Move To Revive “Dead” Language

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30498, 21 July 1964, Page 5

Move To Revive “Dead” Language

(A’.ZP.A.Reuter!

MEXICO CITY. An Indian language spoken in Mexico before the Spanish arrived is making a strong comeback, even though manyhad regarded it as a dead language. Some Mexicans are urging the adoption of Nauatl as Mexico’s official language in place of Spanish. Nauatl was one of the major languages spoken by Mexicans for many centuries. Its defenders recently met in Mexico City at the first congress of the Nauatl language. Evidence that the ancient tongue is not dead was seen in the Congress, where speeches were made in both Nauatl and Spanish. Some delegates went as far as to refuse to use the latter language. Here and there groups were seen chatting and joking in the old mother tongue. Children who had learned Spanish as a native tongue were also heard chatting in Nauatl, which they have mastered with a new text-book for teaching Nauatl in state schools.

The book, written by Professors Maria del Carmen Nieva Lopez and Pablo Garcia Morales, has been ap-

proved by the Education Department Il is already being successfully used in the schools of Cuajimalpa, a nearby Indian community on the outskirts of Mexico City.

It was this book which led to a heated debate after the announcement by the Education Department of plans to offer Nauatl as an optional subject in secondary school curricula.

Some delegates saw hope in this offer. Others demanded that the language be taught as an obligatory subject, with a view to having ail Mexicans learn it until it becomes the official language, with Spanish on the same secondary level as English and French. The congress, sponsored by the Academy of the Mexican Language, or Mezika-Tlahtol-Kalli in Nauatl. as part of the Confederated Restoration Movement of Anauak. also discussed ways and means of restoring not only the ancient languages of this nation, but also its cultures destroyed by the conquerors.

Various delegates urged the need for corrections in modern history text-books to erase misconceptions, the creation of organisations such as the Academy of Mexika Philosophy and Mexika Law, to study and promote the two subjects as perfected by the extinct empire, and the establishment of institutes to attempt to restore Mexika mathematics and other sciences, as they were known by the old inhabitants of the Valley of Anahuac.