Keywords

Introduction

This chapter looks at the interrelation between Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), language, and historical events within the context of the Nahuat-Pipil language of El Salvador. It deals with what some refer to as Indigenous Knowledge (IK), Traditional Knowledge (TK), or Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), domains that position knowledge within broader contexts and social systems. Consider the following (Brockman et al., 1997, p. n.p.):

Traditional Ecological Knowledge is a body of knowledge built up by a group of people through generations of living in close contact with nature. Traditional Knowledge is cumulative and dynamic. It builds upon the historic experiences of a people and adapts to social, economic, environmental, spiritual and political change. The quantity and quality of Traditional Knowledge differs among community members according to their gender, age, social standing, profession and intellectual capabilities. While those concerned about biological diversity will be most interested in knowledge about the environment, this information must be understood in a manner which encompasses knowledge about the cultural, economic, political and spiritual relationships with the land.

Despite its name, TEK encompasses much more than traditional knowledge about the environment. It is adaptive, cumulative, and dynamic and is deeply rooted in the different facets of the social systems of its holders. It cannot be understood or applied without looking at the broader social, economic, historical, and political dimensions (Stevenson, 1996, p. 281), and thus it is not possible to understand how TEK is perceived, conceptualized, and embedded within cognitive processes by simply looking at how it is represented in language. Nevertheless, analyzing language can provide insights into the types of knowledge which are prioritized and deemed essential within a larger cultural context. If a plant is significant enough to be named, for example, and features prominently in daily life and local folklore, then it is deemed to be part of TEK.

The approaches and theories applied in this chapter are based on interactions with Indigenous people in western El Salvador from the towns of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Nahuizalco, and Cuisnahuat where Nahuat-Pipil is most widely spoken. The research questions are a response to their specific request to conduct research on TEK, as ‘We are losing this knowledge, and without it we cannot call ourselves Indigenous’ (T. Pedro, personal communication, July 2012). This request led me to examine contemporary constructions of cultural identity in relation to the environment in accordance with a Nahuat-Pipil worldview as expressed in the Nahuat-Pipil language. Thus, the first premise of this chapter is that possession of TEK, is a key component of Indigenous identity for the Nahuat-Pipil of El Salvador. The interaction between TEK and Nahuat-Pipil experiences are examined by exploring the outside factors that have contributed to the collective accrual of traditional knowledge and its integration into Nahuat-Pipil culture, language, and construction of identity. These factors include historical events such as migration in Mesoamerica, the cultural, linguistic, and biological diversity of Central America and El Salvador specifically, as well as the major socio-political events that have affected speakers of Nahuat-Pipil.

Having established a baseline for understanding the motivations behind Indigenous interest in TEK, it is possible to then focus on the Nahuat-Pipil linguistic repertoire and how TEK is encoded within it. Thus, the investigation turns to the question of the ethnobiological categorization and classification of plants, how this is achieved by speakers of Nahuat-Pipil, and whether cognitive categorization strategies are reflected in the language itself. It is hypothesized that some cognitive categorization practices are reflected within the lexicon of the language, however this is not to say that all categorization strategies are lexically marked, as is demonstrated by instances of covert categorization.

The investigation then examines folk nomenclature of plants by presenting their internal linguistic composition. The investigation of plant names is used to further inform documentation efforts of Nahuat-Pipil by adding new focalized materials to the existing range of resources. The naming strategies used within Nahuat-Pipil are compared to Berlin’s (1992) theories on nomenclature as it has been found that ethnobiological naming conventions in Nahuat-Pipil are in line with Berlin’s theories (1972, 1973, 1992).

The theoretical framework and methods employed to collect data for this body of research are interdisciplinary and draw largely upon ethnobotany, anthropology, the collection of oral histories, and sociolinguistics, in addition to my core background as a linguist and language documenter. The concrete methods used for data collection were informed by anthropological (Davies, 2008; Hill, 2006) and ethnobiological approaches (Berlin, 1992; Martin, 2007; Puri, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). These included the use of ethnographic observation, semi-structured and topic-led interviews as well as experimental methods (free listing, pile sorting, and forest and hill walks).

