First interdialectal
Mixtecan Dictionary

It's territories cover Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero states, it is the third most spoken language in the country and supports a rich heritage of codices, legends and artwork. It currently has 500 000 speakers but these are worrying times for the Mixtecan language. The continued marginalisation of indigenous culture, begun with the arrival of the Spanish, has seen the language pushed disturbingly close to extinction.

A group of Mixtecan academics have formed the 'Academia of the Language Mixteca' in an effort to save it.In 2001 one of their number, Professor Gabriel Caballero, began the huge task of uniting the many different Mixtecan languages.The resultant book contains as many different variations on each Mixtecan word as could be found, and weighs in at over 600 pages. It has involved Gabriel's colleagues travelling to over forty different villages in the lower, higher and coastal Mixteca regions to question the inhabitants on their own particular form of Mixtecan.

It is a sign of the diversity of language that individual villages often struggle to understand each other.A typical entry in the dictionary could have up to 11 or 12 entries for each word.Caballero, who is professor of Mixteco at the Mixtecan technological university (UTM), believes the language to currently be in a precarious position.“ In the 1930s, 40s and 50s there was a lot of discrimination and repression against the indigenous languages in Oaxaca and Mexico in general.The teachers in schools were instructed to eradicate Mixtecan.I remember in my case, when I was in primary school there were vigilance committees to check the children weren't speaking it.If you were heard, you were automatically reported to the headmaster and your parents would have to pay a fine.If they didn't pay the fine, they went to jail.”Although the attitude of the state has now softened, the older generation are, unsurprisingly, reluctant to teach it, fearful of the consequences for their descendants.

Many of the younger generation are interested in English, thinking of the opportunities north of the border.However, Gabriel believes there is also interest among the young to learn Mixtecan.He is part of, Ve'e Tu'un Savi (the academia of the mixtecan language) the organization working for the preservation and recuperation of the language.One of their aims is to provide workshops in mixteca communities, to teach the grammar and structure of the language.But the Academia are more ambitious than this.As was said in their last meeting “When Spanish was implanted as the language of the region, the government applied drastic methods to make the people forget our culture.

The same government should now apply drastic measures to start the recuperation of the language because no one is more guilty than them.It should be reinstated in all of the areas that it has been lost in the Mixteco. The church, the school, the local and regional administration, the health system… we're not saying we don't want Spanish just that it be bilingual.”Gabriel hopes that if the language begins to be used again in public spaces, it will motivate the young to learn it. If they can be encouraged to learn and, the older generation can be encouraged to teach them, the language may flourish again. If not, the future looks bleak for the Mixtecan language, and this book only a great effort to preserve it.The Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca will launch the book in it's annual celebration of Mixtecan culture, this May.