We are delighted to welcome Margarita Valdovinos (Inst. Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, Mexico), who will share a paper on "The Study of Amerindian Languages. The Maya Case." The paper will be discussed by Prof. Fernando Armstrong-Fumero (Smith College) and Emmanuel Szurek (EHESS, Paris)
Abstract:
A diachronic reflection about the classes of Yucatec Maya as a second language in Paris (Inalco) brought me to the study of French Americanist traditions and their interest in the understanding of Amerindian languages. At the first quarter of the 19th Century, the discovery of Mayan epigraphic writing by French intellectuals triggered the study of Mayan archaeological sites. Very soon, it became clear that along with archeological studies, the study of language was necessary to decipher the evidences provided by the material vestiges.
In this paper, I will analyze how Amerindian languages have been studied in two different moments at the French academic context. First, I will study how Amerindian languages became an object of knowledge in the XIXth Century, and then, how in the XXth Century this knowledge is developed until it becomes an object of teaching.
The observations offered by this study will help me to understand how ideas about language are constructed, how do they emerge in socio-cultural practices, how they travel in time and space and how they interact with one another.