Linguistic attitudes toward Shipibo in Cantagallo: Reshaping indigenous language and identity in an urban setting

Abstract

Aims and objectives: This study aims to explore language attitudes among speakers of Shipibo, an Amazonian indigenous language from the Panoan family, in the community of Cantagallo in the city of Lima, an urban, Spanish-dominant environment. The study is motivated by the paucity of studies on language attitudes in urban indigenous communities. The Cantagallo Shipibo community was settled in the early 2000s and temporarily relocated in 2017. Methodology: Interviews were conducted based on questionnaires with two groups of participants in 2002 and 2017, 60 in total, focusing on their attitudes toward Shipibo and Spanish. Some of the participants answered the questionnaires both times, others answered only once. Responses were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Open-ended responses were classified into similar categories and tallied. Findings: Participants showed positive attitudes toward Shipibo-Konibo in 2002 and 2017, and strong identification with it, but language shift toward Spanish is now taking place, especially among the second generation. This development has triggered perceived changes in the performance aspects of linguistic identity. Furthermore, while in 2002 attitudes toward Spanish were mostly positive, in 2017 some negative attitudes toward the majority language emerged along with the perception of discrimination against the Shipibo-Konibo. Originality: The study’s originality rests on tracing the evolution of this community’s perspectives on language use from shortly after its arrival in Cantagallo, Lima, to its final relocation. Furthermore, few other studies have engaged this Shipibo community in Lima regarding language attitudes. Significance: The project highlights the importance of different factors in the successful language maintenance in this context. Specifically, although speakers still have positive attitudes toward Shipibo, they also see increasing advantages to speaking Spanish, a clear case of utility-maximization. Limitations: Although the study provides important insights, its methodology (a questionnaire/interview) gives a partial view of the language attitudes and maintenance in this community.

Attitudes of Students towards the Study of Ghanaian Languages in University of Cape Coast

“…These motivations are instrumental because the students are learning the language for personal interest and it is a positive attitude. Contrastively, it can be noticed that the lowest of the scores is 8.9% followed by 10.9, with the statements these scores are attached to the statements: I can speak and communicate fluently with others, especially family and friends, listen and understand those who speak it, and it will bolster my cultural identity, a finding similar to Sánchez, Mayer, Camacho, and Alzza's (2018) that their participants had a strong identification with the Shipibo-Konibo language. These motivations are also instrumental since these students will study the language with a zeal to be able to use in life.…”

“…Another finding was that parents believed early exposure to English enhanced academic performance. Furthermore, Sánchez, Mayer, Camacho, and Alzza (2018) explored language attitudes among speakers of Shipibo, an Amazonian indigenous language from the Panoan family, in the community of Cantagallo in the city of Lima, an urban, Spanish-dominant environment. Interviews were conducted based on questionnaires with two groups of participants in 2002 and 2017, 60 in total, focusing on their attitudes toward Shipibo and Spanish, with some of the participants answering the questionnaires both times, but others answering only once.…”

Language Attitude toward Vernacular Language Use: A Case of Jakarta

“…Made had better vernacular language than them because he was able to respond using Balinese language. (Sanchez, Mayer, Camacho, & Carolina (2018) and Crezee (2012) pointed that urbanization or migration gave the disadvantages, especially their vernacular language or tribal languages were shifted to the majority language (minority languages competed to majority language) [7] [8]. That case occurred to the migrants who moved to Jakarta as the multiethnic city which their vernacular languages competed to Bahasa Indonesia as the national and official language.…”

“…Mostly, their answers were to maintain their vernacular language and keep their local identity. Sanchez et al, (2018) urged that language represented people's ethnicity. The positive attitude and value contributed to the language maintain [4].…”

16 The drivers of home language maintenance and development in indigenous communities

“…However, increased migration to cities means that large numbers of minority language speakers are now located in urban centers, sometimes creating more complex linguistic interactions as well as the need to redefine what constitutes an indigenous linguistic identity in an urban environment (May 2014;Davis 2018;Shulist 2018;Ferguson 2019). Sánchez et al (2018) describe how attitudes towards languages have changed over fifteen years in a community of speakers of Shipibo who migrated from the Amazonian region of Pucallpa to the city of Lima, Peru. Away from the traditional rural areas where minority languages were based, some groups have begun to develop innovative initiatives where minority languages may be rooted.…”