___!

'_a e 1 of 22

DE GRUYTER MOUTON
DOI 10.1515/ijsl·2013-0039 - IJSL 2013; 222: 195-216

Small languages and small language

2
3
communities 74
4
s Editor: Emily McEwan-Fujita
7
SHIFTING LANGUAGE ATTITUDES IN NORTH-WEST AMAZON IA*
9
_1 ()
ALEXANDRA Y. AIKHENVALD
11
12 Abstract: Tariana is an endangered language spoken by about 100 people in a
13 remote area of northwest Amazonia, Brazil. The language is spoken in a fascinat-
1 '• ing area where one can only marry someone who speaks a different language and
15 who belongs to a different ethnic group. Tariana is being rapidly displaced by an
16 unrelated language, Tucano. The article focuses on the drastic changes which
!7 have occurred among the Tariana over the past decade. At present, Tariana speak-
rn ing communities as such no longer exist. The linguistic exogamy is occasionally
19 violated. Language remains the badge of identity, but for most people only in
20 theory. The puristic language attitudes have relented. Occasional code-switching
n with Tucano and Portuguese (the national language) is no longer considered a
22 mark of incompetence. Many Tariana lament that their language is being lost,
n and are relying on the scl1ool to "learn it back", and the language is no longer
21, spoken in the fanillies.
25
Keywords: language endangerment; exogamy; language obsolescence; language
26
teaching; language and culture maintenance; Vaupes.
27
28
.?9
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald: Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University.
:>o E-mail: alexandra.aikhenvald@jcu.edu.au
J1
J2

3S
3 r:, * My work was partly supported by two Discovery Projects from the Australian Research Council
("The world through the prism of language" and "The grammar of knowledge"). I am grateful to
37
my Tariana family, especially to Jovino, Rafael and Leonardo Brito for their pivotal role in the
] 8 Tatiana language maintenance. Special thanks go to R. M. W. Dixon, Nancy Dorian and Emily
39 McEwan-Fujita for incisive comments. I am indebted to Ciicio Silva, Elisangela Silva, Carlos
LH) Janzen and Elfriede Janzen for their care and support throughout my fieldwork.

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 196 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

1 Introduction
2
More than three thousand ethnic Tariana live on the margins of the Vaupes River, l
a major tributary of the Rio Negro, which flows off the mighty River Amazon. Only 4
few people still speak the language, and hardly any children are learning it. The ;
language situation and language attitudes have drastically changed since tradi- (,
tional times, and especially over the past twelve years, between 2000 and 2012. 0

Tariana is one of more than 200 indigenous languages of Brazil. Its study is signif- s
icant for linguistics thanks to its many unusual properties (as shown in Aikhen- 9
vald 2003a). The language is particularly fascinating from a sociolinguistic per- 1'J
spective since it is spoken in a linguistic area where one is obliged to marry 11
someone from a different language group. In other words, every Tariana is multi- 12
lingual, and the language shows the impact of contact with other languages 13
spoken in the area. These belong to the Tucanoan family and are not genetically l'•
related to Tariana. This article is a sequel to an earlier study published in the 15
SLSLC section, Aikhenvald (2003c), which described the language situation and 16
language attitudes up to 2000. Things have drastically changed between then 17
and now, and this article provides a longitudinal description of the changes that lii
have taken place. 19
The loss of the Tatiana language in major settlements along the Vaupes River 2tl
started early in the twentieth century. The Tariana (and many other peoples of the 21
Brazilian Vaupes) switched to Tucano, a major lingua franca of the region. By the 22
1990s, Tariana was spoken by about 70 people in Santa Rosa and Periquitos, two 23
remote villages up the Vaupes River. These two villages are located within the 21,
jurisdiction of the mission centre lauarete, close to the border between Brazil '5
and Colombia. lauarete is part of the municipality of Sao Gabriel da Cachoiera (a 26
regional capital). In the 1990s, about 2,000 people lived in lauarete. Among them 27
were many of the Tariana who no longer spoke the language, and about fifteen 2s
speakers ofTariana. By 2012, the population oflauarete grew to be c. 3,000. Many 29
of the Tariana speakers from Santa Rosa and from Periquitos moved to Iauarete. :io
Some moved to the rapidly expanding city of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, in search ;1
of better jobs, better schools and better living conditions. 32
33

2 The Tariana language 35

Tariana was once a dialect continuum spoken in various settlements along the -17
Vaupes river and its tributaries. The Tariana people were divided into ten clan 38
groups. These each spoke a distinct dialect, and formed a hierarchy. Lower- ·19
ranking groups in this hierarchy (referred to as "younger siblings" by their ,,,,

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 197

higher-ranking tribes people) would perform various ritual duties for their "elder
2 siblings" - for instance, they would light their cigar during the Offering ritual.
·; The difference between each clan dialect was comparable to that between Ro-
4 mance languages.
s As the Catholic missions expanded, and with them the influence of Brazilian
6 mainstream civilization, the groups near the top of the hierarchy abandoned the
7 Tatiana language in favor of the numerically dominant Tucano language. This
G also reflected the policy adopted by the Catholic (Salesian) missionaries who pro-
9 mated Tucano at the expense of other indigenous languages. The idea that an
1o Indian should be multilingual was anathema to the missionaries. They did their
11 best to eradicate the "pagan" custom of multilingualism. This was done through
12 the dormitory system, where children, taken away from their parents for most of
u the year, were encouraged to speak nothing but Tucano.
11; According to early documents, some Tariana dialects in the area of lower
1s Vaupes were close to extinction in the early 1900s. In the 1950s and 1960s a
16 number of higher-ranked Tariana dialects were reportedly still known to older
J 7 people. By 2012 all these dialects were extinct.
1 ;i Tarianais currently spoken in the Iauarete district only by members of a lower-
19 ranking subclan called Wamiarikune. There are two dialects, those of Santa Rosa
20 and of Periquitos. Differences between them are slight, but notable; they can be
2:t compared to those between British and American English. Older and more knowl-
22 edgeable speakers used to be aware of the differences, and preferred not to mix
2 3 the extant dialects. In 2012, younger people care less.
21, The other languages in this area belong to the East Tucanoan family and they
25 are still spoken by a fair number of people. Tatiana belongs to the Arawak lan-
26 guage family - related to the famous Taina, the first Indian language heard by
27 Chrisopher Columbus when he arrived in 1492 at the central American island of
2s Hispaniola (Taina became extinct less than 150 years later: Aikhenvald 1999b,
29 2012a). Tatiana is the only Arawak language in the Vaupes region.
30
31
n 3 The social setting
33
y, The Tariana language is spoken in a fascinating area where, traditionally, one
35 could only marry someone who speaks a different language and who belongs to a
36 different tribe (this is called linguistic exogamy). People used to say: "My brothers
37 are those who share a language with me" and "We don't marry our sisters". That
38 is, in the Vaupes River Basin area one's ethnic identity is inextricably linked to
39 one's linguistic aliegiance. The loss of one's language has traditionally been con-
1,,) sidered pitiful and, ultimately, a shameful thing. People who marry members of