An underlying aspect of my investigations of semantic categories in Nahuat-Pipil is the idea that language and culture are intrinsically tied to each other (Sharifian, 2017). This is a notion that is long-studied and interest in the relationship between language and culture can be traced back as far as the eighteenth century. William von Humboldt (1767–1835), Franz Boas (1858–1942), Edward Sapir (1884–1939), and Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941) are prominent scholars who investigated the relationship between language, culture, and thought.Footnote 1 Within the Nahuat-Pipil context and this study, I view language and culture as two inter-related yet separate concepts in which evidence of the close relationship between humans and nature can be found. I analyze how language is used to refer to and name elements of nature. In turn, there is evidence of the way that nature can inspire metaphors that describe human concepts e.g. in Nahuat-Pipil nushuchiu, literal translation ‘my flower’ is used to refer to a female romantic partner. From a wider cultural perspective, we can see how trees and plants can take on specific characteristics and are prominent in local folklore and origin stories, as well as the complementary use of plants and herbs in spiritual practices. While there is evidence to support the importance of nature within Nahuat-Pipil culture, however, there are other aspects which need to be considered. Historical and political events, for example, have also contributed to the formation of Nahuat-Pipil worldview.

By seeking to listen to and understand the requests of the language and speech community, this chapter thus aims to investigate how TEK informs the construction of sociocultural identity through language use, and how TEK itself is cognitively, culturally, and linguistically encoded in Nahuat-Pipil. This approach raises a question of reflexivity for researchers: to what extent do they serve the needs of the community, and how can they conduct research that is beneficial? It is my belief that this approach of seeking a common ground between the motives of the ‘researcher’ and the ‘community’, which may be potentially but not necessarily different, more effectively includes Indigenous viewpoints and perspectives into academic research.

Brief Historical Context

Linguistic

In texts on Uto-Aztecan languages (Campbell, 1985; Karttunen, 1983), the term ‘Nahua’ is used to refer to all languages, dialects, and variants of the Nahuat subgroup, a group to which the Nahuat-Pipil language belongs. Internationally among academic circles, the Nahuat-Pipil language spoken in El Salvador is known as ‘Pipil’ and its corresponding ISO Code is [ppl]. Language speakers in El Salvador, however, reject the name ‘Pipil’ because they view it as a derrogatory term; they opt instead to use the name ‘Nawat’ or ‘Nahuat’. The naming of the Nahuat-Pipil language is a complex matter given some of the socio-political relations between the Nahuat-Pipil Indigenous community in El Salvador and the Nahuatl communities in Mexico as well as its international presence and representation in academia (Arauz, 1960; Campbell, 1985; Hernandez Gonzalez, 2011; King, 2011; Lara-Martinez & McCallister, 2012; Schultze-Jena, 2014). However, in an attempt to decrease the confusion and remain faithful to the language name used by speakers themselves, I have opted to use a hybrid of the various naming conventions and refer to the [ppl] language as Nahuat-Pipil.

At the time of the first contact with Spanish colonial forces in 1525, El Salvador was home to at least three distinct Indigenous languages and cultures, the Nahuat-Pipil, the Cacaopera or Cacahuiles, and the Lenca or Potones (Lemus, 2011), all of which continue to exist in El Salvador. Of these three, Nahuat-Pipil has the most speakers, however, it is classified as being ‘critically endangered’ (Moseley, 2010) or ‘nearly extinct’ (Lewis et al., 2016), meaning the language is no longer being transmitted to younger generations and is therefore at risk of being lost. It is difficult to arrive at solid statistics on the numbers of speakers of Nahuat-Pipil in El Salvador, as there is much mistrust toward outsiders and researchers given the historical and ongoing violence (Dohle, 2020). The violent and turbulent history of El Salvador has given rise to an environment where it is difficult, if not dangerous, to conduct research and attain accurate and up-to-date demographics. This is exemplified by the observations of two scholars from the late twentieth century (Ching & Tilley, 1998, p. 123):

Until recent years, historical research was difficult or impossible in El Salvador, a country that has presented daunting conditions for even the most diligent of researchers. Government archives were strictly off-limits until the late 1980s, travel was dangerous, and during the Civil War of 1980–1992 local suspicions of researchers were high.

Despite the passage of over 20 years since this statement was made, conditions have not improved. Violence has increased greatly, making travel around the country difficult, archives are largely inaccessible as natural disasters have destroyed the buildings in which they were housed, and the little funding for archive accessibility is often poorly managed and misplaced. Furthermore, negative attitudes toward the language and culture prevail, and I have observed a distrust from within Indigenous communities toward outsiders and researchers who may be perceived to benefit from power imbalances.

