challenging to preserve their languages, as they do not form a homogeneous group.
The table below from the 2018 Guatemalan Census shows data between 2002 and 2018 on the population aged four years and older, categorized by the language in which they learned to speak. It also lists every Mayan language spoken in Guatemala, along with other Indigenous languages, as well as English and Spanish.
Source: “Resultados Censo 2018.” Instituto Nacional de Estadística Guatemala, December 2019. https://www.ine.gob.gt/sistema/uploads/2021/11/19/202111192139096rGNQ5SfAlepmPGfYTovW9MF6X2turyT.pdf.
However, the data does not specify the fluency of the languages spoken. Some reports indicate that fluent speakers in some of these languages are much less. For example, it was reported that in San José, near Lake Petén Itzá in Guatemala, about 150 individuals speak Itzá, a critically endangered Mayan language. In the 1930s, the government banned Itzá, which resulted in two generations growing up monolingual in Spanish. In the table above, the census indicates that in 2018, 406 individuals learned to speak Itzá.
Despite the fact that in Guatemala, there are over 6 million speakers of Indigenous languages and 25 officially recognized national languages, assimilation, and other reasons have caused the languages to gradually deteriorate.
Challenges in Preserving Mayan Languages
Mayan communities face several challenges in preserving their languages. Some of these challenges in preserving Indigenous languages are identified by Tove Skutnabb—Kangas (2001). Before her passing in 2023, prominent academic and supporter of indigenous, minority, and tribal rights Tove Skutnabb-Kangas emphasized the value of linguistic support in fostering opportunities for minority communities. The factors that she identifies include the following:
1) the idea that one must select and give preference to dominant languages over minority languages;
2) the prevalence of the majority language in the media, business, and labor markets; and
3) the dissolution of linguistic groups as a result of migration brought on by urbanization and industrialization.
In one example of language loss by migration, Juana Sales, a native Mam speaker, was a migrant farm laborer from the Guatemalan highlands who relocated to Florida. She had been able to pick up some broken Spanish and a little English, but her children born in the United States have shown no desire in learning Mam. Indigenous communities in Latin America begin losing their languages when members of their community migrate internally within their own country, going from rural to urban areas. Thus, language loss frequently starts even before migration to other countries, such as the US. Demand for Spanish and English in the United States continues to diminish the use of native languages, especially among younger people. Thus, Indigenous populations are further impacted by the fact that people who return to their communities frequently do so with children who do not know the language of their origin. Spanish-speaking Latinos also often ridicule Indigenous speakers in the United States, a situation they also faced back home.
When it comes to language dominance over minority languages, the preservation and growth of Mayan languages in Guatemala is hindered largely due to the learning of Spanish and its association with economic prospects. Linguist Susan Garzon noticed that teaching Spanish as a first language is becoming more common in San Juan Comalapa, a prominent Kaqchikel community, particularly among families looking to send their children to secondary school. However, the advantages of speaking Spanish caused a decline in the use of Kaqchikel in Guatemala.
The 2018 Census data highlights the dominance of Spanish as a second language. Among the 2,995,963 persons aged seven or older who reported speaking a second language, 74.5% spoke Spanish, while 12.5% spoke English. The pattern is similar for those who reported speaking a third language (95,412), of which 28.8% claimed Spanish, 9.5% reported Q'eqchi, 5.0% reported K'iche', and 4.6% reported Poqomchi'.
After signing the Peace Accords, Guatemala held national talks on educational reform, stressing the importance of incorporating cultural heterogeneity and multilingualism into the classroom. Improving bilingual education to fit community needs was the main goal in conflict-affected and marginalized regions. However, incorporating bilingual education into the classrooms to preserve Mayan languages in Guatemala has been met with various challenges.
One example of such challenges is the case of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán. 99.7% of people in Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán speak Maya K'iche, and the Constitutional Court ordered the Ministry of Education to adopt bilingual and intercultural education there in 2016. However, by 2017, not much had changed, and there were still problems with implementing effective bilingual education. The survival of Spanish-only education is partly due to the fact that many teachers struggle with multilingual teaching methods and lack competency in local languages. The intercultural comprehension of Mayan culture and the translation of instructional materials into Mayan languages for teachers working in indigenous regions are not adequately covered in current teacher preparation programs. The domination of Spanish education is reinforced by the community's lack of demand for culturally relevant education and instructors' disengagement from local surroundings.
However, in recent years, various groups and activists have made attempts to preserve the Mayan languages through digitalization and technology. Efforts from Learn Link, the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project, and other initiatives by online activists are only some examples of this.
Technology Initiatives
Learn Link provided training to teachers in K'iche' and Ixil, the native Mayan languages spoken in Santa Cruz del Quiché. As part of the project, training materials for teacher training institutions in the area were created, and culturally appropriate learning materials were gathered and digitized into CD-ROMs. Their goals were to increase teacher’s proficiency in Mayan languages, boost early childhood education, and provide learning outreach through the use of culturally appropriate materials and radio programs in K’iche and Ixil.
An open-source project called the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project has been run by experts in Mayan languages. In order to provide internet services targeted at the preservation of Mayan languages and cultures, the project entails working with specialists in linguistics, computer science, cultural studies, and anthropology. The project's main goal is to support Mayan language speakers in Guatemala and the surrounding territories so that these vibrant Indigenous languages can continue to exist in the long run.
In 2018, in an effort to save Kaqchikel from extinction, online activists in Guatemala worked to construct a Wikipedia entry for the Mayan language during a three-day event in Guatemala City where more than 200 activists met. The intention was to have Kaqchikel officially recognized on Wikipedia. More than sixty new Wikipedia entries in Kaqchikel were written and uploaded by participants throughout the event. However, Kaqchikel needs to achieve certain standards, such as having 600–800 pages and a dedicated group of weekly contributors in order to be on Wikipedia. The aim of the organizers was to draw in more backers and form a working group composed of representatives from different Guatemalan organizations to create a community of digital activists and inspire other communities to add Wikipedia entries in their native tongues.
Despite the digital initiatives to revitalize Mayan languages from Learn Link, the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project, along with online activists, there is limited information available on the current status or success of these initiatives.
Conclusion
There have been many challenges and promising initiatives to conserve Mayan languages. Nevertheless, many Mayan languages are still in danger of disappearing because of migration, economic pressures, and integration into other cultures. Substantial barriers still exist, such as a lack of proper teacher preparation and negative cultural perceptions of Indigenous languages. However, there is an increasing campaign to preserve these languages, as seen by current projects like the Mayan Languages Preservation and Digitization Project, Learn Link, and other forms of digital activism. For the time being, there is a renewed interest and push to ensure that Mayan languages and culture survive and flourish in the modern world.
Image Credits: Franck Guizou/hemis.fr | Edited by GorStra Team