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 198 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

their own group are "like dogs" - only dogs marry their own brothers and
sisters. 2
Language is traditionally inherited through one's father. Language profi- J
ciency, and the ability to speak the language "correctly" used to be of primary ''
importance. Those who speak a "borrowed language" have nothing of their own. 5
Traditionally, the Vaupes River Basin used to be perhaps the most multi- G
lingual area in the world. In traditional times, each person knew several languages: -
their father's (which is the language they identify with), their mother's, their 8
spouse's, and languages of other relatives and other members of the community. 9
The basic rule of traditional language choice throughout the Vaupes area is l ''
that one should speak the interlocutor's own language. According to the language 11
"etiquette" of the area, one has to speak the language one identifies with - that is, 12
one father's language - to one's siblliigs, father and all his relatives, and mother's n
language to one's mother and her relatives. .t ,,
Traditionally, to "know" a language in the Vaupes context means to know it 15
through and through. Only those who have a native-speaker-like proficiency in a 16
language would acknowledge that they actually "know" it. 1 The Tatiana used to t7
refer to those who know just the names of flora and fauna but cannot produce a 1B
story in the language as "those who only call names". 19
A further feature of the traditional Vaupes River Basin linguistic ideology 20
consists in strongly negative attitudes against recognizable loans and code- 21
switches. Someone who inserts words in Tucano, Piratapuya or Desano into his or 22
her Tatiana is referred to as "useless" This puristic attitude operated as a strong 23
brake against an influx oflexical loans (but see Aikhenvald 2012b). 2'<
Across the world, speakers think of a language in terms of its vocabulary. '5
Purism among the Tatiana (and elsewhere) "focuses most zealously on lexicon as 26
a particularly salient locus for contamination" (Dorian 1994: 486). However, East n
Tucanoan structural influence has permeated the Tatiana grammar patterns. This 2s I
is the reason why Tatiana, ,£..a
the Vaupes River Basin linguistic area, is structur- 2f S
1
;oo/( ~ n, l 'vt,
ally different from closely related Arawak languages, and has been so attractive 30
for students of language contact (see, e.g., Aikhenvald 2002b; Heine and Kuteva J1
2005). 32
Thanks to the efforts of the Salesian missionaries, and general Brazilian edu- 33
cation policies, Tariana is being rapidly replaced by Tucano, the major indige- ~;,,
nous language of the Vaupes, and by Portuguese, the national language of Brazil. 3s
This has created a major disruption in the traditional pattern of language and 36
37

1 More details on the Vaupes River Basin Linguistic area with a special focus on Tariana is in 38
Aikhenvald (1999a, 1999b, 2002a, 2002b, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c and forthcoming); cf. Sorensen 39
(1967) for a similar situation in the Colombian Vaupes where there are no Tariana. 40

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 199

culture transmission, and contributed to destabilizing one of the most multi-

2 lingual areas in the world. What used to be a situation of stable multilingualism
3 without dominance of one language group over another is no more.
4 This whole area has been under the constant control of the Catholic Salesian
5 mission since mid-1920s. The missionaries made sure the people in the villages
6 abandoned their "pagan" customs, threw the traditional paraphernalia away,
7 and became good Christians. Children were sent to dormitories, and forbidden to

B use languages other than Tucano, the majority language. As a result, when I
9 started working with the Tariana in the 1990s, only very few people still remem-
1u bered the traditional Offering Feasts, male and female initiation, and songs. The
11 Salesian missionaries used to be in charge of the school and of the hospital. Now-
12 adays, in 2012, they have changed their negative attitudes to language and cul-
13 lure: they are advocating language and culture maintenance. This change of
J/, policy has happened gradually, since mid-1990s, under the leadership of the then
15 Bishop Dom Ivam Azevedo, an open-minded supporter of Indians and their
1ri culture.
17 The overall control of health and education is currently in the hands of the
1" local Indigenous organizations and National lay authorities. The role of Portu-
19 guese is growing: this is the major means of instruction, and most people in their
20 forties and younger know it well. Colombia is just across the border - many indig-
21 enous people go there for extra work, and some Colombian Indians flee to Brazil,
22 to avoid the drug lords. Thus, many people know Spanish, which is also the for-
2 3 eign language taught in secondary schools in Iauarete.
24 Traditionally, someone's standing in the community and value as its member
25 was strongly linked to their language proficiency, and also the knowledge of tra-
26 ditional lore. Rampant language loss among the Tatiana (and other peoples of the
27 Brazilian Vaupes) did not result in the people downgrading the value of the lan-
2s guage. On the contrary: people strongly lament the loss of the "good old days"
29 and "good old ways" of speech, producing something similar to what Jane Hill
30 (1998) described as a "discourse of nostalgia" in her discussion of the bilingual
31 communities around the Malinche volcano in central Mexico.
32 The growing language loss is threatening in yet another way. "Full knowl-
33 edge" of a language is gradually ceasing to be accessible to many people. How-
31, ever, the language remains a major badge of identity- hence the desire of almost
35 all the Tatiana not to lose their language, or to "learn it back''. The Brazilian
·;G state's new emphasis on proving one's indigenous group membership through
37 language proficiency contributes to the strong desire o~ariana to learn their lan-
38 guage back.
39

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 200 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