In terms of numbers, it is estimated that in 2008 there were approximately 200 speakers of Nahuat-Pipil (Censo Nacional, 2008); however, by 2013 numbers had increased to 300 (Censo Nacional, 2013), possibly due to increased instances of self-reporting. From my own field experience, having visited the sites where Nahuat-Pipil is spoken in El Salvador (Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Cuisnahuat, and Nahuizalco), I would estimate that the number of speakers could have been as high as 500 (2013), however, the recent COVID-19 pandemic paired with limited access to health services and transportation between rural and urban centers, has meant that the population of Nahuat-Pipil speakers has been particularly hard hit. It is currently estimated that there are between 100 and 200 native speakers of Nahuat-Pipil, or ‘nahuahablantes’, in El Salvador (W. Hernandez, personal communication December 2021, M. Ramirez, personal communication, December 2021),Footnote 2 although this number does not take into account new speakers of the language, or ‘neohablantes’.

In the Nahuat-Pipil context, the terms ‘neohablante’ and ‘nahuahablante’ were coined by Anastacia Lopez, a Nahuat-Pipil speaker, during one of our discussions on what it means to be Indigenous. Nahuahablante is used to refer to the native speaker and neohablante refers to new speakers of Nahuat-Pipil. These terms are intended to highlight the differences between native speakers and new speakers who have in recent years begun visiting the older speakers in Santo Domingo de Guzmán. Anastacia Lopez does not have any formal training in language documentation, nor does she have any knowledge of the literature that has been written on language endangerment and speaker profiles. However, through her experience of working as a Nahuat-Pipil language teacher, in addition to her involvement in revitalization activities and as a member of the nahuahablante language community itself, she has coined the above terms to explain some of the linguistic trends taking place in the Salvadoran context. What follows is a binary description of speakers as perceived and described by native speakers of Nahuat-Pipil raised within a wider Nahuat-Pipil speaking community. This view, or classification of speakers does not consider the full complexity of the spectrum of different types of speakers. There is no reference, for example, to latent or semi-speakers who were raised within a Nahuat-Pipil speaking environment, have full comprehension, yet are not active speakers of the language. I suspect that the purpose of classifying speakers into a binary of nahuahablantes versus neohablantes is less about language proficiency and speaks more to the need to distinguish between perceived insiders and outsiders.

For the most part, nahuahablantes are generally of the age 50+ and all are bilingual Spanish speakers (Lemus, 2011). These speakers live in more rural settings and are often laborers. They usually have low levels of formal education. In contrast, the neohablante is younger, often in higher education, and tend to live in urban centers such as the capital city. Their occupations vary, but they have similar levels of formal education. All new speakers have obtained a university degree or are in the process of obtaining it.

Despite these differences, there is one commonality between the two groups: language. Both profiles are fluently bilingual in Spanish and Nahuat-Pipil. Although the order and manner of language acquisition may be distinct, both groups have a deep-seated interest and love for the Nahuat-Pipil language. For the nahuahablante, Nahuat-Pipil was acquired first, Spanish second. The acquisition of Spanish usually took place around the age of 7 upon entry into formal primary education, but in some instances, it took place when the person was in their early 20s. The reverse is the case for the neohablante whose first language is Spanish. They learn Nahuat-Pipil as young adults. The manner of acquisition is also very distinct. Whereas the nahuahablante has learned organically via immersion with caregivers and other available speakers, the neohablante has chosen to learn and is thus self-taught, usually by whatever means is available. Fortunately, thanks to the work of previous researchers, Nahuat-Pipil does have online resourcesFootnote 3 which facilitate self-study of the language (Alej, 2017; Hernandez Gonzalez, 2011; King, 2011, 2013, 2018), in addition to the documentation and descriptions of the language that have been carried out by previous linguists (Arauz, 1960; Campbell, 1985; Hernandez Gonzalez, 2011; King, 2011; Lara-Martinez & McCallister, 2012; Schultze-Jena, 2014). Furthermore, social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter offer opportunities for interaction in the target language, which is of great benefit for new speakers wishing to practice their developing language skills.Footnote 4

Given the different backgrounds of the two types of speakers described, it is not unusual to hypothesize that the two will have different outlooks on what it means to be Indigenous. For a nahuahablante, material poverty, traditional knowledge, and direct links to ancestry are all integral to the concept of Indigeneity (Dohle, 2020). There is a notion within the community of nahuahablantes that you cannot be Indigenous if the link between generations has been cut. In other words, the oral transmission of traditional knowledge, language, culture, behavior and shared experience is an integral aspect of Indigeneity,Footnote 5 something neohablantes cannot learn and absorb into their own identities from books alone.

