The loss and recovery of the guató language
The Guató is a highly endangered indigenous language of a people that inhabits the Pantanal since time immemorial. To understand how the obsolescence of this language took place, we present three processes that resulted into disintegration of the Guató family: male celibacy, marriages between Guató...
| Autores: | , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2020 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Recursos: | Associação Brasileira de Linguística (ABRALIN) |
| Repositorio: | Cadernos de Linguística |
| Idioma: | portugués |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs3.cadernos.abralin.org:article/230 |
| Acesso em linha: | https://cadernos.abralin.org/index.php/cadernos/article/view/230 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Guató Línguas Ameaçadas Morte Linguística Revitalização Endangered Languages Language Death Revitalization |
| Resumo: | The Guató is a highly endangered indigenous language of a people that inhabits the Pantanal since time immemorial. To understand how the obsolescence of this language took place, we present three processes that resulted into disintegration of the Guató family: male celibacy, marriages between Guató women and Brazilian men, and the appropriation of Guató children by fazenda owners. For that purpose, we relate and comment interviews given by Guatós about how the language fell into disuse in their families. Since the Guató people were characterized by a dispersive settlement pattern and an atomization of families, these three processes (which coexisted and affected different families in specific ways) contributed to the degradation of bonds which sustained the Guató language. Along with social and demographic determinants which we do not analyze here closely, such as epidemics, economic fragility, and lack of official identification, the disintegration of families brought to an end the ancient Guató way of living in the Pantanal as well as their language that now lasts in the memory of some elderly persons and, in a more limited way, in school environment and in revitalization attempts. |
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