4 The winds of change in north-west Amazonia,

2
and the new values l
4
The early 2000s have seen a surge in interest, and support for indigenous lan-
5
guages and cultures of the Upper Rio Negro area, and Amazonia in general. A
(,
large part of this stemmed from the support of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), 0
a scholarly body with bases in Brasilia and Sao Paulo, itself supported mostly
8
from overseas (also see www.instituto.socioambiental.org.br). It finances com-
9
munity projects, but not indigenous schools; the latter have been supported by
_l ()
the Brazilian government since the mid 2000s. Indigenous leaders' activities
11
have resulted in the creation of various organizations, under the umbrella of the
12
Federation of the Indigenous organizations of the Upper Rio Negro (FOIRN). This
13
powerful body works together with the Instituto Socioambiental, and helps local
14
Indigenous organizations and groups organize language and culture revitaliza-
15
lion programs.'
16
Thanks to the efforts of ISA, FOIRN, and numerous community leaders and
17
activists, an important event took place at the end of 2002. Three indigenous lan-
18
guages of the Upper Rio Negro area were granted official status -Tucano, Baniwa
19
and Nheengatu (or Lingua Geral)- by a decree of22 November 2002. For compar-
2l)
ison, in 2012 only two other Brazilian states have official indigenous languages.
21
Following the lead of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, the municipality Tacuru in Mato
22
Grosso do Sul officialized Guarani (a Tupi-Guarani language) on 24 May 2010.
23
Officialization of Guarani in Paranhos, within the same state, is currently in prog-
2
ress. Akwe Xerente, a Je language, acquired official status in the municipality of ''
23
Tocantinia in the state of Tocantins in May 2012.
26
The officialization of the three languages in the Upper Rio Negro has facili-
27
tated creation of schools and educational programs (some at the level of tertiary
28
education), and production of school materials. This also gave a boost to creating ;o
further schools with an indigenous focus (called "differential schools") for other _,
30
groups, including the Tariana and the Tuyuca. And also, general support for
Jl
32
2 For instance, the ethnic Warekena in six communities on the Xie River requested that I should 3 3
come back and help them in revitalization of their language. FOIRN and a Laboratory of Indig- 3fi
enous studies at the Federal University of Amazonas (under the leadership of Ivani Faria) 3:;
provided support for a three day workshop on the Warekena of Xie in the community of Campinas 36
(20-22 May 2012). This was run by myself with the help of Eneida Silva (a lecturer from the
37
University of Amazonas), and Arthur Baltazar and Anderson Tomas Ferreira (from the Campinas
community). Similarly to the present-dayTariana, there is no Warekena-speaking community in 38
Brazil. The workshop had more than a hundred people taking part, and was intended as a 39
start-up for a larger project of language and culture revitalization. But that is another story. 4(l

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 201

indigenous people on the federal and state levels has increased substantially
2during the last five years. There are now financial benefits, including one-off
3 payments, for those who can prove that they are indigenous. Universities offer
4 "indigenous-only" places and scholarships. Being "indigenous" has prestigious
5 overtones, and has become a desirable asset.
G The Portuguese term India, with its slightly pejorative overtones, is being re-
7 placed by indigena 'Indigenous person' with no such connotations. Throughout
B the munidpality of Sao Gabriel, it is now appropriate to talk about "indigenous
9 languages", rather than "dialects" (dialetos) or "jargons" eg/nas), as was the case
1o throughout the 1990s and before that.
11 To be eligible for special support and benefits, one requires a document con-
12 firming one's indigenous identity, colloquially referred to as an "indigenous cer-
n tificate" (certificado indigena). To receive this document, one needs to show that
1" one's parents are of indigenous origin. People are also often asked if they know
15 their language and culture, and if they know their indigenous "sacred" blessing
16 names. Those who do not are often ridiculed (and are known to have been denied
1 7 the certificate: Jovino Brito, Ilda da Silva Cardoso, p.c.). Having to have some tan-
'" gible knowledge to "prove" one's indigenousness has prompted interest in get-
19 ting acquainted with one's language, acquiring some cultural knowledge, and
20 learning one's sacred name.
21 A sacred blessing name is usually given to a baby, or to a child when it is
22 blessed by a healer. This usually happens when the child gets sick, or when the
2l healer feels ready to bless the child. Each subclan has a set of such blessing
21, names (a full set of the Warniarikune's names is in Aikhenvald [1999a]). The
25 blessing names are employed in healing ceremonies, evenis that are very irnpor-
26 tan! in remote areas of north-west Amazonia where not much is available in terms
27 of Western medicine.
28 Many young Tariana (who do not speak the language) are now keen to learn
29 their sacred names. The lists in Aikhenvald (1999a) have suddenly become very
30 useful: one of the sons of a now deceased Tariana speaker (Gara, who died at the
31 end of2008) was very happy to learn his "true" blessing name, different from the
32 one on the basis of which he had obtained his "Indigenous certificate". His reac-
33 lion was: "the name I gave to the agency was wrong, it did not work; I now know
V• the right one, and it will help me be healthy".
15 The value which Tariana themselves put on cultural knowledge is one of the
36 driving forces behind the attempts to maintain teaching some cultural practices
F at the Tariana school. In the traditional Tatiana society, "dance-masters" were a
38 specialized group. Among the Wamiarikune, the Brito of Santa Rosa used to be
"J9 dance-masters. The elders (most of whom are now gone) complained to me in the
1,,1 1990s and early 2000s that they'd lost their skills, and knowledge. Since 2010,

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 202 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

one of the focuses of the Tatiana school has been teaching students how to dance l
to the traditional music - following the lead of the upper-ranking Tatiana groups 2
that did preserve this knowledge. The dance movements, the implements, and J
the paraphernalia associated with the dances (an apron, and a feather head-dress t,
for men, and a grass-skirt for women) can be called "standard average-Vaupes" 5
(a good description of these was provided by Briizzi [1977]) - they are shared 6
not just by the Tatiana, but also by other groups. The patterns of face-painting ,
now in use in the Tariana school are the ones preserved and transmitted by the 8
upper-ranking Tatiana. They have become the "norm" (according to Briizzi [1977], 9
different Tariana subclans used to have somewhat different weaving patterns and l •J
face painting; these differences have at present been leveled). 11
Language has always been the badge of identity for the indigenous people of 12
the Vaupes. Language loss has created a discrepancy between traditional values u
placed upon being able to master one's father's language, and modem reality: u,
many Tariana speak a "borrowed" language, and are thus not "up to standard". 15
This in itself is a good enough reason to try and learn the language back - some- 16
thing we saw at the first Tariana learning workshop run in Iauarete in 2000 (see 17
Aikhenvald 2003c). The affective value of language is another factor - as pointed 18
out by McEwan-Fujita (2010), positive emotional connections with one's "own" 19
language are a strong motivation for keeping it in use. In the Vaupes context, 20
one's "own" language is one's father's language. 21
Language loss, and the loss of traditional knowledge, has resulted in the 22
increased value of linguistic and cultural documents of Tariana: the dictionary, 23
the existing cultural description, the recorded and transcribed texts, and also 2•1
web-resources. Gradually, the focus has started shifting from the spoken to the cs
written word.
27
2S
5 "Lest we Lose our Language": establishing 29
Tariana in the school system :~o