It is important to acknowledge that there is a broader continuum of speakers who cannot be easily classified as being a nahuahablante or a neohablante, but who nevertheless are carriers of Indigenous social and cultural values and belief systems. As was previously mentioned, it is likely that the need to create distinctions between native speakers and new speakers has nothing to do with judging language proficiency, but rather has more to do with the needs arising from within the Nahuat-Pipil speaker community to highlight differences between the insider and the outsider, or the Indigenous and non-Indigenous speaker. Considering this, to better understand the factors that contribute to the construction of Indigenous identity, it is important to look at the collective history of speakers of Nahuat-Pipil and how they came to reside in El Salvador.

Migration

According to classic ethnohistoric research, Nahua populations first came to settle in the geographical area that is now El Salvador in Central America somewhere between 1000 and 1100 AD, after 300 years of constant migration in the southern regions of Mexico near the modern states of Veracruz and Chiapas (Arauz, 1960), although some scholars place Nahua migration at around the year 900 AD (Escalante Arce, 2004). Arauz (1960) argued that during this time contact with Mayan languages in addition to Nahua technological advancements in agriculture accelerated the process of language evolution and contributed to its separation from classical Nahuatl. More recent findings have pointed to the presence of Nahuatl speakers in the southern Maya region, which includes Guatemala, El Salvador’s northern neighbor, meaning that Nahua influences in the region were likely to be present much earlier than previously thought (Hill, 2001; Macri & Looper, 2003). In terms of the evolution of the language, however, the time its speakers spent in migration is more important than the discrepancy in the dates. I would also propose that changing geographies and environment would have had an impact on the language and that the discovery of new plants and animals would lead to the early creation of neologisms.

Language and Biodiversity

Central America is home to the Mesoamerican Biodiversity Hotspot which extends from Southern Mexico to the Panama canal (CEPF, 2016). It is ranked second among the 25 richest and most threatened biodiversity hotspots of the world (Olivet & Asquith, 2005), outranked only by the Andean mountains. North and South America were initially two separate landmasses, thus the flora and fauna of the two continents evolved separately from each other. The narrow strip of land which now connects the two is highly diverse, representing the convergence of two biogeographic regions. The geography of Central America includes highlands (mountains and volcanoes) and lowlands (swamps, coasts, grasslands, and valleys) which simultaneously provide the perfect conditions for isolation and speciation as well as movement and migration (CEPF, 2016).

If we consider the figures, approximately 17% of the roughly 17,000 plant species found in the Mesoamerican Biodiversity Hotspot are endemic species unique to this landmass as is illustrated further in Table 9.1. This means that knowledge of the uses, treatment, and possible cultivation of the nearly 3000 endemic species will most likely be held by the people living in this area. In relation to the languages spoken in Central America, it is likely that such knowledge is encoded within the communication systems of distinct language groups. Furthermore, plant naming conventions within a language can provide further insights into the mobility and migration patterns of a given population (Berlin, 1972). For example, by looking at the prevalence of certain plant names across different languages and cultures in the Americas, it is possible to see how the Nahua cultures expanded across Mesoamerica reaching as far south as Peru on the South American continent (Escalante Arce, 2004).

Table 9.1 Diversity and endemism of mesoamerican flora and fauna (CEPF, 2016)
Full size table

Mesoamerica has a range of geographical terrains: from the arid deserts of Northern Mexico to the rich and fertile soils of the volcanic valleys of El Salvador. Mexican terrain where the Nahua reside is arid and desert-like, whereas Salvadoran terrain is mostly composed of rich humid rainforests and volcanoes. Temperature-wise, central and Northern Mexico are 10 degrees Celsius cooler than El Salvador. These differences of terrain, altitude, temperature, and humidity mean that the flora and fauna are also different.

Considering these differences in terrain, it is worthwhile to consider how movement across different geographical realities would affect human behavior, language, and culture. As communities of speakers migrate south and their physical environment changes, the language used to talk about and describe their natural surroundings must be adapted to reflect the new geographical reality (Berlin, 1972, 1973). Therefore, an object may no longer be ‘X’ it may be ‘X-like’ or ‘Xish’. Furthermore, changes in the natural environment can also result in changes to the way it and its subspecies are conceptualized.

Biological and Linguistic Diversity

In line with the claim that there is a positive correlation between biological and cultural diversity (Gorenflo et al., 2012; Nettle & Romaine, 2000; Stepp, 2015), Mesoamerica is also a hotspot of linguistic diversity. Furthering the discussion around the link between language, culture, and biodiversity, is the view that there is not only a correlation but rather an interdependence between the three concepts (Terralingua, 2017). The link between humans and nature is seen to have evolved over time, and collective knowledge spanning generations offer a unique insight into the mutually beneficial relationship between people and nature in some contexts. The physical aspects of geographical terrain that allow for a wealth of biodiversity are the same aspects that encourage the development of a high density of linguistic diversity.

