Roots of Identity : Language and Literacy in Mexico / Linda King.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

King, Linda, Author.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (208 p.) : illus

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Despite over 50 years of literacy training by the Mexican government, the National Census records an illiteracy rate of over 70 percent in most Indian communities. This book attempts to discover why so many Indians are illiterate today despite an indigenous literary tradition that dates back to the pre-Conquest period. The author sees language as the main factor explaining the high illiteracy rate in the Indian regions. Although alphabets have been created for most of Mexico's indigenous languages, there is no longer a literate tradition in the languages themselves, and writing is intrinsically associated with the official and dominant language, Spanish. Indians continue to reproduce their group identity through the maintenance of linguistic and cultural boundaries. How these boundaries have been built over time and how they continue to be maintained throughout the 20th century form the substance of this book.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Contents

Tables, Maps, and Figures

Introduction

Part I LITERACY: MYTH AND REALITY

Intorduction

CHAPTER 1 The Social Nature of Literacy

CHAPTER 2 Pre-Hispanic Writing

CHAPTER 3 Maya and Nahuatl During the Colonial Period

CHAPTER 4 Contemporary Indigenous Literacy and the Growth of Ethnicity

Part II LANGUAGE, LITERACY, AND EDUCATION

CHAPTER 5 Language Groups in Mexico

CHAPTER 6 The Pattern of Illiteracy

CHAPTER 7 Literacy Training for Mexican Indians

Part III THE DISCOURSE OF THE ILLITERATE

CHAPTER 8 Indigenous Representations of Language and Literacy

CHAPTER 9 The Expression of Illiteracy in the Mestizo World

Conclusion

APPENDIX: Interviewing Sites

Glossary

References Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

ISBN:

1-5036-2365-3

OCLC:

1294425331