3i
When I first started working with the speakers of Wamiarikune Tariana back in 32
1991, many expressed concern that the language was going, with children not 33
learning it. The first primer was designed in 1994. Building on a large corpus of :;r;
stories, and a comprehensive grammar and dictionary ofTariana (see Aikhenvald 35
1999a, 2002a, 2003a), we put together pedagogical materials: several mimeo- 36
graphed collections of Tariana stories, a teaching manual, and a better quality 37
primer with pictures. 38
In June 2000, a Tatiana-teaching workshop was run in Iauarete - the details 39
are in Aikhenvald (2003c). After the workshop, the general feeling was phrased '••l

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 203

l by Jovino Brito, a major activist of !be Tariana language maintenance: "now !bat
2 our language is taught at school, we won't lose it". The workshop indeed created
:; a foundation for the future language program, to which I will tum shortly.
£1 The fight for Tariana language and culture revival began. A few problems
5 came up during the Tariana-teaching workshop. The dialect differences between
6 the dialect of Santa Rosa and of Periquitos resulted in a stand-off between some
7 older speakers. The Tariana of Santa Rosa plainly accused !be Tatiana of Peri-
8 iJ.
quitos of !be crime of "language mixing" (see Section Indeed, on a number of /3
9 occasions !be Periquitos Tatiana did include Tucand words and morphemes in
1o their Tariana (see Aikhenvald 2002/). The Periqutios Tatiana responded with an /.g
ll accusation of a different sort: they pointed out to me !bat !be Santa Rosa children
12 speak nothing but Tucano, while their own children learn Tariana, alongside
u other languages of !be region. Both had a point.
g There also remained a certain amount of resistance among the "upper-
15 ranking" Tariana against being taught a lower-ranking way of speaking. This
10 resistance has never been overt; in Tariana society, and perhaps Vaupes society in
17 general, animosity is often subtle. The upper-ranking Tariana would "forget" to
1 ti come to meetings, and not support various activities. But as !be Tatiana school
19 progressed, this opposition mellowed. 3
20 The Tariana indigenous school was established in Iauarete, as an off-site
21 campus of !be School Sao Miguel, in early 2005. The School is called Enu Irine
22 idakine, literally '!be grandchildren of those belonging to blood of Thunder'. 4
23 Its founding director was Rafael Brito, !be youngest speaker of !be Santa Rosa
2'1 Tariana (born in 1973), an active organizer and an aspiring politician. Its current
.? :; director does not speak the language.
26 The Tatiana school teaches all !be subjects required by !be Brazilian school
27 curriculum. In addition to this, there are language classes, and classes in "cultural
2s performance". Thanks to efforts by the directorate, and their families in Iauarete,
29 !be school acquired a decent building, and even a couple of computers.
30 At present, !be Tariana school in Iauarete has over fifty students, and em-
11 ploys nineteen teachers of different disciplines. A major problem was to secure a
J2 teacher ofTariana who would know !be language well. After a few years of strug-
33 gle, !be school managed to employ two teachers. Edivaldo Muniz - a fluent
V• speaker of !be Periquitos dialect - was appointed in 2012 to teach !be language at
JS
36
3 Deaths of older people from higher-ranking clans who were vehemently opposed to the Brito
37
family contributed to this.
38 4 The name Enu Iri-ne i-daki-ne ('thunder blood-plural INDEFINITE-grandchild-PLURAL')
3 9 reflects one of the Tariana origin myths, where they are said to have emerged from drops of blood
!JO shed by their Grandfather the Thunder.

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 204 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

the primary school level. After a few weeks of negotiations, Emilio Brito, one of 1
the most fluent speakers of the Santa Rosa dialect, became the language teacher 2
for the secondary level. 3
In addition to the Iauarete school, five other branches of the Tariana school ,,
were established within the Vaupes area. These include Santa Rosa where there s
are still about half-a-dozen adult speakers, and Periquitos. The Tariana school in r.
Periquitos has thirty-five students, only five of whom still speak the language. The '
middle generation (in their forties, thirties and twenties) in Periquitos speak the g
language well; the teachers of Tatiana - Lauro and Batista Muniz - are highly 9
competent in the language. The name of the school differs from that of other 1'J
Tariana branches of the School of Sao Miguel: Enuniseridapana, literally, 'the 11
house of the one belonging to those of Thunder'. The name reflects the specific 12
autodenomination of the Periquitos Tariana.S 13
That the Periquitos Tariana managed to secure a special name for their li•
Tariana school reflects their attitude: from the very beginning of the Tatiana 15
literacy program, and of the school, the Periquitos Tariana tried to emphasize 16
thatthey should be kept apart from the Tatiana of Santa Rosa. Back in 2000, there 17
was even a suggestion that different pedagogical materials be created. However, 18
the dialectal differences between the two Tariana dialects spoken by the repre- 19
sentatives of the Wamiarikune subclan did not warrant such an effort. Periquitos 20
dialect forms are incorporated in the Tariana-Portuguese dictionary (Aikhenvald 21
2002a), and are mentioned in the Teaching Manual. 22
At present, this dialect differentiation matters less and less. A speaker of the 23
Periquitos dialect is teaching Tatiana at the Tatiana school in Iauarete, some- 2'1
thing unthinkable back in the early 2000s. And the puristic attitudes appear to :•5
dwindle. We return to this in Section 9. 26
17
28
6 Tariana speech communities in flux: age,
30
generation and speaker competence 31
32
By 2012, teaching Tariana within primary and secondary school had become
33
firmly established. But the speech communities are in flux.
::;tf
Just as in many other language groups speaking "receding" languages, lan-
35
guage proficiency among the Tarian a correlates with generation, and not so much
36
with age of the speakers (just as described by Dorian [2009]). The current older
37
38
S The Tariana of Santa Rosa, and of Periquitos refer to themselves as Talia-seri (singular)J 39
Talia-seni (plural), or Enu Irine i-dakine (see Note 4). The Tariana of Periquitos use the terms !i-0

