George Ann Gregory, Ph.D.

The Case of Pueblo Languages

Pueblo languages are included in this discussion because these languages are community languages only, and some communities of speakers are quite small. Additionally, Keres speaking pueblos have decided not to move into print culture. Pueblo refers to a type of culture, some of which has existed in the Southwest for thousands of years. There are three major language groups among the 19 pueblos of New Mexico: Keres, Tanoan, and Zuni. Keres is divided into Eastern and Western varieties: The Eastern varieties are spoken at Cochiti (384 speakers), San Felipe (1560 speakers), Santo Domingo (1880 speakers), Zia (463 speakers), and Santa Ana (229 speakers) (1990 census); and the Western varieties are spoken at Acoma (1696 speakers) (1980 census) and Laguna (1695 speakers) (1990 census). Tanoan is divided into Tewa, Tiwa, and Towa: Tewa speaking pueblos include San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Nambé, Pojoaque, Tesuque, and Okay Owingeh (1298 speakers in 1990); Tiwa speaking pueblos include Taos, Picuris (~1000 speakers in 1990) and Isleta and Sandia (1732 speakers in 1990); and Zuni (9700 speakers) (Wofram Alpha, 2011). The Zuni language has been studied more extensively than the other pueblo languages and has proportionately more speakers than the other two language families, which totals 11,937 for both Keres and Tanoan.

Pueblo languages are used in the home and in ceremonies and taught in classrooms at the primary and secondary level. Although there is variation in numbers of speakers in each Pueblo, Pueblo languages exist primarily in Fishman’s (1991) Stage 6: ‘The intergenerational and demographically concentrated home-family-neighborhood: The basis of mother tongue transmission’ (135). The classroom instruction in the languages is a movement toward Stage 5: ‘Schools for literacy acquisition, for the old and the young, and not in lieu of compulsory education’ (395). Additionally, several gospels have been translated into pueblo languages, youtube has several short videos in pueblo languages, and one children’s book has been printed in Keres (Ortiz, 2004). Pueblo languages have male and female language (Kroskrity, 1983; Sims & Hilaire, 1990) and each pueblo has its own dialect. The dialects of each Pueblo are closely tied to identity and each wish to maintain this separation. Despite the prohibition against using print, Pueblo language teachers are finding that they have to use print because the students demand it. Being born into a print culture, young people find print an aid to memory (Donna Pino, personal communication, May 6, 2009). Simon Ortiz from Acoma Pueblo and a Keres language speaker has published a children’s book, The Good Rainbow Road: Rawa ‘Kashtyaa’tsi Hiyaani, in three languages: English, Spanish, and Keres. This is what Ortiz (2004) says about the book:

It is not traditional in any technical meaning of the word, because the story is a contemporary creative work by the Native author who wrote it…because Keres is one of the First languages, I want its presence to be manifestation of the fact that Native land, culture, and community are the original and primary evidence of the Western Hemisphere (final pages).

This book may represent an important step to the expansion of a Pueblo language into literacy.