Acquisition

Although Upper Necaxa Totonac is currently spoken by around 3,400 people, very few of those are children. As the language of commerce, education, and government has shifted to Spanish over the last few decades, so has the language of daily life for the majority of inhabitants of the Necaxa Valley; because of this, the language of child-rearing has also shifted to Spanish, in many cases as a result of the deliberate choice of Totonac-dominant parents who see proficiency in the national language as essential to the success of their children. In 2003, our team began to work with the last few families in Patla whose children, like this little girl, are still acquiring Upper Necaxa Totonac as a mother tongue. Sadly, these children are almost certain to be the final generation of speakers of this language.