The Loss of the Ancestral Language and its Culture

Abstract

This essay analyzes the distancing of native languages in indigenous communities as a risk to culture and self-identity, in connection with historical processes of exclusion. Social discrimination causes shame linked to the use of the mother tongue, leading to generational abandonment. Only 6.5% of the Ecuadorian population speaks an indigenous language, with a majority of elderly speakers and a clear lack of interest in young people. Indigenous migration to urban areas, motivated by structural poverty, significantly reduces the possibilities of using the language, forcing people to adapt to new cultural contexts until they progressively lose their ancestral identity. This situation is aggravated by the lack of teachers trained in bilingual intercultural education and the scarcity of adequate pedagogical materials. The central question is: how to counteract the loss of the ancestral language in the face of educational, discriminatory and migratory obstacles? The objective is to analyze the causes of this loss and propose lines of action for its conservation, considering community tourism and bilingual intercultural education as potential instruments of revitalization. Language preservation is inseparable from the social equity and cultural survival of indigenous peoples.