Re: Language Naming

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Kristian Jensen wrote (quoting Payne):

> The terms by which language groups are know to outsiders are usually
> drawn from the outsiders' language, and are often derogatory in
> nature, e.g., in Peru the group now known as the Urarina used to be
> called the _Chimaco_, a Quechua term meaning "unreliable". Such
> terms are often not recognized by the people themselves, and, as in
> the case with the Urarina, the self-referent can sometimes be
> substituted for the outsiders' term. On the other hand, the term
> _Panare_ mentioned above is a Tupi word meaning "friend". So the
> outsiders' form of reference is not always derogatory.
Every now and then, too, you find that the self-referent term is
derogatory (or could be interpreted as derogatory from a particular
point of view).  For example, I did some fieldwork once on a language
known to linguists as San Miguel Cuevas Mixtec - i.e. the dialect
of Mixtec (or Mixteco) spoken by the inhabitants of San Miguel Cuevas.
The locals referred to their language not as "Mixteco", but as
/tu~?u~nda?Bi/, which means "language of the poor people".  I guess
the implicit contrast is with Spanish, which in that part of Mexico
is the language of the rich people!

I never did find out whether they were using "language of the poor
people" in a self-deprecating way, or an ironic way, or merely as an
objective comment on the local socio-economic-linguistic situation.
I suspect it might have been self-deprecating, though, since I know
that many Indians in Mexico are ashamed of their native languages
and cultures - thanks no doubt to centuries of oppression - and
often refuse even to acknowledge their Indian heritage.

This kind of shame sometimes leads to bizarre episodes of denial.
A linguist friend of mine who works on Zapotec here once overheard
two young chicano men on an L.A. bus speaking some beautiful-sounding
tone language (probably an Oto-Manguean language of some sort).  Curious,
she turned to them and asked them (in Spanish) what language they were
speaking.  They blushed and replied that it was "just a dialect of
Spanish".  I guess they were so ashamed of their language that
they refused to even acknowledge speaking it.  Very very sad...

Matt.