Date/Time: Thursday 23rd November 2017, 16:00-17:00

Venue: Barbara Strang Teaching Centre 1.46

Standardisation: friend or foe of minority language survival?

Experience of Amazonian Kichwa in a comparative perspective

Karolina Grzech, SOAS, University of London

This talk focuses on the aspects of language standardisation related to the development of standard language varieties and orthographies (cf. e.g. Amorós Negre 2008). In particular, it explores the impact of the processes of standardisation on the vitality and survival of the language varieties which, in the aftermath of the process, become the non-standard dialects. The talk is centred around the example of Tena Kichwa (Quechuan, Ecuador), an endangered language spoken in the Ecuadorian Amazon by 20 to 40 thousand people (cf. Moseley 2010; Lewis 2016). I discuss the effects of the development and implementation of a standard Kichwa dialect, Unified Kichwa, on the vitality and maintenance of this local variety of Ecuadorian Kichwa. 

The case study of Ecuadorian Kichwa is particularly interesting and complex from the point of view of language standardisation research. There are several Kichwa dialects spoken in Ecuador, both in the Andean Highlands and in the Amazonian Lowlands. The Constitution of Ecuador recognises Kichwa as an ‘official language of intercultural relations’ (ANCE 2008). Official documents are translated into the language, it is taught at schools in regions where its speakers live, and it enjoys occasional presence in the media. Nonetheless, all of the above privileges are enjoyed by the standard, government-backed dialect: Unified Kichwa. The local varieties are overlooked by the top-down maintenance efforts, with little official support directed at them. In the Andes, where the process of standardisation begun much earlier than in the Amazon, the adverse effects of such policy on the vitality of local dialects of Kichwa were noted already two decades ago (cf. Hornberger & King 1996). The same process seems to be underway now in the Ecuadorian lowlands. 

The aim is to describe and analyse the Ecuadorian context, and to draw theoretical implications from it for language support and maintenance research. To achieve this goal, I situate the Ecuadorian case study in a broader perspective, comparing it with examples of minority language standardisation projects from around the world, rooted in different sociolinguistic and socio-political contexts. 

References:

Amorós Negre, Carla. 2008. Norma y estandarización. Salamanca: Luso-Española Ediciones.

ANCE, Asamblea Nacional Constituyente de Ecuador. 2008. Constitución de la República del Ecuador. http://02a045b.netsolhost.com/legislacion/normativa/leyes/constitucion2008.pdf (29 January, 2013).

Hornberger, Nancy H. & Kendall A. King. 1996. Language Revitalisation in the Andes: Can the Schools Reverse Language Shift? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 17(6). 427–441. doi:10.1080/01434639608666294.

Lewis M., Paul (ed.). 2016. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 19th ed. Dallas, Tex: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com/.

Moseley, Christopher. 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in danger. 3rd ed. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/ (11 January, 2015).