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Triqui (de la baja) is an indigenous language spoken in Oaxacan Mexico. Because the area is increasingly dangerous and violent most native speakers will eventually not only leave the area but also leave the language behind with it.
There are an estimated 40,000 people who are fluent in Triqui worldwide. More than half of them no longer live in Oaxaca and around 10 percent of them live right next door in the Salinas Valley.
Although institutions like Monterey Language Services provide translation services in courts and hospitals, there is still worry that this rare language will not survive. Any attempt to save a language will have to be in large numbers in order to succeed.
Barbara Hollenbach, who works with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, is working on a Triqui-Spanish dictionary with 6,000 entries. She believes this is a step in the right direction but says, “The only way to keep a language alive is oral transmission between generations.”
Source : http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/2012/jun/07/speaking-minds/
Note:
The picture, which shows traditional Triqui weaving patterns, is from one of our colleague’s private collection. The artwork was created by a Triqui artisan group here in our area of Monterey County.
In our community, other languages indigenous to Oaxacan Mexico are spoken, including Mixteco, Zappotec, Chatino, & Nahuatl, etc. These languages need to be preserved as well.
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