Yanomami languages in the dystopian present
The book “Línguas Yanomami no Brasil: diversidade e vitalidade” [Yanomami Languages in Brazil: diversity and vitality], the culmination of a study led by indigenous researchers, is being launched this Thursday (August 6) and points to ways of preserving the rich linguistic and cultural heritage of these people, threatened by the Covid-19 epidemic.
By Marina Terra / Illustrations: Mavi Morais
“With each language that disappears, humanity loses a way of perceiving the world and a way of speaking about it. The extinction of a language is also the extinction of an entire range of cultural, ecological, artistic and historical knowledge, often times uniquely codified by that language. When a language dies, a way of being human also dies.” The book Yanomami Languages in Brazil, a publication born out of the project “Yanomami linguistic diversity: an intercultural perspective”, and with a virtual launch this Thursday 6th of August, at 5:30 pm, features the power and the richness of the linguistic diversity of these people and, in this moment in history, contributes to reinforcing the importance of protecting it.
Assailed by wildcat mining, deforestation and now Covid-19, the Yanomami call the epidemics “xawara.” The diseases, according to the indigenous perspective, escape from deep within the earth because the white men destroy the forest to extract minerals. In June, Hutukara Associação Yanomami launched the campaign “Miners Out, Covid Out!” which calls for the removal of invaders from Yanomami territory and has already collected over 350,000 signatures from around the world.
Click to listen to Otimisoma Sanöma, from the village Kolulu, speaking in the Yanomami language of Sanöma: https://isa.to/2Psvi35
Organized by the researchers Helder Perri, Ana Maria Machado and Estevão Benfica Senra and published by Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), in partnership with the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN), the 216-page book, which contains maps, photos and texts, features a profile of each language of the Yanomami family, providing a historical and sociolinguistic panorama of the groups that speak these languages, and highlights the grammatical similarities and differences that characterize them. The analysis also evaluated the health of the Yanomami languages, identifying their primary threats and strengths. The initiative also led to the identification of a sixth language of the Yanomami family, Yãnoma (know more it in the end).
Indigenous researchers
As the linguist Helder Perri explained, the partnership with the five Yanomami associations (Hutukara, AYRCA, Kurikama, Texoli and Hwenama), which recommended the indigenous researchers that formed the project team, all teachers or former teachers of their communities, literate in their mother tongues, was fundamental to develop this broad diagnosis. “We identified 16 broad Yanomami dialects on Brazilian soil. We endeavored to use mutual intelligibility as the central and defining criterion for the linguistic divisions. When they are mutually intelligible, it is the same language; when they are not, they are different languages. Following the criterion of mutual intelligibility, these 16 dialects were grouped into six languages,” Perri explained.
However, this variety poses a risk, warns the researcher. With over 7,000 languages catalogued in the world today, there are scholars who predict that 50% of them will be replaced by dominant languages within 100 years, while more pessimistic predictions point to a linguistic mortality of 90% by the end of the 21st century. Neither of the scenarios can be described as “optimistic,” he emphasized.
“It is from this somewhat dystopian, albeit realistic, perspective about the future of languages in the world,” according to the researcher, that the group dedicated itself to the study: a testament to Yanomami linguistic vigor and complexity in times of great threat to the survival of the communities and their ways of life. And, as contact with domestic society grows, concern over preservation also grows. “Increased contact of the Yanomami with the Portuguese language and the intensification of their relations with the napëpë [the "whites"] raise the question: Will the Yanomami languages survive in full force for another 50 or 100 years? It is with language, after all, that we codify our thoughts, build our identity and enjoy life in society, on so many levels,” write the authors.
Despite the six Yanomami languages spoken in Brazil by practically all 25,800 Yanomami and the relatively satisfactory intergenerational transmission for some of them, the study points to new generations not being “fully prepared to deal with the vectors of pressure that will appear in the coming decades.” The first of them, which directly affects diversity, is demographics: only 180 people speak Yãnoma and 400 speak Ỹaroamë. In comparison, Yanomam is the most popular language, with 11,900 speakers.