/c~f~~le
0 V1 (]Y\.12 / ' '1 0

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 205

t generation (born between the 1920s and 1940s) all spoke the language. Those
2 born before 1925 remembered life in traditional longhouses, banned by Salesian
·3 missionaries as they firmly established themselves in the area. Most of them knew
'' the traditional lore; one had healing powers. The level of proficiency varied (see
5 Aikhenvald 2001, 2003a: 19-23).
6 Their children, the "middle" generation (born between the late 1940s and
7 late 1960s), know the language well. Of those born in the 1970s, only a few speak
f it. Their children, born in later years, do not know the language. This is a typical
9 dynamic of language obsolescence; similar statements would be true for indige-
1o nous groups in Australia, Siberia and North America.
11 In the 1970s, many Tariana started moving to the mission centre Iauarete to
12 make sure their children would acquire better schooling. Those Tatiana who still
u speak the language live scattered in different suburbs of Iauarete, and speak pre-
.J '1 dominantly Tucano between themselves and to their children. In the absence of a
15 sizeable Tariana-speaking community in Iauarete, this move was a sure path to-
16 wards language loss.
17 Since 1991, the drivers of the Tatiana language revival and maintenance
1 « movement have been the Britos of Iauarete. Two of the Brito family, the most
19 accomplished middle generation speakers, died in 2008. The most knowledge-
20 able speaker of the older generation passed away only recently in 2011. Two
n middle-generation speakers moved away for the sake of better jobs. One of the
22 two older generation speakers still lives in lauarete, but speaks Tucano more
23 often than Tariana. The other one is planning to move to lauarete from Santa
21; Rosa; however, he is less knowledgeable than others of his generation and speaks
2 '> mostly Tucano within his family "for the wives to understand". A fluent Brito
26 sister remains in Iauarete, with her mother who is a Piratapuya. Although her
, , mother is fluent in Tariana, traditional language rules dictate that they speak
28 Piratapuya at home.
29 In Santa Rosa up until the early 2000s, most men spoke Tariana among them-
30 selves and to their fathers (following the "etiquette" of the Vaupes area). Now,
31 only a half-dozen Tari ana speakers live in Santa Rosa. No one speaks Tatiana in
32 their daily life. fJ;;~
33 The community of Periquitos has fared somewhat better. · the deaths
34 of two proficient elders, pee remaias (allleit partially incapacitated). The other
35 elder of Periquitos is a highly knowledgeable and articulate speaker, with healing
36
37
;,:;;:;-ne (lit. 'thunder -Makti' [or servants]-plural), 'the Makti of Thunder' (collective]
38 reference), Enu-maki-ne-seri 'one Makti of Thunder' (individual reference: note the individualiser r~
JO
. 7 -seri ) ; and Enu-ni 'those of Thunder' (collective reference), Enu-ni-seri 'one of those of Thunder' P·
4l1 (individual reference).

c204

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 206 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

powers. Of his nine children, eight are fluent in Tariana. The "middle generation"
in Periquitos continue using the language to speak to their wives, and their chi!- 2
dren. However, their use of Tucano and Wanano in day-to-day communication 3
increases; as a result, of thirty-five students within the school only five speak ''
Tatiana. 5
That is, there is no Tariana speech community in lauarete nor in Santa Rosa. G
Even in Periquitos, where a smallish speech community remains, there is more -
and more reliance on the school as a way of maintaining the language. And this 8
is reflected in the new discourse of "blame". 9

11
7 Who is to blame for language loss? 12
13
What Jane Hill (1998) called "the discourse of nostalgia" about the good old days 1 '<
now irrevocably gone has been heard from many Tariana since at least the early 1;
1990s. In fact, according to Briizzi (1977), the general nostalgic attitude focused 1 s
on accentuating the negative" may have been there since time immemorial, as a 17
11

way of thwarting evil spirits' potential envy and aggression. In the 1990s and 1,i
early 2000s nostalgic talk about language loss was rife. t9
Women - wives and mothers - are uniformly blamed for not "transmitting'~o -6h I::. .
language to the Tariana children. A teacher in the Tariana school, herself a 21
Tucano, is married to a Tariana man (not a speaker of the language). When she 22
got married, her father said to her: "You will now kill his language, this is what 23
women do". Traditionally, mothers did not aim at maintaining the father's Ian- 211
guage. The Brito mother is a Piratapuya. She learnt Tariana from her Tariana '5
mother, and speaks it well. However, she does not speak Tariana to her daughter, 26
a fluent Tariana speaker. The etiquette of the area engenders an involuntary 27
"blockage" from the use of Tariana in this context. 2s
In the traditional Vaupes society, women come from different language 29
groups than men. Thus the language of the wife of a Tariana man will not be JO
Tariana. However, the wives of the older generation were, and are proficient in 31
Tariana; many of them did in fact speak Tariana to their children. Many wives had J 2
Tariana mothers; others learnt the language from their husbands because that 33
was the thing to do in those days. That younger women do not know Tariana (or 34
never bothered to learn it) is mostly due to the fact that Tariana was considered a 35
language on the way out, and there were very few people to learn it from. 36
The practice of "accusing women'' of doing wrong things and spoiling every- 37
thing has deep roots in traditional Tariana discourse (see Aikhenvald forthcom- is
ing). In many traditional stories, women are conceptualized as a "dangerous 39
other", and "those who do not think". Women are to blame for the fact that 4cl

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 207

manioc has a hard skin difficult to peel. Human sweat has a bad smell because
2 women "misbehaved" with a smelly mucura rat.'
:; But now that the Tariana schools have been established, the rhetoric of accu-
4 sation in the Vaupes area is gradually changing. That children can hardly speak
5 or write Tariana is considered the fault of the school, and of the teachers who are
6 not implementing it properly.

8
9
11!
8 Teaching teachers
11
12 The establishment of the teaching program has boosted the status of the Wami-
1' arikune dialect of Tatiana. It has gradually become the prestige language - the
1" one for which the orthography has been created, and the one taught at school.
15 Having a firm place in the school system in north-west Amazonia means the lan-
16 guage has overtones of prestige and power, just as described by Freeland (1995)
17 for the Miskitu in Central America.
rn The teaching materials were regularly supplied by me to the school (I esti-
19 mate having sent on average twenty copies of the teaching manual and ten of the
20 dictionary each year). But more materials, and more incentives for teachers to
21 work with them, were needed. In late 2011, Rafael Brito, Jovino Brito and I agreed
22 that it was time we organized a Tariana-language workshop for the teachers of the
n Tariana school, to boost their interest and knowledge, produce new up-to-date
24 materials, and also try to involve children of the late Tariana elders.
15 As planned, we ran a two-week workshop in Iauarete from 25 April until 8
26 May 2012. This workshop was organized during a teaching break, and .involved
27 two dozen teachers of the Tariana school. Before the workshop, we made a visit to
28 the school. This simple building impressed me enormously.
29 The walls in the school are covered with hand-written posters, all in Tariana
"JO using the orthography we had developed earlier. The posters are welcoming stu-
J1 dents, saying how happy we are to be together, and offering God's blessings (the
l2 word for the Christian God is the same as that for the Trickster Creator, flapirikuri
33 lit. 'the one on the bone'). Posters and instructions relating to day-to-day life -
~14 like "don't litter", and "don't mess about" - were in Portuguese. I asked Rafael
35 Brito, the founding director and an authority figure, whether children (and
36
37
38
6 Incidentally, women are blamed for language loss in some other cultures. For example, Jaffe
39 (1999: 103-108) focuses on the "discourse of culpability" among the Corsicans who identify
11(1 women as "betrayers" of the indigenous language.

