ABSTRACT
The dominant role of the P’urhepecha language at two primary schools in central Mexico provides an encouraging example of the promotion of an Indigenous language in an educational context. P’urhepecha is a language isolate spoken by around 125,000 predominantly bilingual people in Michoacán. Intercultural Bilingual Education in government schools throughout the state offers only minimal Indigenous language instruction. However, educators in San Isidro and Uringuitiro have developed a program and curriculum that emphasizes P’urhepecha language and culture, with subjects taught in P’urhepecha from grades 1 through 6. Early literacy is introduced through P’urhepecha, and writing instruction is incorporated into the curriculum. This chapter describes historical attempts to introduce P’urhepecha-based literacy, particularly the Tarascan Project, and a current initiative promoting biliteracy in P’urhepecha and Spanish through mother-tongue-based education. The instructional context for pupil writing at the two schools is described, and writing samples from four P’urhepecha-dominant fourth-grade pupils are analyzed in terms of morphological complexity, narrative style, and orthographic accuracy. The continua of biliteracy are used to frame the analysis. The analysis highlights the writing competence of the pupils in their contemporary version of P’urhepecha and illustrates the valued role of the language in the context of the school’s native language curriculum.
