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Your word against mine: How a rebel language and script of the P hilippines was created, suppressed, recovered and contested
Author(s) -
Kelly Piers
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the australian journal of anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1757-6547
pISSN - 1035-8811
DOI - 10.1111/taja.12005
Subject(s) - inscribed figure , sociocultural evolution , tribe , materiality (auditing) , linguistics , sociology , history , ancestor , media studies , anthropology , aesthetics , archaeology , art , philosophy , geometry , mathematics
When news of an uncontacted ‘lost tribe’ began emanating from the island of B ohol in the southern P hilippines, visitors were fascinated by the group's unique language and complex writing system, used today by some five hundred people in limited domains. Though few persons have attempted to analyse the language—known today as Eskayan—exotic theories of its origins are widely circulated by outsiders. However, according to speakers, E skayan was created by the ancestor P inay who used the human body as inspiration. For P inay, a language and its written mode were inextricable. In the twentieth century, P inay's language was rediscovered by the rebel soldier M ariano D atahan who retransmitted it to his followers. This creation story is consistent with my linguistic analysis, which points to a sophisticated encryption of the regional V isayan language. Further, the particulars of how E skayan was designed shed much light on the sociocultural conditions motivating its (re)creation. Implicit notions of linguistic materiality, boundedness, and inter‐changeability are reflected in the relexification process carried out by P inay/ D atahan. In defiance of all imperial claimants to the island, P inay and D atahan effectively reified a language community whose territorial rights were corporeally inscribed.