Abstract

BOITEL, Quentin. «Recognizing» and «revitalizing» the Nawat (Pipil) from a Ladino perspective: between essentialism and racialization. Forma. func. [online]. 2023, vol.36, n.2, e1118.  Epub June 13, 2023. ISSN 0120-338X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/fyf.v36n2.101118.

Based on a PhD ethnographic study conducted on Nawat (Pipil) revitalization initiatives in El Salvador between 2014 and 2019, this article offers an original look at the promotion of Indigenous languages by focusing on the ladino population's political interest in indigenous languages and linguistic revitalization. Based on the analysis of discourses by members of the government's communication team during a pre-electoral visit of the former president of the Republic of El Salvador to an indigenous village in the west of the country (2018), this study analyzes the historical, political, and linguistic processes through which Ladinos today promote "language recovery" and assume the rhetoric of "recognition" of Indigenous Peoples. This study shows that these discourses entail a form of coloniality of language through the essentialism of the Indigenous.

Keywords : El Salvador; Ladinos; miscegenation; Indigenous Peoples; racialization; linguistic revitalization.

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