This post is also available in: Spanish
Quinn Brenneke is a SALTer working with MCC Mexico partner Voces Mesoamericanas.
When I had the choice to take a language class in 7th grade, my dad’s wisdom was to learn Spanish. He predicted what has become true, that speaking Spanish would be endlessly helpful in my life. By one measure, the United States is already the home to the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. Learning Spanish has since opened up communication between me and 559 million people worldwide, which adds to the 527 million native English speakers that I could already communicate with. (Who knows how many non-native English speakers exist.) So to put it simply, learning Spanish was a great idea.
However, aside from its obvious benefits of being able to travel widely and communicate with at least twice as many people, learning a new language is valuable because it opens up new ways of thinking. Let me tell you why learning a new language, even one that only 21,000 people speak in a small, beautiful corner of the world, is worth it.
Before colonization introduced the Spanish language to southern Mexico and Central America, the native Mayans in the region had their own language which has since carried encouragement and hope in its words through generations of enslavement, discrimination, and violence. Today, some estimate that there are 56 linguistic groups in Chiapas which trace their roots to an old Mayan language. I’ve recently begun learning one of these languages, Tsotsil, the language of my host family and some of the communities where I work.
Me with my host family who are donning their traditional clothing from Huixtan when we visited for a community celebration back in October.
Several communities in the area speak their own variation of Tsotsil, which is mostly understandable among native speakers, but has strong distinctions. I am learning Tsotsil from the Huixtan community, where my host family is from. A Google search tells me that there are around 21,000 people living in Huixtan, which means there is probably one person who speaks the Huixtan variation of Tsotsil for every 26,600 Spanish speakers in the world.
So if the benefits of traveling widely and being able to communicate with nearly an entire continent don’t apply to learning Tsotsil, what are the benefits? I have learned to think of the world in new ways, even by just learning a few phrases, because ideas are expressed uniquely in different languages. Here are a few words and their literal translations in Tsotsil that have let me think in new ways, and ultimately, see the world with more nuance and color:
1. bats’i k’op – Tsotsil, literally “natural, true word”
How do you say Tsotsil in Tsotsil? Actually, there is no word. The way someone from Huixtan would find out if I speak Tsotsil would be to ask me, “Do you speak our natural, true word?” That is to say, speaking Spanish as a Tsotsil-speaking Mayan descendant is unnatural. For me, this is a clue to understanding how Mayan people see themselves in the light of Spanish colonization. The imposition of a foreign culture, language, economy on another people is unnatural. It’s not how things should be.
Me with Elena, my friend and Tsotsil teacher.
2. ok’on to – goodnight, literally “tomorrow, still”
There’s something really hopeful about this way of ending a day. I think it’s wrapped up in the symbolism of sundown, which brings to mind old western movies that end with cowboys riding off into the sunset. Day turning to night is such a powerful symbol of closure because everyone can relate to a day’s end. Night just as well symbolizes the rest time before morning, new beginnings. In times of bad news and desperation, the daily reminder that tomorrow is yet to come is a word of hope. The sun is sure to rise again. Ok’on to.
3. nichim ko’nton – I’m happy or it’s a pleasure, literally “my heart is flowering”
This phrase is said whenever someone is welcomed into a home, or meets a new person, or thanks someone for a favor. In Tsotsil, attention is given to the heart. “How do you feel?” sounds more like “how is your heart?” When one feels good, their heart is like a healthy patch of land full of flowers. Living in a new country requires a lot of vulnerability and getting used to feeling confused or lost. This phrase has called on me to pay more attention to when my heart is dry and when it is flowering.