AMERINDIAN HERITAGE AND AMERINDIAN LANGUAGES

Sep 30, 2018 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists

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BY PAT DIAL

We commenced Amerindian Heritage Month, which is commemorated in September each year. The Month was appropriately kicked off with a service of the Halleluja Religion, which is an indigenous Christian-inspired Faith. The Heritage of ethnic communities is largely concerned with cultural, historical and societal matters in their broadest sense and not with economic and social requirements of that particular community.
For example, to speak of the State creating roads or water supplies or electricity or educational institutions or village government and attempting to link these things with Amerindian Heritage Month misses its focus. The State is obligated to provide these public works and social amenities to all communities and the country as a whole and is involved in doing those things every month of the year. Amerindian Heritage Month and its activities are national events, which all ethnic groups are expected to respect and in which to even participate.
Politics in Guyana is a divisive thing and as such, we should avoid it touching Amerindian Heritage Month since it will diminish the meaning and impact of it.
There are numerous aspects of our Amerindian Heritage which need to be explained and exposed to the wider community and they range from many simple things which non-Amerindians take for granted such as the Presidential emblem with the large macaw feathers.
It would be an enlightening exercise to explain the use of feathers in the Amerindian Tradition, their colour, length, how they are placed in relation to each other and so on. There are many other more important areas of the Amerindian Heritage, which need to be explored and researched.
One of the most important areas is the Amerindian languages. Although some philological work has been done on the Guanani language of Paraguay and the Quecha language of Bolivia, both of which are widely spoken languages, no philological work has ever been undertaken on the seven Amerindian languages of Guyana, some of which are spoken in the neighbouring countries.
The University of Guyana, for many years, has had an Amerindian Research Department, which was headed by Dr Desrey Fox who was an Amerindian and whose mother-tongue was an Amerindian language. The Department was always underfunded and little or no philological work was done.
It was recently reported in the press that the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) would be issuing some notices in four Amerindian languages. This was a very welcome initiative for it gives the Amerindian languages some official recognition and communicates with Amerindian language speakers. In the past, because so large a part of the population were Hindi/Urdu speakers, the Law Courts always had Hindi interpreters available.
And ballot papers used at national elections until the 1950’s had their basic instructions in Hindi as well as in English. Despite this and the fact that Hindi/Urdu is still used in the mandirs and masjids and is the language of Bollywood films and Indian TV Soaps, it fell out of spoken usage.
Our Amerindian languages, in contrast, have far less of a survival potential than Hindi/Urdu and are in imminent danger of being eliminated by English. Quick action is therefore necessary to save and sustain the Amerindian languages and preserve one important aspect of the cultural heritage of not only the Amerindian community but of all Guyana.
A number of activities could be taken by the State, the Educational Authorities, NGO’s which are involved in Amerindian affairs, the Churches and the Amerindian community itself to preserve these languages:
In the first place, some economic benefit should be accorded the use of the language; one such could be that Government employees who work in Amerindian areas should be given extra allowances if they could speak and understand Amerindian languages, Also advertisements for small contracts or for certain jobs could be carried in the Amerindian languages.
The widest spoken Amerindian language should be chosen as the lingua franca and taught in the schools though the smaller languages should be encouraged as “home languages”. In time, prizes could be given for literary attempts in the language.
Word spellings should be agreed upon and dictionaries should be produced both for the language itself and with Amerindian words in English. These actions will standardize the language and make it more accessible.
The basic language could fairly quickly be introduced in the elementary classes of the schools in the Amerindian areas. Since there would be initially a shortage of teachers, they could be shared.
Lastly, help could be sought through UNESCO and from the relevant academic institutions in the USA, Britain and France. Amerindian Heritage Month 2018 could be a watershed if the language programme could be substantively considered.

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