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SmallerAfter trekking across Mexico to record dying native languages for nearly a quarter century, Carolyn MacKay and Frank Trechsel, members of Ball State's English department, are working with the residents of Pisaflores, Mexico, who speak Tepehua.
The indigenous language is in danger of disappearing as its native speakers become more culturally and economically integrated into modern Mexican society, Trechsel said.
"Pisaflores is a small, isolated community near the Gulf coast of Veracruz, which is located in the east central part of the country," he said. "The village is cut off by a river that can only be crossed by boat. It is extremely hot, especially during the summer when we are free to do our fieldwork.
"The residents of Pisaflores speak both Spanish and Tepehua, but we're concerned that once a new highway is constructed within a few miles of the village, many of them will abandon Tepehua as their language of choice for everyday communication." he said. "The highway represents a way out. The young people will likely leave to find opportunities in Mexico City or the United States. At that point, the Tepehua language will disappear with the last elderly speakers — just as other minority languages have disappeared in Mexico and elsewhere around the world."
MacKay and Trechsel have visited the community each summer for most of the last decade, working with local residents in order to create an oral and written record of their language.
The faculty enlisted several native speakers to help devise a practical orthography, or writing system, for Tepehua. They have produced three bilingual children's book.
"We had to design the orthography ourselves," MacKay said. "That was one of the hardest parts. Several of the sounds in Tepehua do not occur in Spanish, so some of our spelling conventions are unique. You'd be surprised how sensitive people can be about how their language looks on paper."
Trechsel said the community's residents were initially suspicious of their efforts.
"They didn't understand the need to have their language written down on paper," he said. "They also didn't see why we would be interested in documenting it for posterity. It took years to develop solid working relationships. Now we are treated as old friends."
MacKay and Trechsel, who produced the books with support from the National Science Foundation, hope they will encourage native speakers to learn to read and write Tepehua, as well as educate and entertain their children.
"Until now, the people of Pisaflores had no written materials in their language," MacKay said. "If we can motivate just a handful of families to continue to use Tepehua in their everyday interactions and pass it along to their children, we have a chance of reversing the trend toward abandonment of the language."
Two of the books — "Where Are You, Kitty?" and "Is Your Mother a Turtle?" — are based on popular children's books written in English. A third, "The Parrot," is a native Tepehua folktale that tells the story of how parrots acquired their distinctive gait. Full color illustrations drawn by a resident of Pisaflores accompany each text.
"We were lucky in that one of our main consultants turned out to be a very skilled and talented folk artist," Trechsel said.
Printed at Ball State's Printing Services, the books have been distributed to schools, teachers, and libraries throughout Pisaflores. The Pisaflores community has already asked for more copies of the bilingual books, and MacKay and Trechsel will return to the region this summer to distribute the remaining copies and assess further needs and interests.
"We are dedicated to documenting the Tepehua language in Pisaflores," Trechsel said. "It is a part of an ongoing effort to document as many languages as possible before they become extinct. The loss of even one language is a tragedy for linguists and other social scientists. It is the same for biologists when a species disappears. You can never get it back."