Through improved availability of the geographic distribution of language and biodiversity data, it is possible to see that there is in fact a positive relation between the two (Gorenflo et al., 2012). Of the estimated 5000–7000 languages spoken around the world, 3202 are found in 35 of the 50 biodiversity hotspots. The biodiversity hotspots with particularly high linguistic diversity include the East Melanesia Islands, the Guinea Forest of West Africa, Indo-Burma, Mesoamerica, and Wallacea, with each acting as a home for more than 250 languages. In terms of language endangerment, 50–90% are endangered, 85% have less than 100,000 speakers, 52.5% have less than 10,000 speakers and roughly 4000 languages have not been adequately described (Nettle & Romaine, 2000).

The Living Planet Index demonstrates trends in the populations of several thousand vertebrate species worldwide and demonstrates an overall decline in biodiversity of 30% in the last four decades (Loh et al., 2005). The Index of Linguistic diversity shows the same rate of decline over the same period worldwide; however, at a regional level, it demonstrates linguistic loss of as high as 60% in the Americas (Harmon & Loh, 2010; Loh, 2017). In the top 5 biodiversity areas there are 1622 languages, and 2166 languages in biodiversity hotspots are endemic to individual regions (Gorenflo et al., 2012).

Major Political and Social Events

Although El Salvador is situated in the center of the Mesoamerican Biodiversity Hotspot, an area that has nearly 300 languages, it is the widespread belief of the Salvadoran population that it is itself completely homogenous (Lara Martínez, 2006). During my fieldwork in 2016, I observed that those who were not directly involved with or worked on Indigenous issues were unaware of the fact that separate cultures and languages continue to co-exist within the country’s political borders (Dohle, 2020). Although the Nahuat-Pipil language is still spoken and has in recent years gained more visibility in the media (2014a, 2014b; Miranda, 2016), the lack of awareness of the cultural diversity of El Salvador can be found at different levels, from the personal to the institutional, and this is largely a result of the political and social history of the country.

It is estimated that before the genocide of 1932, or La Matanza, there were approximately 300,000 people who identified as and lived as Indigenous people, 25,000 of whom were speakers of Nahuat-Pipil (Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014). Scholars disagree on the exact figures, however, it is estimated that somewhere between 5000 and 45,000 Indigenous people of different ethnicities were killed during the Indigenous uprising and subsequent genocide of 1932 (Delugan, 2013; Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014; Hernandez, 2017; Lara Martinez, 2006). This genocide arose due to land disputes, a result of an agricultural reform which sought to privatize the communal lands which were used by the Indigenous people to subsist (A. Lauria-Santiago, 1999a, 1999b; Seligson, 1995) The privatization of communal lands meant that Indigenous people no longer had access to land on which to grow and cultivate their crops, and needed to resort to their knowledge of the natural world to source food, medicine, and building materials in order to survive. Moreover, shortly after the genocide, the government imposed a cultural and educational reform that prohibited the use of any markers of Indigeneity such as language, dress, or the use and practice of Indigenous belief systems within public space (Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014). In turn, the educational reform sought to replace existing knowledge systems with ones that were more aligned with the ideologies present within the governing bodies. As a result, survivors of the genocide were faced with the decision to either flee or assimilate and erase their connection to their Indigenous identity.

The Civil War (1980–1992) further damaged the delicate balance between the oppressors and the oppressed, and a further 8000 lives were claimed during the 12 years of conflict (Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014). It officially began in January 1981, when the FMLN launched their military offensive marking the beginning of the end of the military regime which had ruled the country for most of the twentieth century (Lindo-Fuentes et al., 2012). I would argue, however, that tension had been brewing since 1932.

In 1968, another educational reform was initiated partly as a result of La Matanza resulted in horizontal mixing between social groups and a freer flow of information and ideas (Lindo-Fuentes et al., 2012). Tensions began to build in the following decade as large numbers of youth from Indigenous settlements such as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Nahuizalco and Cuisnahuat began joining the political party which was to become the leftist Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN)Footnote 6 (Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014). In the late 1970s, guerrilla fighters began to assassinate top government officials and in response, those who promoted national dialogue on education reform were targeted by pro-government paramilitaries, death squads who acted in opposition to the FMLN and their allies. These increasing tensions and assassinations of countless peasants, teachers, office workers, intellectuals, politicians, ministers, and civilian bystanders, in addition to the deaths of guerrilla fighters and professional soldiers, marked the start of the Civil War.

