A Case for Reversing Language Shift on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/nexus.v24i1.1097Keywords:
The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, the Creole people of Nicaragua, reversing language shift, indigenous language rights.Abstract
I examine the work being done by the Linguistic Research and Revitalization Institute (IPILC) at the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (URACCAN) and the dilemmas faced in claiming and implementing the linguistic rights that were granted under the 1987 Law of Autonomy for the Caribbean Coast Regions. The problems I discuss in this case are not unique to Nicaragua’s Creoles, nor to Black diaspora cultures, they are merely part of larger issues which affect all minoritized groups who seek to assert the legitimacy of their languages and cultures within hegemonic discourses around cultural difference.
References
Arrien, Juan B.
Paper commissioned for the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2006
Literacy for Life. UNESCO.
Baracco, Luciano
Nicaragua: The Imagining of a Nation from 19th Century Liberals to
th Century Sandinistas. New York: Algora Publishing.
Black, George
Triumph of the People: The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.
London: Zed Press.
Carmack, Robert M., Janine L. Gasco and Gary H. Gossen
The Legacy of Mesoamerica: History and Culture of a Native American
Civilization. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, pp.151-181.
Cummins, James
Bilingualism and Second Language Learning. Annual Review of Applied
Linguistics 13:51-70.
Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire.
Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.
Dauenhauer, Nora Marks and Richard Dauenhauer
Technical, emotional, and ideological issues in reversing language shift:
examples from Southeast Alaska. In Endangered languages: current issues and
future projects. Grenoble and Whaley (eds.) Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 57-98.
Encyclopedia Brittanica
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/522150/Cesar-Augusto-Sandino
accessed 1-21-2015
Fenigsen, Janina
Language Ideologies in Barbados: Processes and Paradigms.
Pragmatics 13(4):457-481.
From Apartheid to Incorporation: The Emergence of Transformations of
Modern Language Community in Barbados, West Indies.
Pragmatics 17(2):231-261.
Fishman, Joshua A.
Reversing Language Shift: Theory and Practice of Assistance to Threatened
Languages. Bristol, Pennsylvania: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Can threatened languages be saved?
Tonawanda, New York: Multilingual Matters.
Freeland, Jane
A Special Place in History: The Atlantic Coast in the Nicaraguan Revolution.
London: War on Want/Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign.
'I am a Creole, so I speak English': Cultural ambiguity and the English/Spanish
bilingual-bicultural programme of Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast.
In Language and culture. D. Graddol, L. Thompson and M. Byran (eds.)
Clevedon: BAAL and Multilingual Matters, pp. 71-83.
Linguistic Rights and Language Survival in a Creole Space: Dilemmas for
Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast Creoles. In Language Rights and Language Survival:
sociological and sociocultural perspectives. J. Freeland and D. Patrick (eds.)
Encounters Vol 4. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, pp.103-138.
Gordon, Edmund T.
History, Identity, Consciousness, and Revolution: Afro-Nicaraguans and the
Nicaraguan Revolution. In Ethnic Groups and the Nation State.
CIDCA/ Development Study Unit (ed.) Department of Social Anthropology,
University of Stockholm, pp. 135-166.
Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Gritzner, Charles F.
Nicaragua (Modern World Nations) Infobase Publishing, pp. 34-40.
Hale, Charles R.
Inter-Ethnic Relations and Class Structure in Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast.
In Ethnic Groups and the Nation State. CIDCA/Development Study Unit (ed.)
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, pp. 33-57.
Holm, John A.
Pidgins and Creoles, vol. 2: Reference Survey, Cambridge University Press.
Hornberger, Nancy H.
Maintaining and Revitalising Indigenous Languages in Latin America: State
Planning vs. Grassroots Initiatives. International Journal of Bilingual Education and
Bilingualism 2(3):159-165.
Irvine, Judith T. and Susan Gal
Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation. In Regimes of language:
Ideologies, politics, and identities. P.V. Kroskrity (ed.) Santa Fe: School of American
Research Press, pp. 35-84.
Keane, Webb
Christian Moderns: freedom and fetish in the mission encounter.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Koskinen, Arja
Kriol in Caribbean Nicaraguan Schools. In Creoles in Education: An
appraisal of current progress and projects. B. Migge, I. Leglise, and A. Bartens
(eds.) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 133-165.
Kroskrity, Paul V.
Designing a Dictionary for an Endangered Language Community:
Lexicographical Deliberations, Language Ideological Clarifications.
Language Documentation and Conservation Vol. 9 (2015): 140-157.
MacAulay, Neill
The Sandino Affair. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
Merrill, Tim
Nicaragua: A Country Study. Colonial Period 1522-1820, The Spanish Conquest
Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress.
Migge, Bettina, Isabelle Léglise, and Angela Bartens
Creoles in Education: an appraisal of current programs and projects.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Shapiro, Michael
Bilingual-bicultural education in Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast Region
Latin American Perspectives 14(1): 67-86.
Siegel, Jeff
Creoles and minority dialects in education: an overview. Journal of Multilingual
and Multicultural Development. 20(6): 508-531.
Sollis, Peter
The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua: Development and Autonomy.
Journal of Latin American Studies 21(3): 481-520.
Staten, Clifford L.
The History of Nicaragua. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, pp.13-25.
Von Oertzen, Eleonore
The British Colonization and the Miskito Kings in the 17th and 18th Centuries,
Encuentro 24-25 (April-September): 5-7.
Winer, Lise
Teaching English to Caribbean English Creole-Speaking Students in the
Caribbean and North America. In Dialects, Englishes, Creoles, and Education.
Shondel J. Nero, ed. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 105-116.
Interviews
Guillermo McLean, founding member and recently retired Director of the Linguistic
Research and Revitalization Institute (IPILC), University of the Autonomous Regions
of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua (URACCAN), (April 2, 2014, Managua,
Nicaragua).
Silvano Hodgson, current Director of IPILC and former student of Guillermo McLean
April 8, 2014, Bluefields, Nicaragua).
Alan Budier, Director of the Moravian School (April 10, 2014, Bluefields, Nicaragua).
Trina Clair, Executive Assistant to Silvano Hodgson at IPILC (June 4, 2014,
Bluefields, Nicaragua).
