Cuyonon (or Cuyono) is a language spoken by the Cuyonon people of the Cuyo Islands and the island of Palawan in the Philippines. In 2000, there were 29,142 speakers of the language. Due to migrations, the influence of television, rapid economic development, and intermarriage with non-Cuyonon speakers, the use of the language has drastically eroded. Approximately only ten percent of children in Cuyonon households speak the language, and many of the young people that do speak a highly creolized version of the language heavily mixing in influences from Tagalog and English.
The question of the language's survival in the coming decades has been ominous, but thankfully there have been indigenous efforts for language revitalization. Ester Timbancaya Elphick studied linguistics at UCLA and started a non-profit called the Cuyonon Language and Culture Project with the aim of documenting and revitalizing the language by establishing a standard writing system, creating a bilingual dictionary, and fostering awareness of Cuyonon cultural heritage among Cuyonons and others. They successfully incorporate elders, young people, and professional linguists in their projects, and they have developed a useful online presence. Hopefully with efforts like these, the lack of academic and social attention to the Cuyonon culture and language will be reversed and we'll see more developments like this.
Contributing to this revitalization effort is a rock band called Bulyaw Mariguen which released the first album ever to be sung in the Cuyonon language. Their name comes from the Cuyonon version of the game hide and seek. They formed the band because of "their desire to express themselves in music that makes use of their own Cuyono language, of creating music that they can call their own and that young Cuyonons can enjoy and relate to and their vision of having Cuyono music diversify (from folk to different genres) and contribute to its development." This is a picture of the band:
It's exciting to see you young speakers of an endangered language use music as a form of advocacy and revitalization so intentionally. They state that their advocacy is the following:
a response to a need for self-expression
a response to a need for representation in Palawan's media institutions
a means to entice teenagers to learn the Cuyono language
a means to somehow change the perception of the Palawenyo youth about Cuyono music and language
a means to take part in developing Cuyono music
a means to move Cuyono and Palawenyo history
This is a music video that the band produced:
For information on Cuyonon and CLCP: http://www.cuyonon.org/
For information on the band: http://bulyawmariguen.blogspot.com/
The Ainu are indigenous people of Japan and far eastern Russia who traditionally spoke languages of the Ainu language family for which no genetic relationship to other language families has been established. However, the only surviving member of the language family is Hokkaido Ainu which is spoken on the large northern island of Japan. In the 19th century, the Japanese government decided to annex the entire island of Hokkaido and to adopt a policy of cultural assimilation for the Ainu as part of their goal of Western-style of modernization. Their aboriginal status was removed and they were given Japanese citizenship and expected to conform to Japanese ways of life. The Ainu faced heavy discrimination which resulted in intermarriage with Japanese people in order to reduce visible Ainu traits. This policy from the Japanese had disastrous effects on the transmission of Ainu culture and the Ainu language. It is difficult to conclusively quantify, but currently there are about 100 speakers of Ainu, most of whom are elderly, and few speak the language regularly.
In 2008, the Japanese reverted their policy of ethnic assimilation and granted the Ainu indigenous status again. In recent times, there have been attempts at language and culture revitalization. Courses in the Ainu language have been offered to interested learners, and material in Ainu can be found online. There have also been increasing instances of young people getting interested in Ainu culture and starting to continue traditional practices of dancing, art, music, and language. One example is the band the Ainu Rebels composed of Ainu people in their 20s and 30s who perform music and dance combining traditional Ainu features with hip hop and R&B. This is a news feature on them:
Ainu is classified as a moribund language, but hopefully with new generations of Ainu revitalizing traditional practices and adapting them for their own contemporary context, the Ainu language can be preserved and Ainu youth (and other youth of endangered language communities) can be inspired.
One especially notable thing about the interview with the Ainu Rebels is that they mention being inspired by Canadian indigenous people using their native language for contemporary music. Endangered languages of the world and their processes of language extinction and revitalization have patterns- they are not all isolated and independent events. With communication between these communities, we can find these patterns and use them to aid our own communities' language revitalization.
This is a live performance by the Ainu Rebels along with another interview:
Minority languages of the world are becoming extinct at an alarming rate. Between 6000 and 7000 languages are currently spoken in the world, and between 50-90% of these languages are expected to be no longer spoken by the year 2100. This process is caused by things like political oppression, cultural hegemony, and ethnic conflict in which languages besides the dominant language are stigmatized and oppressed. This is especially common in areas affected by colonialism such as the Americas, Australia, India, and Africa. When a community loses its native language it doesn't just lose a way of speaking that is simply interchangeable with other forms, so many aspects of culture are integrally tied into the language we speak. Traditional poetry and stories are often not easily transferable into other languages, scientific knowledge about the local environment collected over millennia is embedded within language, and unique information about the history of a people group is represented by patterns in the languages they speak. Language is essentially tied into many communities' and individuals' identities, but when a language is lost, especially without documentation, it is lost forever.
Linguists and many others have been working to reverse this global trend by documenting languages and pushing for public policy and education changes that help the process of language revitalization. These actions are important, but ultimately non-speakers do not really have control over the survival and revitalization of a language. No matter what the intention of linguists, policy makers, and community
elders is regarding languages, the young people hold the key to
survival or extinction of every language. It is their decision whether to continue the legacy of their ancestors' language or not. In the face of globalization, oppression, cultural stigma, and many other factors, many children are choosing to exclusively use the dominant language and abandon the language of their parents or grandparents. Many see their language as irrelevant to contemporary life with their ancestral language being a thing of the past not adapted to modernity with things like texting, social networks, and popular music.
In the face of this issue, many young speakers of endangered languages are not deciding to abandon their language in the face of the modern globalized culture, they are adapting their native language to the current environment. They are bicultural people standing on the edge, taking aspects of the dominant culture around them and applying them in innovative ways to the minority culture they are a part of. This has always been a feature of cultural change throughout history, but with our current situation of massive language extinction all around the world, this process is vitally important to the survival of linguistic diversity. An example of this is the use of contemporary styles of music like hip-hop being used for songs written in a youth's native language. This video is one taken of two youths named Songe Nimasow and Khandu Degio rapping and singing in their native language Aka in Arunachal Pradesh, India:
Not only is this process vital, I think it's something beautiful. This blog will feature people using endangered languages in music in new ways fusing aspects of different cultures, the past and present, and preserving the beauty and traditions of their communities for us all and new generations to come. My hope is to draw attention to the issue of language extinction but also show the positive developments in language revitalization in communities around the world today and also encourage and promote young artists using their language in innovative ways. My ultimate hope is to someday find a way to raise money for a grant that will fund promising young endangered language artists to be able to record in a music studio and distribute their music. Language and music are universal and important parts of culture, and the young people of today hold the future of this all in their hands. What many of them are doing is exciting and through Singing Our Language I hope to get their voices out there to the world.