A direct result of the violence of El Salvador’s history has been the conditioning of the Salvadoran population to believe that a homogenous cultural identity exists throughout the entirety of the political territory (Delugan, 2013; Tilley, 2002). The perception is that this homogenous culture is composed of mestizos and ladinos only, and disregards the existence of Indigenous groups (Lara Martinez, 2006). Although demeaning attitudes toward Indigenous people already existed before 1932, the view of homogeneity was reinforced when the government decided to ‘restore order’ in 1932 by taking military action against Indigenous groups of farmers. The result is that to this day the majority of the population in rural and urban settings believe that Indigenous groups were completely wiped out during this time, a view reinforced by the indifferent attitudes that government policies adopted toward Indigenous groups after La Matanza (Lara Martinez, 2006, p. 9).

I have witnessed a significant change since 2013, in which awareness-raising efforts have been successful, and members of the public are slowly being sensitized to Indigenous issues and the cultural diversity of the country. This observation is based on my own engagement in awareness-raising activities, some of which have resulted in concrete action such as the integration of Nahuat-Pipil into the national curriculum by the Ministry of Education (MINED) (2019; Sibrián, 2019). Further efforts are also being made by young activists with a legal background to ensure the state provides legal recognition of the Indigenous names of towns and villages with a large presence of native language speakers.

Today, the largest factor which limits access to any rural community is the high crime rate in El Salvador, which is primarily caused by criminal activity and territorial disputes between two rival gangs: MS-13 and Barrio 18. From 2009 to 2012, gang violence, including shootings, kidnapping and armed robbery, and the trade of drug, sex, and weapons, were most prevalent in rural areas (Valencia, 2015) such as the state of Sonsonate, the location of my primary field-site. Since 2013, due to the government's change of strategy toward organized crime, there has been a shift in the manifestation of gang violence. In protest of new governmental policies such as the ‘mano dura’Footnote 7 (Hume, 2007), gangs and their members have focused their activities on urban areas. By the end of 2015, they were actively attacking all city, government, and police offices (Labrador & Rauda Zablah, 2015; Valencia, 2015) resulting in the spread of panic across many populations and social groups as death tolls surpassed those of the Civil War era (1980–1992) (ContraPunto, 2015; Watts, 2015).

The violent history of El Salvador, along with the crime and violence it faces today, has meant that Indigenous communities have lived with social marginalization, reinforced by violent attitudes and demeaning policies towards their language, knowledge and culture for many generations. These attitudes and policies have affected Indigenous communities’ access to inclusive spaces, health care systems, education, and opportunities to enter the labor market. As a result of this, communities who still identify as Indigenous have needed to be self-reliant in order to survive. Those who have maintained their traditional languages have also been able to maintain the traditional knowledge encoded in the language, knowledge that has been integral to their survival. The following section will examine how TEK is encoded in language.

The Encoding of TEK in Nahuat-Pipil

When it comes to TEK and its position within the context of endangered languages, it is observed that the parts of the lexicon dealing with TEK are the most threatened (Si, 2011). This heavily affects Nahuat-Pipil as well. For example, when children are pushed to enter the Spanish-medium education system in El Salvador they are taught knowledge systems that are greatly influenced by Western ideologies and are exposed to Western-based attitudes towards learning and priorities of what should be learned. As a result, a Nahuat-Pipil child’s exposure to the oral transmission of Nahuat-Pipil TEK is greatly minimized. This is also seen when young adults migrate to larger cities, or abroad to Mexico, the United States, Canada, and beyond in search of work. As their environment changes, along with the type of work and the language used to conduct this work, they are likely to lose much of their pre-existing knowledge as it might be considered less relevant or even backward in their new context (Gould & Lauria-Santiago, 2014; Little, 2008). Therefore, in the interest of the preservation of traditional knowledge and minority and endangered languages, it is of vital importance to create accessible materials to document TEK, when possible, for the benefit of future generations.

Here we consider how TEK is encoded in language by looking at categorization and classification, as well as folk nomenclature. To better understand these, it is important to define the concepts:

  • Categorization refers to the human mind’s need to lump information together in order to create order and be able to engage with the world in an efficient manner. It is important to note that the act of categorizing is innate, however, the trends observed within what is categorized are often cultural and learned.

  • Classification refers to the hierarchical organization of knowledge, and within this chapter, this is applied to ethnobotanical knowledge.

