Chipaya: A Unique Case of Language Reversal in the Andean World

Abstract

This article deals with the study of a unique case of language reversal in the Andean domain: the revitalization of Chipaya, the last surviving dialect of the (formerly) vastly extended Uro language family, once spoken on the Peruvian-Bolivian highland plateau but now confined to the salt flats of Oruro (Bolivia). Its irrecoverable extinction was presaged by the ethnographers working in the third decade of the past century in view of the supposedly wholesale Aimarization of its speakers, as had happened to its congeneric dialects. Yet Chipaya has succeeded in reverting this prediction, thanks to the cultural and ethnic reinvention of its speakers, who turned it from a marginal and underestimated language into a powerful instrument of strong ethnic identity. Various factors have contributed to this unique case of self-promoted language and culture reversal, among them the development of social and historical consciousness and intellectualization of its leaders, aspect which are analyzed within this study. Among the Andean societies, whose native tongues are in serious danger of disappearing in the face of the Spanish language, the language loyalty demonstrated by the Chipaya people is simply unusual, if not amazing.