Writing Mazateco: Linguistic Standardization and Social
Power
Michael R Duke
University of Texas at Austin
In
this paper, I examine the numerous challenges faced by indigenous linguists in creating
a practical writing system for highland Mazateco, an Oto-Manguean language
spoken by approximately 92,000 speakers in southern Mexico. While the goal of
these indigenous intellectuals is to create an orthography and codified grammar
based upon what--from their perspective-- are practical linguistic criteria,
local debates about language and literacy are strongly informed by the
historically contentious social and political relations that exist both within
and between Mazateco communities.
0. Introduction.
Over the last twenty years, subaltern groups
throughout the world have become increasingly aware of the critical
relationship between language, culture and politics. Although cultural minorities have long been cognizant of the fact
that language, far from being merely a vehicle for cultural transmission, is
itself the very embodiment of culture, it has only been fairly recently that
linguistic preservation has come to be overtly expressed as a site of struggle
in so many places throughout the world.
The reasons for the increasing politicization of culture and language
are both varied and contextually-specific.
However, what is clear is that the historical ambivalence-- if not
outright hostility-- of nation-states to non-official languages, coupled with
the increasing colonization of international mass culture into even the most
intimate regions of consciousness and social life, has caused linguistic activists to recognize the possibility of
their languages becoming completely marginalized and devalued not just at the
national level, but by native speakers themselves. This is especially apparent in the case of so-called non-written
languages. Because these languages by
definition do not preserve and circulate information in textual form, they are
at a distinct disadvantage vis á vis the colonial language of the nation, the
latter's hegemony reinforced whenever a book is opened or a pen is put to
paper. Furthermore, the ideological
importance afforded written texts as bearers of truth and authority serves to
relegate the discourses of non-written languages to the status of noise,
articulated by a perpetual Other at the outer edges of mass cultural
discourse. Given that the relationship
between codified and non-written languages is one which is inherently
structured in dominance, it is perhaps not surprising that the linguistic
choices involved in the codification of any language are essentially political
choices. That is because, as
Schieffelin & Charlier Doucet point out:
"…the creation of supposedly arbitrary sound/sign
(signified/signifier) relationships that constitute an orthography always
involve choices based on someone's idea of what is important. This process of representing the sounds in
language in written form is thus an activity deeply grounded in frameworks of
value" (Schiefflin and Charlier Doucet 1994:176).
Furthermore,
orthographic choices are political in the sense that only a select few are able
to make such choices in a way that is likely to have a lasting effect on the way
that that language should be written.
In other words, those who are able to influence the orthographic or
grammatical conventions for a given language are imbued with that authority
based upon their socially recognized role as intellectuals. For subaltern intellectuals involved in
issues of linguistic revitalization, however, this social role can be a
double-edged sword: while it gives them the authority to "speak for"
a particular community of speakers, that same authority may itself be interpreted
at the local level as symptomatic of that person's being out of touch with the
actual (rather than ideal) linguistic realities of the community.
This
paper will explore the multifaceted challenges faced by indigenous linguists in
creating a practical writing system for highland Mazateco, an Oto-Manguean
language spoken by 92,000 speakers in the northeastern corner of the state of
Oaxaca in southern Mexico. These
indigenous intellectuals-- at least some of whom have formal linguistic
training-- are for the most part school teachers, and therefore view the
creation of a standardized writing system as the first step in promoting
literacy in the Mazateco language.
However, local debates about language and literacy, far from being
limited to strictly linguistic or pedagogical concerns, are in fact strongly
informed by the historically contentious social and political relations that
exist both within and between highland Mazateco communities.
1. Indigenous Languages and Organic
Intellectuals.
Attempts to explicate the Mazateco language
have been carried out since the late 19th century. (Belmar 1892; Brinton
1892) Perhaps the most significant
contribution to Mazateco linguistic studies, however, were those of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics. Eunice Pike and
the brother-sister team of George and Florence Cowan, spent many years in the
Sierra Mazateca-- mostly in Huautla De Jiménez and Rio Santiago-- producing
numerous scholarly and religious articles, as well as the occasional tract
written in Mazateco for local consumption.