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 208 - A. Aikhenva\d DE GRUYTER MOUTON

teachers, for that matter) understand what the Tatiana posters say. He said no,
but they know what is said there. Some teachers, he added, ask students to learn 2
them by heart. 3
The only air-conditioned room in the building has internet access. This is 1, J,
where the Tatiana website I put together (https://eFeseareh.jeH.edtt.Etti/3flBCes/ ,fr~seovuJA.. ft.t. el u..
TM) was displayed - and looked upon with admiration by everyone, including 6 au-/ re ~ e.arefv.
the elders (who are literate, but hardly ever use computers). Websites, internet, 7 te 't-C,, eqn~::f.J?. -
mobile phones, mp3 players, laptops and electronic equipment of all sorts are the sGLhc h..t ve.J.> / ,
new status symbols across north-west Amazonia. But day-to-day life remains 9 SJ.o!A."t L -<'. l'Y<--UIACa
lZ_h_,,.., . _. O/'\
pretty much traditional - some people use gas for cooking, but one frequently 1o tf <J
sees women preparing food on a wood fire. Hardly anyone has flush toilets or 11
showers (there is plenty of running water in the river and waterfails). 12
Every morning, Jovino and I worked with the two elders - Leonardo Brito (of u
Santa Rosa) and Jorge Muniz (of Periquitos). Our sessions consisted oflively con- 14
versations and discussions, and recordings of traditional healing procedures, 15
burial practices and ritual cannibalism. 16
In the afternoon, teachers from the Tariana school joined us; the numbers 17
varied from ten to twenty. Rafael Brito took the lead. He was working on a variety 18
of new primers, with nice colored pictures - which he himself took and loaded 19
straight onto his laptop. The teachers were repeating words after Rafael. Some did 20
very skilful drawings for various objects and animals. And then came singing 21
sessions. 22
During the 2000 Tariana Teaching Workshop, Rafael and Jose Luis Brito 23
translated a few Brazilian songs into Tatiana. Isaias (the son of the late America 21;

Brito, one of the most competent speakers) and Rafael sung them, accompanying 25
themselves on a guitar. This was a success; but since then, the song texts had 26
been lost. I brought them with me. Rafael spent time rehearsing them with the n
teachers, and also translating new ones. I was able to offer Tariana translations 28
which were then run past Leonardo, the elder, and also Emilio and Jovino Brito. 29
The texts were corrected straight on Rafael's laptop, and then projected onto a 30
home-made screen (made out of a sheet) with a power-point projector (cailed 31
"data-show" in the local Portuguese, and now also in Tariana and Tucano). 32
Teachers were writing them down, learning them, and then singing them :l 3
together. v,
My other role in the afternoon sessions was that of a language consultant. If 35
Rafael could not remember a word, he would ask me - and I would find it in the 36
dictionary (now the ultimate authority, since it contains the information from the 37
best Tariana speakers who are now dead). The response would be run past Leo- ·;s
nardo, who would endorse it, and offer a comment, in Tariana, and then in 39
Tucano (for the teachers). 1,0

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - 209

l After the workshop, the teachers organized an Offering Festival (also known
2 as Dabukuri), to thank us for running it. Short speeches were given by important
3 members of the community, including Rafael Brito, his younger sister Vanilde
4 (now president of the Association of Parents and Teachers), Jovino, and of course
5 Leonardo Brito and Jorge Muniz, the two elders. Leonardo gave the whole speech
G in Tariana of Santa Rosa. Jorge spoke in Tariana of Periquitos. Just a few people
7 could understand them, but the importance of their speeches was symbolic; un-
8 derstanding them was not necessary. In a way, it reaffirmed the status ofTariana
9 as the language of the school. Other people spoke in Tucano and in Portuguese.
1o My speech was mixed - partly Tatiana, partly Portuguese: I was asked not to speak
11 exclusively in Tariana because "many of our relatives will not understand".
12 And then came the dances: first a newly invented "Crab-dance" dance per-
13 formed by six to seven-year aids, to the tune of a popular Brazilian song "Crab"
g ( Carangueijo) translated into Tatiana. The little kids actually sang the song in
15 Tatiana - this was one of Rafael's earlier translations. Then, older children per-
16 formed a traditional Vaupes "cultural dance", and offered me a generous present
l 7 of fruit and fish. Dances went on until late. All the instructions to the dancers
1 <:~ were in Tucano.
19 The workshop for teachers was a success. Everyone is now determined to
20 learn as much of the language as possible. Leaming Tariana - and being able to
n use at least a few shnple greetings - has become a status symbol, for all the Tati-
22 ana oflauarete region. We now turn to some consequences for the language itself.
23
24
,, 9 The new Tariana: purism versus compromise
26
27 The changes in the Tariana language situation have brought about further chal-
28 lenges and changes. The oniy small community of speakers is in the remote
29 village of Periquitos. Speakers of Tatiana in other areas are scattered. Only three
:10 elders are still alive. What's more, a speaker of the Periquitos dialect and a
J1 speaker of the Santa Rosa dialect are now teaching Tatiana at the Tatiana school
32 in Jauarete. There is no question any more about which Tatiana dialect is "cor-
33 reel" (in contrast to the situation in the late 1990s when the opposition between
:;4 the speakers of the two dialects appeared to be insurmountable).
'l5 As noted by Hamp (1989), and then by Dorian (1994), linguistic compromise
36 is a better avenue for survival than intractable purism: if a minority language is to
37 survive next to a larger dominant language, it has to allow for a certain number of
38 loanwords. Nancy Dorian points out that "it may prove the wiser course to accept
39 considerable compromise rather than make a determined stand for intactness,
40 where threatened languages are at issue" (1994: 492).

