{"id":7594,"date":"2020-10-05T14:49:26","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T22:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=7594"},"modified":"2020-10-14T14:57:10","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T22:57:10","slug":"the-rescue-and-revitalization-of-the-ulwa-language-in-the-community-of-karawala-raccs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/culture\/the-rescue-and-revitalization-of-the-ulwa-language-in-the-community-of-karawala-raccs\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"The Rescue and Revitalization of the Ulwa Language in the Community of Karawala RACCS"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Leonzo Knight Julian<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ulwa people of Nicaragua are part of the Sumu Mayagna, Panamahka and Ulwa family rooted mainly in the Karawala community, in the Rio Grande basin of Matagalpa.\u00a0 This indigenous community, settled since 1853 in this small but important community, is composed of approximately 3500 indigenous peoples.\u00a0 Often the Ulwa are confused with the Miskito, but they are two distinct peoples.\u00a0 The reason for this confusion is mainly because almost all those who belong to this group speak Miskito in all spaces and areas of the community, in all activities and duties.\u00a0 It\u2019s\u00a0 only in family meetings that, in a very isolated way, and carried out mainly by the Ulwa elders, this language is spoken.<\/p>\n

This subordination of the Ulwa language to the Miskito language obviously has its historical, political, and social reasons, so that the Miskito language not only is used in a large number of cases, but that the language is considered dominant and prestigious, constituting itself in formal use and used in all contexts and areas.\u00a0 The Ulwa language in the Karawala community has been submitted and relegated to a range of very casual and reduced contexts, such as its practice in the home.\u00a0 Our language leads many of our members to act passively toward our native language, due to socio-cultural pressure that they experience, which makes them doubt the value of their own language and culture.<\/p>\n

As a consequence of this, and in a general way, it can be pointed out that because of the ethnic claims in Nicaragua and of the official recognition of coastal languages, the attitude of some indigenous of devaluing their language has begun to change.\u00a0 Now, we notice a positive valuation of its languages and cultures on an official level, which leads to a significant increase in the self-esteem of many Indigenous Peoples and communities.\u00a0 The Ulwa are part of this claim, and now feel the need to take pride through the full assumption of their identity through their language.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s become necessary to do a review with the social and historical elements that made the Ulwa language pass from a dangerous subordination destined for extinction to a living language.\u00a0 In it, the presence of the Moravian missionaries from 1857 and 1859 in the Rio Grande basin are mentioned; because they had the first contact with the indigenous Miskitos, they were given the immediate task of learning the language of this group with the purpose of evangelizing all the the rest of the groups in the Rio Grande basin in the Miskito language;\u00a0 this obliged the Sumus Ulwa to master more of the Miskito in order not to remain outside of the evangelization.<\/p>\n

This, coupled with the migrations of indigenous that were communicating mainly in Miskito as the dominant language for all types of transcendental activities ( such as trade, religion, inter-ethnic\u00a0 and indigenous activities in all areas)\u00a0 became the common language that caused among the Ulwa the process by which they progressively lost their mother tongue.\u00a0 There are several cases in which, when a greater command of a second language is achieved, the use of the first language starts to diminish, leaving it relegated to domestic functions or those of lesser social importance, as is the case in Karawala.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that, in some way, the CODIUL ( Ulwa Language Investigation Committee) has contributed to the rescue and revitalization process of the language; however, they still face problems with its rescue.\u00a0 Miskito, which already had a written form thanks to the work of the Moravian missionaries, and many terms referring to reading, books, and education, needs to fill the gaps in the registration and the learning system to take advantage of modern technology.<\/p>\n

Although the Ulwa and Rama languages have been on the verge of extinction for several years now – replaced by Creole and Miskito mainly – its speakers are creating new vocabulary to designate objects and concepts from the modern world, that form part of their daily reality, but for which they used to use Miskito or English.\u00a0 Sumu-Mayagna, which twenty years ago had no written form, was left in the air but is now used as a vehicle for formal education at a primary level and for linguistic study.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In order to continue registering Ulwa, the linguistic and educational registrations of this language need to be developed in the most accurate way.\u00a0 Its use should expand in the community and be taught at school as a mother tongue, giving it required revitalization from childhood.\u00a0 Likewise, the creation of new words of its own, necessary to communicate in this language, should be expanded without resorting to loans from other languages.<\/p>\n

Although there is much enthusiasm and interest in the rescue of the native Ulwa language and it\u2019s already been pushed through CODIUL and through other media, through the teaching of the language in primary education, it still hasn\u2019t been able to define the mechanisms, or rather the pedagogic linguistic method appropriate and functional that allows us to transmit the mastery of our language for students and other members of the community in a systematic and effective way.<\/p>\n

It should be remembered that the writing of a language is essential for the facilitation of its teaching; developing a system to describe it and teach it from the perspective of its own people, without needing to draw from Spanish is complicated. The formation of words, as well as the organization of its own technical issues specific to languages, is important.\u00a0 In spite of everything, our purpose of revitalizing our Ulwa language is imperative, and therefore it\u2019s necessary to rely on support from diverse actors that accompany us until we have our own capacity to conduct our own revitalization process.<\/p>\n

\u2014Leonzo Knight Julian is from the community of Awawak in Miskitu (Karawala), of Ulwa identity, from a father of African descent and a Ulwa mother.\u00a0 Since 1988 he\u2019s worked in linguistic investigation, including in CODIUL (Ulwa Language Committee) in the community of Awawak, from where he transferred to the city of Bluefields in the year 2002 with the purpose of continuing his studies.\u00a0 He finished his degree in sociology in 2005 and in 2012 earned a postgraduate degree in Multilingual Intercultural Education.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Leonzo Knight Julian The Ulwa people of Nicaragua are part of the Sumu Mayagna, Panamahka and Ulwa family rooted mainly in the Karawala community, in the Rio Grande basin of Matagalpa.\u00a0 This indigenous community, settled since 1853 in this small but important community, is composed of approximately 3500 indigenous peoples.\u00a0 Often the Ulwa are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[409,453,414],"tags":[2437,2438,2439,2440,2436],"class_list":["post-7594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-frontpage-en","category-world","tag-indigenous-languages-nicaragua","tag-misquito-en","tag-nicaragua-en","tag-ulwa-en","tag-ulwa-linguistic-identity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/img-20200814-wa0042.jpg?fit=1280%2C960&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-1Yu","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7309,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/culture\/healing-by-reconnecting-with-ourselves\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":7594,"position":0},"title":"Healing by Reconnecting with Ourselves","author":"EntreMundos","date":"15 septiembre, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"By Milena Rodr\u00edguez Every time I think of the major learning moments in my life, I remember the beautiful words and stories full of wisdom shared with me by the elders of the Indigenous lands I have visited. 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