In
the 1980s, several Mazatecos from both the highlands and lowlands began
attending an academic program in ethnolinguistics at the Center for
Investigations and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Apetatitán, Tlaxcala, as part of a broader
government initiative to train bilingual teachers and linguistic
professionals. The purpose of this
course of study was specifically: to
mould intellectuals from Mexico's different ethnic groups, the objective being
to incorporate them into a process of self-knowledge (autoconocimiento) and
recognition of values and traditions, and with a view towards an integral
ethno-development (etno-desarrollo) of the indigenous peoples within their
communities. (Dalton 1990:72)
Thus,
one of the goals of the ethnolinguistics program at CIESAS was to foster the
emergence of a class of indigenous intellectuals who would use the analysis,
promotion and preservation of language as vehicles for transforming the
specific indigenous cultures of Mexico into what Antonio Gramsci calls a
historical bloc, a dialectical unity of social, cultural, political and
economic relations. (Gramsci 1988:192-194)
Gramsci is elicited here not just because of his contribution to our
understanding of emergent social movements, however. Many Mazateco linguists and school teachers, particularly those
trained at CIESAS-Apetatitlán, identify strongly with Gramsci's writings as a
vehicle for theorizing and politicizing their work as cultural and linguistic
revivalists, so much so that many
rather self-consciously refer to themselves as intelectuales orgánicos
(organic intellectuals).
While
many of the Mazateco ethnolinguists admired the linguistic work carried out by
the Summer Institute of Linguistics, they found their orthography, with its
complex proliferation of linguistic symbols, to be of little value in
establishing a practical writing system.
It
is true that foreign researchers have carried out a number of investigations of
the (Mazateco) language, but unfortunately these have never benefitted us
because they don't propose an alphabet that is in accordance with the needs of
the Mazateco people. (Aguilar Mata, Carrera González et. al. 1983:22)
These
"needs" include a writing system that is "simple and systematic,
and above all practical-- manageable (and) understandable in all cases."
(Ibid:21) Concurrent with the creation of a practical orthography, a major goal
of the ethnolinguists and their allies is to establish a curriculum for teaching
Mazateco grammar and composition in the schools:
The
importance of the Mazateco language having an alphabet like any other language
corresponds with fundamental educational needs, and it should act as a vehicle
for guaranteeing and consolidating the ethnic identity of its speakers.
(Ibid:2)
Their
efforts have at least the potential to bring about these changes because, while
virtually all of the ethnolinguists are active in opposition politics, many in
fact exercise considerable authority within the school system, predominantly
through their positions within the regional offices of educational institutions
such as the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) or the National Pedagogical
University. For example, a number have been actively involved in the publication of educational materials in Mazateco.
(Carrera González & Cerqueda García 1989; Instituto Nacional para la
Educación de los Adultos 1987; Secretario de Educación Público 1991) While the
pedagogical and cultural political goals of the organic intellectuals are
similar, there are differences of opinion as to the mechanics of the writing
system itself. These disagreements are
mostly concerned with the ways in which particular phonemic values should be
textually represented, and which orthographic symbols (if any) should be used
to represent the four tones of the Mazateco language.
In
contrast, the linguists have been dismayed at the degree to which local and
regional opposition to their endeavors--even when expressed in strictly
linguistic or pedagogical terms-- are shaped by an ensemble of socio-political
factors that at first glance seem only peripherally related to language. In the following section, I will discuss
three factors which influence this often contentious debate: 1) the
relationship between dialect and power; 2) the degree to which linguistic
purity should be the goal of a Mazateco-based curriculum; and 3) the complex
relationship between education and politics in the Sierra Mazateca.
1.1 The Relationship Between Dialect and
Power.
Throughout much of the Sierra Mazateca's
history, the town of Huautla de Jiménez has exercised considerable economic,
political and social influence over the region. Huautla is the largest community in the Sierra, with a population
of 8,232 people, according to the 1990 census.
In the religious sphere, for example, Huautla was declared a bishopric
by the archdiocese of Oaxaca in 1972, thus giving the Bishop of Huautla
considerable authority over the religious affairs of the predominantly Roman
Catholic Mazatecos.
Huautla
is also the most important commercial center in the region. Its large Sunday market is visited by buyers
and sellers from all over the Sierra, and campesinos needing to purchase
particular goods and services --either in cash or on credit--must invariably do
business with the town's large merchant class, whose stores line the town's
main street. Whether deservedly or not,
these merchants have a reputation for being condescending toward their serrano
customers, particularly those who speak neither Spanish nor the Huautleco
dialect of Mazateco. Reportedly, some
of their customers even affect a Huautleco accent to avoid being identified as
a provincial.