  • Folk nomenclature refers to the naming systems applied to a group of objects in the physical world as developed within a specific culture. This often develops as a result of a natural need to categorize, classify, and name objects of significance within their physical surrounding. This might refer to functional, cultural, or spiritual importance.

  • When we speak about Ethnobiology we are referring to the systems of terminology relating to the biological world as employed by individuals who are not trained according to Western scientific conventions.

The major impetus for cognitively oriented ethnobiological research can be traced back to Harold Conklin's influential doctoral dissertation based on research in the Philippines (Conklin, 1954, 1972, 1980). It was the first ethnographically and botanically sophisticated description of a full ethnobotanical system of classification for a nonliterate society (Berlin, 1992, p. 4), and his research stressed the importance of discovering Indigenous categories for plants and their conceptual relationships to one another as complete, self-contained systems.

The work presented here is based on Brent Berlin’s (1992, 1993) models on ethnobiological categorization, classification, and folk nomenclature, although it also draws on the work of Conklin (1954). Berlin’s (1992) work is based on 20 years of ethnobiological fieldwork and research, and it is seminal for the topics of taxonomy, classification, and nomenclature in ethnobiology. Berlin argues for the human mind’s innate need to categorize, which creates the necessary conditions to understand the natural system of the world around us and classify plants and animals accordingly. He emphasizes how the mind acts as an objective computer, creating categories on the basis of objects’ morphological similarities and differences (Berlin, 1973, p. 260).

Categorization and Classification

The human need to deal with any input or information received in order to make sense of the world gives rise to the grouping of information into categories, thereby allowing for the creation of order in an otherwise complex and data-rich environment. Without this ability individuals would be unable to handle the complexity of daily interactions with the world (Aitchison, 2004; Markman, 1989). Therefore categorization is seen to be a fundamental cognitive mechanism (Polzenhagen & Xia, 2015) that simplifies the individual’s experience of the environment by grouping information and thereby reducing the load on memory and facilitating the efficient storage and retrieval of information from the cognitive system (Jacob, 2004, p. 518).

The process of categorization involves dividing information into groups, and members of each group can share similarities and features (Jacob, 2004). A set of features associated with a given category can be both context-dependent and context-independent (Barsalou, 1987, p. n.p.). Context-dependent features are only relevant within a given context, such as in relative statements of truth. For example, 15 °C may be regarded as cold in the summer but warm in the winter. Context-independent features on the other hand provide information on a category that is relevant across various contexts, e.g. in the way that ‘fire’ connotes light, heat, and energy.

Some view categorization as being intrinsically cultural, a view represented by Glushko et al. (2008, p. 129):

Categorization research focuses on the acquisition and use of categories shared by a culture and associated with language - what we call ‘cultural categorization’. Cultural categories exist for objects, events, mental states, properties, relations, and other components of experience. Typically, these categories are acquired through normal exposure to caregivers and culture with little explicit instruction.

Considering the above quote, semantic categories are not explicitly transmitted and taught, rather they seem to be absorbed organically based on the shared context, behavior of speakers, and treatment of language. We can therefore view semantic categorization as contextually and culturally dependent. Lexical categorization on the other hand refers to the way that categories are marked within language, usually by way of a classification system. The relationship between the two concepts is such that context, or semantic meaning, can dictate the way that information is lexically marked or categorized by means of classification.

In ethnobiology, the hierarchical grouping of information is applied to the natural world. Berlin (1992, p. 2) argues that:

The observed structural and substantive typological regularities found among systems of ethnobiological classification of traditional peoples from many different parts of the world can be best explained in terms of human being's similar perceptual and largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and animals in their environment - groupings that are recognised and named quite independently of their actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance to humans.

Berlin draws a line between those who view reality as a social and cultural construct unhindered by the parameters of the physical world, and those who recognize the seemingly innate ability of humans to recognize ‘natural affinities’ among the living entities of our biodiverse planet: plants and animals. These affinities result in taxonomical grouping by means of classification, which is reflected in language. In the case of the natural world, taxonomy refers to the hierarchical categories which are applied to plants and animals, whereas classification is how categories of plants, animals, objects, or information in general are grouped, based on features such as size, shape, or color. Within Ethnobiology, classification is the means by which humans navigate, utilize, and survive in the natural world, as ‘before humans can begin to utilise the biological resources of the local environment, they must first be classified’ (Berlin, 1992, p. 5). Thus, ‘[c]lassification… is an absolute and minimal requirement of being or staying alive’ (Simpson, 1961, p. 3).