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 210 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

A major cultural-linguistic feature of the Vaupes River Basin area was resis-
f
tance to any lexical loans (Section above). Conceived as tokens of undesirable 2 /3
language mixing, loans and code-switches were viewed as marks of a speaker's 3
incompetence. This requirement has now been relaxed. ,,
Jorge Muniz, the Periquitos elder, kept inserting a few Tucano words into his 5
story. In previous times, this would have been met with giggles behind his back 6
by speakers from Santa Rosa. He would have been accused of being "incompe· ,
tent". There is no such reaction now; it is accepted that Jorge talks this way. s
Most of the remaining Tariana speakers are now freely using Portuguese 9
code-switches. When other elders were alive, and especially in the context of the lo
then existing speech community in Santa Rosa, a Portuguese code-switch used to i 1
be accompanied by an introductory "in the white man's language" (Aikhenvald 12
[2003b] focuses on the negative overtones of overusing the "White man's" Ian· 13
guage, and the issues of language mixing among the Tariana). This is no longer J 1,
necessary. l5
This is not to say that there are no purists left. Jovino's elder sister Olivia corn· 16
mented on the fact that the Periquitos people "mix" their language, and that I 17
should not be listening to them. Jovino Brito was also not impressed by the code· 18
switches. He made a constant effort to only use Tariana words, even for new con· 19
cepts. We had to talk quite a bit about computers. Jovino insisted that a computer 20 I, +
be called nawiki iwhida-pasole (people indefinitr,'head-~BOX) 'a box of human 21 /CLA ITFIEIC:
head': Jovino's explanation was that a computer'is supposed to think like a per- 22 z...
son's head does. Back in 2000, the late Ismael Brito suggested a new coinage, 23
pa·wha-nipa (impersonal-sit-l)\Ss+CL:flat), literally 'bench', to refer to a bank 211 IPAKW/6
where money is: Portuguese has banco for both. This extension was rejected by '5
Ismael's peers and elders. Now Jovino is consistently using this very term for 26
'(money) bank'. In his day-to-day life in Sao Gabriel the number of his Tariana n
conversation partners is limited. There is no one but his brother Jose Luis who 28
occasionally addresses him in Tariana (and me, in our regular lengthy phone con· 29
versations across the globe). Jovino speaks nothing but Tucano to all his other 30
family members, and Piratapuya to his mother. 31
Throughout the 2012 workshop, each of the two elders spoke in his own dia- 32
lect. Ten years ago, speakers of Santa Rosa dialect would frown upon those from 33
Periquitos. Now each accepts the other's forms as "his way". The two extant dia· ,;,,
!eels - Santa Rosa and Periquitos - now live together peacefully. But for how 35
long? The Tariana speech community in Periquitos is dwindling: fewer and fewer 36
children speak the language. However, given the competence of the teachers, it 37
will probably survive for at least another generation or two. 38
The Tariana language is also changing. The archaic form of the case marker 39
-naku 'topical non-subject' is still common in Periquitos. Among the Santa Rosa 40

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Smalllanguagesandsmalllanguagecommunities - 211

l Tatiana, only Leonardo uses it consistently. As expected, the number of calques

2 from Tucano is on the rise. An obsolescent language "retreating, contracting, as it
-, gradually falls into disuse" (Dixon 1991: 199) is often flooded with an influx of
4 patterns and forms from the dominant language. The dialect taught at school is
5 the less archaic one. Nobody seems to mind.
6 Tariana orthography was another issue of compromise. Throughout the
, pedagogical workshop, I acted as an "orthography consultant": showing where
f to write an h if a consonant is aspirated and to make sure we write long vowels
9 correctly. Tariana has two phonemes that proved to be somewhat contentious: a
1 <> lateral flap (the only rhotic in the language) and a palatal dental nasal. When we
11 came up with the first orthography proposal in 1994, Graciliano Brito, and then
12 Rafael insisted that we use an "r without a head" (Tariana ere dihwida sedite),
l.3 thatis, the IPA symbol/ The letterrwas rejected. The Tariana orthography was to
1" be as different from lortuguese as possible (especially since the Portuguese r
l 5 is indeed different from the Tariana rhotic). The IPA symbol for the palatal nasal,
16 J!, or "n with a long tail" (Tariana ene disipi wyakite), was also chosen for the
17 orthography. The Portuguese sequence nh for the same sound was not appropri-
rn ate because we had already used nh for the aspirated nasal. The symbol ii was
1" considered too similar to Spanish to suit the Tatiana quest to be distinct.
20 The general opinion of the teachers was now different. The two IPA symbols,
21 /and[ were considered too difficult to write and to type on a laptop. It no longer
22 \nattered that the Tariana orthography should be of its own kind. Everyone opted
23 for what was easier to type and more similar to Portuguese and Spanish. We all
2:, agreed on simple r, for the flap, and a Spanish-style ii, for the palatal nasal. The
15 compromise solution has been reached.
26 With the Wamiarikune Tariana established as the language of the Tatiana
27 school system, gone are the days when higher-ranking subclans would refuse to
28 learn the language maintained by those who were traditionally beneath them. We
29 left Iauarete the day after the feast. Tarcisio, a Tatiana from Urubuquara who had
30 taken a lift with us on the way there, was inspired by our workshop and invited us
31 to talk to his co-villagers and family about teaching Tariana in his native village,
32 and the neighboring Ipanore.
33 Urubuquara has a school with a Tariana name, Enu yumakine (lit. 'the Makii
y, of the Thunder'); this same school was established across the Middle Vaupes dis-
35 trict in five further settlements. The majority of the population of all these com-
3 6 munities are ethnic Tariana who do not speak the language. Very few older people
37 know some names of plants and animals. These Tariana belong to upper-ranking
38 subclans compared to the Wamiarikune. Their resistance against learning a dia-
39 lect spoken by a lower-ranking clan was high throughout the 1990s.
!g)

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 212 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

