Discourses of Endangerment and Appropriations of the “Indigenous”

In this chapter, Quentin Boitel discusses language revitalization in the light of its political significance and consequences on Indigenous people’s lives. Grounded in an ethnography of the Náhuat (or “Pipil”) language revitalization initiatives conducted between 2014 and 2019 in El Salvador and Europe, it offers an original analysis of the effects of endangerement rhetorics. The chapter shows how revival narratives have circulated, from Northern institutions to national and local initiatives, acting as a lever for solidarity with some punctual benefits for the Indigenous people of El Salvador. But it also shows that these benefits are undermined by strong ties between the discourses of revitalization and racist and neoliberal ideologies that contribute to maintain the Indigenous in a subaltern position in the Salvadoran society.By pointing to these negative effects, various indigenous people whose discourse is analyzed in the chapter invite us, as language students, to think more critically about language revitalization and the sort of relationship we want to establish in the course of investigation.