In Ỹaroamë, avião becomes “apião”. Listen to these and other words.
Another challenge results from pressures from contact with the surrounding society, near the villages, which shows little or no openness to bilingualism. The publication underscores that in the public institutions that exist on Yanomami Indigenous Land, such as health clinics, “there is all most no formal or informal incentive to communicate using the Yanomami languages.” Another element prejudicial to the languages is the gradual loss of forms of artistic expression and more complex forms of linguistic expression, including the narration of myths and ceremonial dialogues. “In the villages, currently, these forms of linguistic expression compete with foreign videos and music for attention, most importantly at night, a time when elders generally tell stories and speak in the collective house,” the book reports.
Contact between the language of the napëpë (the "whites") and that of the Yanomami is inevitably reflected in the speech of the indigenous people, including the use of neologisms and the “Yanomization” of words. This creativity, also expressed through metaphor—a linguistic device very familiar to the Yanomami—emerges with the arrival of new elements that become a part of community life. In Yanomama, television is utupë taamotima thë (image display), fork, pore nahasi (spirit fingernail) and hospital, hanɨpratima yano (house where [people] are cut). “Airplane pilot” becomes apiama xẽe e or literally “father-in-law of the plane.” In this case, the plane is at the service of the person operating it. In Yanomami culture, a son-in-law must work for his father-in-law.
The “yanomization” of words in Portuguese was the starting point for ISA’s invitation to visual artist Mavi Morais to produce the images that illustrate this article.
Yanomami women at the forefront
To slow the decline, the project recommends building strategies to promote linguistic richness together with the Yanomami, by encouraging the discussion of elements and ways to preserve the languages. This approach highlights the importance of women.
“They, as mothers and the ones mainly responsible for the socialization of children, play a fundamental role in the transmission of indigenous languages. In addition, in most regions of the Yanomami Indigenous Land, they have less exposure to Portuguese, since they frequent cities less often and have less access to digital media,” explain the researchers. “The inclusion of women in the discussions for developing any plan to protect and strengthen the Yanomami languages is strategic, as well as the inclusion of initiatives designed around them.”
It is the responsibility of the Brazilian government to protect Yanomami land from encroachment, which increases the vulnerability of the communities and, consequently, of the Yanomami languages. At present, over 20,000 wildcat miners operate illegally on Yanomami Indigenous Land, bringing with them Covid-19 and other diseases, threatening the communities and contaminating the rivers and the fish with mercury. “Once again, it is up to the Yanomami to maintain the strength, richness and creativity of their languages and continue to fight for their rights in this scenario that appears increasingly indifferent and resistant to diversity,” the authors conclude.
Yãnoma, a new language identified
Currently, no detailed information exists about the Yãnoma language, whose identification was an achievement of the research consolidated in the book. According to Helder Perri, its “status as a language” is based only on reports of mutual intelligibility by speakers of Yãnoma, Ỹaroamë and Yanomae, corroborated by oral histories that identify the groups that speak these languages as historically unrelated.
“We discovered no new speakers. What happened was that we updated the scientific knowledge based on the understanding and experience of the Yanomami speakers themselves,” the linguist reported. According to Perri, Yãnoma was previously considered a dialect of Ỹaroamë; however, after the teams visited a region in which both Ỹaroamë and Yãnoma are spoken, there were reports of indigenous people who had married with those who spoke the other language and had difficulties in the first few years to understand everything that was being said. Another element that supports Yãnoma being considered a language are reports by this group and the Ỹaromë about the migratory routes of their ancestors, indicating that they came by different routes.
Despite the evidence gathered, Yãnoma is still not listed on the main international catalogs of world languages: Glottolog and Ehnologue. Specific studies are still needed to effectively catalog Yãnoma and generate consensus in the scientific community.
