A UNESCO publication (Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing by Stephen A. Wurm) estimates that of the 6,000 languages spoken in the world today, at least half are endangered, seriously endangered or dying.
One situation in which a language becomes endangered and threatens to disappear is when a community comes into contact with carriers of a more aggressive culture, who speak another language. Another is when the habitat and livelihood of the speakers of local languages are destroyed by the actions of people of a dominant culture.
Both situations happened one hundred years ago in Kafagway and neighboring rancherias, home to the Ibaloi. The Americans saw the mountains, smelt the pinetrees, felt the cold winds and were overcome with homesickness. They then proceeded to declare the place the rest, recuperation, and recreation center for themselves, at the expense of the Ibaloi people who lived there since time immemorial. This dislocation led to the marginalization of the Ibaloi and made them strangers in their own lands.
Four generations later, we see the aftermath on the Ibaloi language in Baguio city. Within our clan, the Ibaloi language is hardly spoken, and not at all among the children and youth. This is one sign of endangered languages: a dwindling number of children who speak it.
However, on a more cheerful note, the Ibaloi language is spoken by the children in neighborhoods in the outskirts of Baguio city, in Ucab, Dalupirip, and other barrios of Itogon, and across the province of Benguet. And while there are still Ibalois who speak the language, there is still hope that it will regain vitality.
Calling all Ibalois in Baguio who did not have the opportunity to learn the language. Please join the Ibaloi weekly converstions, by Ibalois and their friends, on Ibaloi language and culture, which will start at 3pm on November 22, 2008. Kidlat Tahimik has graciously accepted to host our conversations at the Victor Oteyza Community Arts Space (VOCAS) at the top floor of the Azotea Building in Upper Session Road. And our aunties from Loakan are willing to guide us in our Ibaloi conversations.
Hopefully, these conversations will lead to our learning and refreshing of conversational Ibaloi, and also spark initiatives to bring Ibaloi heritage and culture in from the margins.
Please come.
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I like to learn IBaloi, they say this is very similar to Pangasinan?
ReplyDeletewww.XKGmedia.com
Language transmission can skip a generation, it is good to know that Ibaloi is on its way back to active use. Reversing language shift is built on one personal decision at at time.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that there is a book on Ibaloi language, including a small dictionary and some usage notes, that will be published soon. If people are interested in expanding this work, I recommend using the Dictionary Development Process.
URL: http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers/vandenberg-mass_elicitation_dictionary.pdf
This is a short article from a 2006 conference of linguists in Palawan on the method, which involves a 2-week seminar with native speakers, to establish an initial database for a 10,000 word dictionary. The article mentions the Toolbox software; DDP is better integrated with the more recent free software Fieldworks Language Explorer. URL: http://www.sil.org/computing/fieldworks/flex/
I hope that a DDP workshop can be organized for Ibaloi and other languages, creating some of the language resources needed to help them win a place in modern domains of usage, like Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education, that DepEd says they are now promoting. These languages have been the vehicle for traditional wisdom and culture for hundreds of generations, if the community of living speakers dwindles into nothing, a treasure that could propagate for hundreds of generations more will be lost for all time, lost to all humanity.
Your thoughts?