Perhaps
most importantly for this discussion, Huautla is the home for the vast majority
of the region's schoolteachers, many of whom either commute or spend the school
week living in the community in which they teach. Until fairly recently, schoolteachers were for the most part
monolingual Spanish speakers from outside the Sierra. However, reforms in indigenous education over the last twenty
years have led to a proliferation of indigenous, bilingual educators at all
scholastic levels. However, given the
Mazatecos decidedly ambivalent attitudes toward Huautla, the fact that so many
schoolteachers are Huautlecos has sometimes been a point of contention in the
communities where they work. This is
particularly problematic when, as is often the case, teachers consciously or
unconsciously privilege the Huautleco dialect as the "proper" way to
speak Mazateco. The ethnolinguists are
not unaware of this problem. Although
himself a Huautleco, one remarked that he was completely opposed to privileging
one dialect of Mazateco over another "because I am opposed to all types of
hegemony." Consequently, he felt
that there the ultimate goal should be to create an orthography which
establishes a single writing system applicable to all Mazateco speakers, but
which also allows the integrity of individual dialects to be preserved.
1.2 Linguistic Purity versus Word Borrowing.
An additional point of contention concerns
the degree to which Spanish loan words, as well as Mazateco's apparent shift
toward Latinate syntactical structures, should be incorporated into Mazateco
dictionaries and grammars. Like all
Mexican indigenous languages, Mazateco contains a considerable number of
Spanish loan words. Among at least
certain organic intellectuals, a principal goal in revitalizing the language
should entail the elimination of all "foreign" elements. One way of accomplishing this is to
historically reconstruct the form of the word that existed prior to being
overtaken by its Spanish equivalent.
This
sometimes made a muddle of my attempts to learn Mazateco. For example, one of
the linguists with whom I worked most closely translated the word for song as 'jnda'. However, my using the word 'jnda' met
with considerable laughter and confusion among native speakers, and I was made
painfully aware of the fact that in many dialects of highland Mazateco, the word
for 'song' is derived from the Spanish. (In Eloxochitán de Flores Magón
[formerly San Antonio Eloxochitlan], for instance, the word is 'so', presumedly
derived from the Spanish 'son, while in Huautla the word is equivalent to the
Spanish: 'canción'). My
consultant later explained to me that, while it is true that people use a
variation of the Spanish loan words to express the word 'song', these were in
fact not really proper. In contrast, through historical reconstruction he
ascertained that the word for song should be 'jnda', derived from the irregular
verb 'se', to sing.
A similar problem emerged when I attempted to learn
the rules for Mazateco syntax. I was
taught by this same consultant that declarative sentences must follow a strict
verb-object-subject word order, and that other syntactical structures reflected
an improper drift toward a Latinate syntax.
The evidence for Mazateco syntactical drift toward a word order more in
line with that of Spanish is inconclusive at this point. However, the fact remains that, at least in
the contemporary Huautleco dialect, there is considerable syntactical leeway.
The concern of the ethnolinguists and their allies in promoting
"correct" ways of speaking even extends to the way in which Mazatecos
refer to themselves. On the relatively
rare occasions when Mazatecos refer to themselves as an ethnic group, they use
the term yoma, which literally means poor person or invalid. The organic intellectuals, on the other
hand, insist that the proper gloss for 'Mazateco' is yama or 'indígena', a word
which has met with considerable opposition from many Mazateco speakers. (González Carrera & von Doesburg 1993:14) Thus, the "intelectuales
orgánicos" are placed in a contradictory situation. While trying to codify the Mazateco language
in a manner which is both radically inclusive and "in accordance with the
needs of the Mazateco people", (Aguilar Mata, Carrera González et.
al. 1983:22) they have become painfully aware of the
degree to which any attempt to codify a language--whether through creating a
writing system or establishing a standard grammar-- is inherently a hegemonic
process, one of whose outcomes is the diminution of the parameters of
acceptable modes of speaking and writing.
1.3 Politics and Education.
As
we have seen previously, a particular point of antagonism in terms of
initiating a writing system has to do with a history of distrust and antagonism
between Mazateco communities. However,
Mazateco communities are also notorious for the level of factionalism within
them as well. Although the particular characteristics of these antagonisms are
communally and historically specific, they are in most instances articulated
through a complex intersection of religion, social class, political affiliation
and residence within particular barrios or hamlets.
This
has a number of implications for the development and promotion of a Mazateco
writing system and teaching curriculum.
