MANY LANGUAGES, ONE WORLD
United Nations Academic Impact Student Essay Contest
Write an essay (2,000 words or less) related to the post-2015 global development agenda, in the context of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and the definition of new goals reflecting the imperative of global sustainable development that recognises, and is enriched by, cultural and linguistic diversity. You are encouraged to visit the website sustainabledevelopment.un.org for background material in this regard
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By Bruno Marcel Duarte Coscia
National University of Asunción, Polytechnic School
Yvy Marãe’ỹ
This is one of the most exciting matters I have had the pleasure of addressing. “Yvy Marãe’ỹ” stands for “The land without evil” expressed in a native language called Guaraní, which is the official language spoken in Paraguay besides Spanish. The indigenous peoples in Paraguay represent a cultural richness, having twenty different classifications in their population with their own specific language each, grouped towards five linguistic families. The proper “Guaranies” being the most historically significant, since the early days of the colonization of South America, and due to their big inheritance to our daily lives. Their philosophy, language, traditions, customs, aesthetics and spiritualism have left a major influence in the worldview of citizens, affecting the whole region. This reality has called the attention of many appealing minds to understand this cultural phenomenon.
Approaching in the first place the language phenomenon, the novelty that we have the chance to perceive is that Paraguay having in majority a non indigenous population, are precisely the ones who speak in majority Guaraní. That’s right, it's easy to see that almost 85% of the population speaks Guaraní¹. It is worth to say that Paraguay is the only country in which such an unusual event took place. It is true that Peru and Bolivia, for instance, have more native languages and even more ethnic groups, but none of them witnessed the penetration of a spoken native language in the whole country as in Paraguay. There are reasons to believe that the geographical disposition had a key role in this matter, since Paraguay is a landlocked country and this might have fostered the conservation of cultural values. Another factor that is usually overshadowed is the presence and work of the Jesuits in South America. Remarkably, the Jesuits established a considerable number of townships, or “Reducciones” as they are locally called, mostly in the Paraguayan region, where the natives had, in some way, a fruitful symbiotic relation with these missionaries, and therefore the history shows an enhancement in the natives’ own identity and culture.
Despite the inner motive of the Jesuits, we should accept in the name of reason that when something has a value, or represents an improvement for the common good, its value is objectively worthy for every individual. That is why this cultural enhanced experience is something that we should be enthralled about. In a sense of analogy, what a monoculture offers in terms of nutrition for a population a monoculturalism might skew the perceptions of individuals in a population, hence, an ankylosed identity is perceived, leaving to a downtrend development. That is, we need to consume diversity to strengthen ourselves, and for the sake of extending the cultural point of view, we can understand the frailty-prone of monoculturalism due to the lack of diversity. A clearly counter-example of this denounce is the proliferous effects of the well-established Guaranies in regard of the blended relationship with the Jesuits and their language as an overt inheritance for the Paraguayan people. Nowadays, the worldwide attention is around preserving cultural diversities, but what we should be aware of is why this attention is important. The interest on this diversity preservation is given by the engendering of new cultures, gradually fortifying the reality to be sturdy and capable enough to sustain the transition to new evolved cultures. Consequently, this leaves an outcome of tangible humanized goods and products as well as more humanized citizens in their natural environment.
But how can the Guarani culture be realistically useful for others? First of all, let us try to consider a famous controversial hypothesis called "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" where is alleged that the language we speak shape the way we think. Lera Boroditsky, an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology has found, along with her team, some empirical data² showing that cross-linguistic differences in thought and perception stem from syntactic or lexical differences between languages. Thus, revealing how language shapes even the most fundamental dimensions of human experience, aspects as space, time, causality and relationships are tightly related to language. In contrast to the dogmatic notion that human cognition is largely universal and independent of language and culture. Added to that, now it is easier to see that every language is a portal that leads you to experience the world in a different way, where not only the communication is concerned, but also the entire culture and the way that words are meant to be felt. If we take into account the values mentioned above, there is no such thing as a direct translation. The enriched experience of understanding a poem in Guarani from the cultural context has no comparison.
Bringing attention to particular aspects of the Guaranies, we see that through their protagonism in their own life, their surroundings had benefits too, the flora and fauna of their settlement were restored, allowing us to say that even the continent was conserved due to their presence. Their philosophy avowed by the “Yvy Marãe’ỹ” or “The land without evil” conception, shows a restless attitude of always searching a better place, a community that does not stand still in the conformism of amenities. This constant search is a characteristic of their nomad behaviour, as opposed to our common prevailing scenario where we might find ourselves submerged in activities and routines, affecting the natural human tendency of eagerly seeking meaning. All the idiosyncrasy, including the aesthetics that impress the ornamental details of their crafts, are part of a cosmovision or worldview. This insight allows them to interpret the world and interact with it from their unique cultural identity. If we take into account the sustainable development notion that usually tends to be associated with ways of maintaining resources, we can see how this cultural preservation surpasses, in a broaden aspect, the previous outlined idea, giving rise to overriding interests and efforts to constitute the world that we want in our near future. Efforts that are notably put forth by organizations as the United Nations and the global development agenda. In this regard, I would like to point out a few considerations that might promote the cultural Guarani reality.
1-) Territory: A primordial angle to take care of is the territory, a space where the culture could be recreated in a free way without constraints. If a space is guaranteed, everything else follows.
2-) Formal native education: They have the right to create their own curricula for the formal education of native people, according to their interests and previous weighing of their values and priorities. However, they need to make sure not to end up isolated from the rest of the Paraguayan reality, for instance, the exclusion of the Spanish language.
3-) The right and obligation of interculturalism: The Guaranies or the indigenous peoples in general are not a ghetto, a law of reciprocity must be performed to promote their culture towards other diversities and viceversa. Other cultures must have the chance to interact with the Guaranies and therefore reinforce their own identity through diversity. They also need to be capable of adapting to the upcoming world transitions through the interculturalism.
Based on these considerations, a connection can be made between the culture, language and sustainable development. Focusing efforts on preserving culture also means a development that necessarily implies sustainability, since the proper culture recreates and adapts itself through adversities. On the other hand, the language diversity allow us to consume, in a special and genuine way, the pluralized cultures of our surroundings, therefore leaving as a result an experience of interculturalism that reinforces and enriches the parties involved, after all, every language is a whole world to be perceived and discovered. Regarding the Paraguayan reality, we are on track for these affairs, with the help of NGO’s, the Government and the Ministry of Education and Culture, there are existing efforts that set the pace for the future that we all want. As long as we keep moving, we are not paralyzed in this concern, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
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² How Language Shapes Thought, Lera Boroditsky, Stanford 2011
