A model of linguistic revitalization: the case of Náhuat or Pipil in El Salvador

Abstract

An essential part of the Nahuat Revitalization Project promoted by Universidad Don Bosco through the Research Department is the teaching of Nahuat in public schools located in areas where the language is still spoken by a few elder pipils. The teachers that are part of the project are not native speakers of Nahuat; they have learned the language in the training seminars on Nahuat and teaching foreign languages methodology offered by the university. The project started in 2003 with three schools and about 275 second-graders learning Náhuat. At present, there are eleven schools participating in the project and over 2500 children learning the language. The children who were first taught Nahuat in second grade at the beginning of the project, have reached a basic communication level where they can carried out common tasks and interact in simple communication situations. They have reached this level just with one or three (maximum) hours of instruction a week. The revitalization model developed as part the project can be used in the revitalization process of other minority languages in similar endangerment situation.