Nearly all those who are actively involved in this process, for example,
are members of the opposition Popular Socialist Party (PPS) as well as the
National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), a dissident wing of the
national teacher's union. For this
reason, it is perhaps not surprising that much of the resistance to the
proposed curriculum comes from parents and teachers who are members of the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and/or the party's
government-allied teacher's union, the National Union of Education Workers
(SNTE). The opinions of those who are
in opposition to the proposed curriculum vary considerably.
Many
teachers, for example, recognize the need for some form of bilingual education,
particularly in those communities whose students speak little Spanish. Many in
fact already utilize some type of system for writing Mazateco in the course of
their teaching, albeit one which is largely improvised. However, these teachers see bilingual
education as a mechanism for educating students in their native language while
concurrently teaching them Spanish, rather than a means of promoting cultural
and linguistic revitalization.
Other
teachers have a decidedly more negative view of the ethnolinguists'
efforts. Although they, too, are
involved in bilingual education, they see attempts to teach writing and grammar
as a waste of time, for it merely teaches students a language in which they are
presumedly already fluent. Despite (or
perhaps because of) the fact that many of these opponents are members of the
PRI and the SNTE, some have even gone so far as to suggest that the proposed
bilingual education program is part of a government plot to keep indigenous
people in ignorance. For one primary
school teacher, the fact that the proposed bilingual program necessarily takes
valuable classroom time away from other subjects, and because it presumedly
(albeit incorrectly) privileges the teaching of Mazateco over Spanish, it is
obviously part of a government scheme to maintain the marginal status of
indigenous people, as well as keep them too ignorant to rebel. Furthermore,
according to this teacher, despite the leftist credentials of the
ethnolinguists, they are in fact dupes in this process, having sold out to the
government long ago by accepting grants to study linguistics in Tlaxcala.
While
the views of this particular teacher may have had little basis in fact, it is
one which is shared in one degree or another by a number of his colleagues, as
well as some of the parents of school-age children. It is included here, however, because it points to two factors
which continually threaten to erode the efforts of the organic
intellectuals. Like many highland
Oaxacan communities, there are few beliefs or social practices in the Sierra
Mazateca not informed by envy (Baird 1991).
As a form of social control par excellence, the anxiety that one's
neighbors might undeservedly get ahead, or that they may in turn become envious
of you, is a factor which most highland Mazatecos must carefully weigh whenever
they enter into a particular social interaction.
As
was apparent in the views of a school teacher opposed to the proposed bilingual
curriculum, part of the opposition to the ethnolinguists' efforts had to do
with jealousy. (Later in the same
conversation, he expressed his chagrin in never having had the opportunity to
study at the university.) One linguist described the problems he faced when he
returned to the Sierra after completing his studies at CIESAS:
The problems that we had in the region when we
returned were those of jealousy
and egotism.
Some had the impression that we had come to take something away
from them.
Others thought that we weren't going to do anything to help our
people. (Dalton 1990:75)
A
more complex, and perhaps more significant impediment to promoting a Mazateco
curriculum, however, has to do with the contradictory role of indigenous
intellectuals in Mexico. Because
indigenous intellectuals, whatever their political orientation, act as
mediators between particular non-local institutions and members of their ethnic
group, they must typically fulfil two requirements. First, they must acquire
sufficient social capital to be credible across a number of social fields,
primarily through the earning of credentials.
In the case of Mazateco intellectuals, for example, the acquiring of
academic degrees and bureaucratic positions in institutions like the Public
Education Ministry and the National Pedagogical University, have given them the
credibility to address issues of "lo Mazateco" (including the
codification of the Mazateco language) to an audience beyond the Sierra
Mazateca. However-- and this is
precisely how they differ from other types of intellectuals like anthropologist
and linguists-- indigenous intellectuals must also have sufficient cultural
capital within their own ethnic group to be able to "speak for" the
interests of that group.
However, as Bourdieu has pointed out, the emergence
of a spokesperson for a particular group necessarily entails a "political
dispossession" (Bourdieu 1991:42) of the members of that group, since the
latter's discourses must now be filtered through those of a relatively small
number of group members.
Furthermore,
the social position of indigenous intellectuals as mediators may itself reduce
their credibility within the social group.
As we have seen, for at least certain opponents of the organic
intellectuals' efforts, the fact that they are so closely tied with
institutions of non-local origin automatically calls into question their
ability to speak for the pedagogical and orthographic interests of the Mazateco
people. In sum, the social role of
Mazateco intellectuals must be recognized by state and national institutions,
and within their own cultural group.
