Language Retention through Music in Two Afrodescendant Communities of Latin America: Garífuna Punta Rock and Palenquero Champeta

Abstract

Beginning in the 1990s, governments as well as international entities, such as UNESCO, heeded the alarm from scholars and community activists that many of the world’s languages were on the road to extinction. In the context of the Americas, programmes to protect the languages of indigenous and Afrodescendant populations were developed but rarely fully funded. The Garífuna of Central America and the Palenqueros of San Basilio de Palenque in Colombia are two Afrodescendant communities with their own languages that have been declared as Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. In the face of the erosion of their cultures and languages, community members nurtured popular music forms sung in their respective languages in order to increase their linguistic prestige. Garífuna punta rock and paranda as well as Palenquero champeta have endured both condemnation and appropriation by dominant cultures and the global culture market. In the end, however, they have successfully attracted the youth of both communities to their heritage languages, serving as a vehicle to stem language loss.

Keywords:

• Popular music
• endangered language
• Garífuna
• Palenquero
• Afrodescendant

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to The Garífuna Collective from Belize and Kombilesa Mi from San Basilio de Palenque, Colombia, for inspiring me with their performances and their dedication to keeping their languages alive.

Disclosure statement

I do not have any financial interests nor do I receive any benefits from the direct application of my research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lea Ramsdell

Lea Ramsdell, PhD, is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Towson University in Maryland. She has served as Chair of the Foreign Languages Department as well as Director of the Latin American and Latino/a Studies Programme. Her research interests include linguistic identities, oral traditions, border cultures, and women writers and artists in Latin America. She has published articles on visual, musical, and literary artists from Cuba as well as on women writers in Latin America and the United States in journals such as Latin American Music Review/Revista de Música Latinoamericana, Letras femeninas, and Journal of Modern Literature. She is currently working on a project that addresses Garífuna language maintenance through story and song.