During our brief meeting in Urubuquara, all agreed that the materials created 1
at the Workshop in 2012, and the Tariana Manual are to be used in the Middle 2
Vaupes schools. I left them copies of all the new materials. These were greeted 'l
with excitement, as a new opening for recreating a pan-Tariana identity. ''
The burden of transmitting knowledge is relegated to the school. The Ian- s
guage taught there is mostly for symbolic purposes: to show you are a Tariana, 6
you need to know at least a few greetings and common expressions. And this also -
demonstrates a major change compared to the traditional attitudes whereby to s
claim "knowledge of the language" one needed to speak it really well. Now that 9
most of the fluent speakers, and Tariana language activists, are dead, these re- rn
strictive attitudes are changing_ 11
Every bit of knowledge of the language is valued: after all, only a few people 12
know anything at all. Jovino Brito and others insisted that we now need to get 13
together with the ethnic Tariana who have such knowledge before they pass .14
away, and start recording it (including traditional stories they could tell in 15
Tucano). The dismissive attitude towards non-fluent speakers appears to now be 1&
gone. 17
Other, non-linguistic, restrictions are also on the way out. Exogamous tradi- 18
lions are still strong in the Tariana areas, even among those Tariana who lost their J9
language generations ago. But they are not as strong as before. Traditionally, the 211
Tariana could not marry the Desano, an East Tucanoan group known for its magic 21
powers and prowess in shamanism and sorcery. (The origins of the Desano are a 21
matter of contention: Dominique Buchillet (p.c., 1999) hypothesizes that they 2J
could have been speakers of an Arawak language). The Desano are considered 24
"younger brothers" of the Tariana, and addressed accordingly. Within the Iauarete 25
region, I have encountered three instances of Desana-Tariana marriages, two of 26
them involving speakers of Tariana or their families. Maria Sanchez Brito, a
Piratapuya with good competence in Tariana, described these marriages in a dif- 2s
ferent way than mentioned earlier: "they are like Americans", that is, like those 29
who have no respect for traditional custom. 30
While the parents are somewhat upset, saying that children just do what they 31
want, the young people do not seem to mind. In one instance, a Tariana married 32
another Tariana from a different subclan; this is a matter of shame for the father lJ
of the bridegroom, and has affected his reputation in the community. :>4
35
36
10 New era, new challenges 37
3S
Let's now compare traditional language attitudes with language attitudes in the 39
1990s, and in 2012. The differences are summarized in Table !. '"J

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - - 213

Table 1: Language attitudes among the Tariana, and their change over the past decades
2
Principles Traditional Tariana Tariana in 1990s Tariana in 2012
3
4 A. Linguistic The Tariana only The language remained Linguistic exogamy is still
5 exogamy and married people from the badge of identity. there, but is occasionally
language other language groups. Many lamented the fact violated. Language
6
identity The language used to that they'd lost it. remains the badge of
' be inherited from one's Hence the desire to identity, but for most
8 father, and was a badge maintain the language, people only in theory.
9 of identity. The Tariana and "learn it back" ManyTariana lament that
_1 () would also speak other reflected in the first their language is being
languages of the area Tariana teaching lost, and are relying on
ll
(all from East-Tucanoan workshop run in 2000. the school to "learn it
12 family). Linguistic exogamy back".
13 remained in place.
1£1
B. Which The traditional A number ofTariana Traditional language
15 language to language etiquette continued following the etiquette is all but gone.
16 choose? required that one traditional linguistic The Tariana speakTucano
17 should speak one's etiquette. Due to the to their fathers, and
18 father language to rampant language loss, siblings. Most speakers
one's father and his more and more Tariana moved away. A small
19
siblings. And if one spoke Tucano to their community in Periquitos
20 wanted to be polite to father and siblings. remains, but very few
21 someone, one needed They were loudly pitied children are learning the
22 to speak their language as people who spoke a language.
23 to them. "borrowed" language.
21-1 C. Who is Standards for speaking Standards for being a High standards for
25 considered a a language used to be speaker of a language claiming "knowledge" of
26 language very high: only remained very high. a language are relaxed.
speaker? someone who had a Semi-speakers or those Knowledge of just a few
27
native-speaker-like who were not fully words, and a few names is
28 proficiency was confident in their enough to identify with
29 considered a speaker. Tariana never dared the language, and the
30 speak it. ethnic group.
31 D. Attitudes to Inserting forms from Mixing different The puristic attitudes
J2 loans and another language into languages or their have relented. Occasional
31 code-switches one's own was seen as dialects was considered code-switching with
:;;ri a mark of inappropriate. The Tucano and Portuguese
incompetence. The Tariana dialects of (the national language) is
35
restriction did not Santa Rosa and of no longer considered a
36 extend to calquing and Periquitos with their mark of incompetence.
37 replicating grammatical minor differences were The two Tariana dialects
38 patterns kept strictly apart. are no longer kept apart.
39 People speak Tucano to
each other.
!JO

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 214 - A. Aikhenvald DE GRUYTER MOUTON

The Tariana language attitudes in the 1990s, when many members of older 1
generation were alive, were similar to the traditional views described by earlier 2
anthropologists and linguists. The Tariana of Santa Rosa were particularly con- 3
cerned with not having anyTucano code-switches. The Tariana of Periquitos were ,,
more relaxed, and were accused by those of Santa Rosa of "mixing" thetr Ian- 5
guage. The Tariana of higher-ranking clans, whose language had been lost gener- 6
ations ago, were reluctant to learn the dialect of a lower-ranking group.
The Tariana Teaching Workshop run in 2000 reflected these values. It created s
the basis for teaching Tariana in a specialized Tariana school in Iauarete and a 9
few other locations within the area. By 2012, teaching Tariana within the school w
has been established. Wamiarikune Tariana - the language of former underlings 11
- has a stable position in the regional school system. Their language is the Ian- 12
guage to be proud of, and the basis for the unity of all ethnic Tariana. u
The speech communities as such are on the wane. The school is now the 1"
means of language maintenance and transmission. This has come at a cost of 15
leveling dialect differences. Compromise, rather than staunch purism, is more 1&
conducive to language maintenance. As fewer and fewer people speak the Ian- l7
guage, some purists "relent": code-switching with Tucano and with Portuguese is rn
no longer considered as a mark of incompetence as it was a decade ago. l9
Nowadays, the quest for language learning is boosted by its being officially 20
acknowledged as an asset in the eyes of official organizations. Those who do not 21
know their language and cannot write it can be openly ridiculed. 22
The ethnic Tariana are relying on the school system to maintain some, mostly 23
symbolic, knowledge of the language. The teaching program in the dialect of 211

Santa Rosa and Periquitos has been accepted by the Tariana of all clans. The Ian- 2 'i
guage of the former "underlings" is now the status symbol. 26
There is overwhelming community support for teaching Tariana, production 27
of school materials, and learning as much as possible of language, and culture 28
in the form of dances. This is also due to the fact that knowing one's language 29
is seen as a pathway to securing an indigenous certificate from the government, 30
and with it the benefits it might bring. Knowing a few words in Tariana is a 31
status symbol. These positive developments are somewhat countered by a risk of 32
"tokenism": in other words, the erstwhile high standards oflanguage proficiency 33
in the Vaupes are waning. Pride in being Tariana and being able to produce v1

a few Tariana words will not stop the process of its obsolescence as a spoken 35
language. 36
37
")8

39

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DE GRUYTER MOUTON Small languages and small language communities - - 215

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