However, as was discussed above, the latter necessarily entails that the
organic intellectuals be given the authority by the Mazatecos themselves to
organize and speak in the name of their culture, educational system and
language, something which many in these communities are hesitant to do.
2. Conclusion.
This
paper has shown how something as seemingly value-free as orthography can serve
as a point of intersection for all manner of social, cultural and political
antagonisms. The
ethnolinguist-intellectuals' attempts to create both a Mazateco writing system,
and a curriculum to teach it in the schools, met with a considerable range of
opinion as to their linguistic, educational and social value.
However,
the views of particular groups of Mazatecos were shaped not so much by
linguistic criteria, but by how they conceptualized the relationship between
regional and national culture, as well as their particular willingness to allow
the ethnolinguists to speak and act on their behalf. Thus, the Mazateco case has shown us how all attempts to codify a
language-- through the creation of grammars, writing systems and the like-- are
necessarily political acts, and are hence saturated at every level with
relations of power, not the least being the power to determine the parameters
of "proper" writing and speech.
References
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(SEP, INI, CIESAS).
Baird,
David. 1991. Corn, coffee, and envy: An ethnographic narrative of a Mazateco
village. Master's thesis. University of Texas at Austin.
Belmar,
Francisco. 1892. Ligero estudio sobre la lengua Mazateca.
Oaxaca:
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Brinton,
Daniel G. 1892. On the Mazatec language of Mexico and its
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Pierre. 1991. Language and symbolic power, ed. by John B.
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trans. by Gino Raymond and Mathew Adamson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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1989.
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Gonzalez, Florencio & Sebastian von Doesburg. 1992. Chan-chaon yoma: el
calendario agricola Mazateco. Unpublished Manuscript.
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Margarita. 1990. El Agua y las mil formas de nombrarla: el
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Antonio. 1988. An Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected
Writings, 1916-1935, ed. by David Forgacs.
New York: Schocken Books.
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Lingüístico de Verano. 1970. Quihin o
nu ahvi can/Tjian1 nti4tsin4/Vamos al mercado.
México: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.
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Notes
The
Mazateco language is often divided into two broad dialect groups: highland speakers
occupy the Sierra Mazateca mountain range in the district of Teotitlán de
Flores Magón, while the approximately 17,000 speakers of lowland Mazateco
reside in the area surrounding the Miguel Alemán Dam in the district of
Tuxtepec, along the Oaxaca-Veracruz border.
For
the latter, see Instituto Lingüistico de Verano 1970. I use the term indigenous intellectual here, and in the remainder
of the paper, to refer to those social actors who are actively engaged in the
linguistic, cultural, and/or economic promotion and preservation of their
ethnic group.
Organic intellectuals, according to Gramsci,
are those members of particular social groups whose role is to "give (that
group) homogeneity and an awareness of its own function not only in the
economic but also in the social and political fields." (Gramsci 1988:301)
The primary role of organic intellectuals is thus not solely to theorize those
ideological positions which promote group solidarity, but to educate and
organize that group as well. The
apparent contradiction that educación indígena may actually privilege certain forms of speech is perhaps
most acute in the municipality of San Juan Coatzospan. An island of Mixteco speakers within the
Sierra Mazateca, Coatzospan's students are taught by Mazateco instructors who
have little if any knowledge of the Mixteco language.
Currently,
he and a group of colleagues from other communities are involved in a project
with the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) to design a curriculum in four
dialects of Mazateco. For example, the
sentence "My father picks (literally cuts) oranges" can be correctly
expressed in the following ways:
(1) bate láxa n'aina "cuts
oranges father (my)"
(2) láxa bate n'aina "oranges
cuts father (my)"
(3) n'aina láxa bate "father
(my) oranges cuts"
(4) n'aina bate láxa "father
(my) cuts oranges"
Except for the relative few who act as
intermediaries between outsiders and Mazateco society-- politicians, merchants,
shamans, bureaucrats-- the subjectivity of
Sierra residents is rarely tied to their membership in a particular
ethnic group, but rather to social factors such as occupation, kinship,
residence in a particular community, etc. (Duke 1995:19-20) As of this writing
(May, 1995), support for the PPS in Huautla, one of its traditional
strongholds, has fallen precipitously due to the ineffectiveness of its
leadership, as well as the widely-held perception that its national leaders
were bribed by the PRI to refuse to support the leftist coalition which formed
around the presidential candidacy of Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas. Many of Huautla's so-called
"pepinos" are now members of Cardenas' Revolutionary Democratic Party
(PRD).