Based on the above assumptions, Berlin’s Principles of Nomenclature and Principles of Categorization reflect the presumed natural system observed by humans. This, and a discussion on how individual variation and evolutionary processes are factors to be considered within classification, are presented in the following section.

Basic Principles of Classification

Berlin applied his analysis and theoretical framework developed for the study of color terms (Berlin & Kay, 1969) to folk taxonomies of living organisms seeking to identify universal patterns of categorization and lexical encoding. He noted that cross-culturally, ethnolinguistic folk classification can be organized into 5–6 categories arranged hierarchically in taxonomical groups, much like those identified by Western scientific methods for identification. Berlin’s folk classifiers do not correspond exactly to scientific categories, but the following tables provide an approximation of the correspondence between the two (Tables 9.2 and 9.3):

Table 9.2 Scientific classification of plants
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Table 9.3 Folk classification of plants (Berlin, 1992)
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Linnaean categories, one of the scientific systems of botanical hierarchies, include seven obligatory ranks, in addition to other ranks which are optional and are used as needed. These ranks classify all living things, making folk taxonomies very shallow by comparison (Hunn & Brown, 2011, p. 326). Berlin (1992) identifies six universal ranks, of which generic taxa is identified as being highly salient meaning they are the first terms to be encountered in ethnobiological investigations because they stand out in the landscape.

A taxa, or an item, of a given rank may be found at different taxonomic levels, defined by the number of nodes between a taxon and a unique beginner. This is a result of ambiguity or ‘fuzziness’ in a category’s boundaries. An example of this ‘fuzziness’ can be seen in the distinction between tree and bush, as there are bushes that may be very tree-like and vice versa.

The most basic rank as defined by Berlin (1992) is the Folk Generic. Generic taxa are typically understood as sets of living organisms that reproduce after their own kind. They are structurally basic, meaning they are the foundation on which the elaborated taxonomic hierarchy is built. Examples of generic taxa include, ‘squash’ or ‘berries’ in English, however, in some contexts, ambiguous or unaffiliated generic taxa may be considered different from other plants. In other words, they cannot be described as ‘a kind’ of something else because they carry so much cultural significance or because they are very distinct. An example of this would be ‘corn’ for Indigenous people of Mesoamerica, and ‘cactus’ for English speakers.

Life Form taxa are ‘polytypic’, meaning they always include at least two named taxa (usually more than two). Folk generic taxa may be either polytypic or monotypic e.g. the generic category coyote only includes a single species Canis latrans, as opposed to a polytypic folk generic taxa which includes two or more folk specific taxa e.g. White Oak and Black Oak.

Folk specific taxa are generally named through the use of secondary lexemes (e.g. White Oak, Cutthroat trout), however, some are named with primary lexemes as is often the case with protypical folk specifics. Generally, in traditional local systems, very large polytypic generics are cultivated plants and domestic animals.

At the Varietal level we see structural replication of the folk specific. Folk varietal names are characteristically binomial or even multinomial unless abbreviated e.g. Eastern diamond-backed snake vs. Western diamond-backed snake. Usually, this level is monotypic unless there are cultivars of high value. Polytypic cases are relatively rare.

Categorization and Classification Examples

Through categorization tasks and general observation and conversation, I have identified what I believe to be semantic and lexical categories in Nahuat-Pipil. Within Berlin’s (1992) model for plant classification, all categories would be found at the Generic level, and individual taxa within each category are subgeneric taxa. No distinction is made between fruits and vegetables in Nahuat-Pipil, rather the categorization of fruits and vegetables is done in relation to their interaction with the human body (Dohle, 2020). This is an important aspect to remember as category names feature in the nomenclature of items within the category. This has the benefit of efficiently communicating to the listener how they should expect to identify and handle the item. Features such as size are measured according to how the human would have to hold said fruit, i.e. will it be held in the palm of my hand or the tips of my fingers? Does it need to be torn, sliced, or parted to be consumed? Interestingly, references to these different categories are occasionally accompanied by a respective hand motion. Table 9.4 presents an overview of the identified categories.

This list of categories is by no means a finished list, rather it represents an overview of the categories within which plant names were placed throughout the data collection process. It was compiled using my own primary research (Dohle, 2020) as well as by referencing previous descriptions of Nahuat-Pipil (Campbell, 1985; Hernandez Gonzalez, 2011) and Salvadoran botany (Choussy, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978). Almost all the categories presented are productive; they are still being used to create new words whenever a new fruit is encountered as is the case with muyulala or lalashukuk, two terms for ‘mandarin’ which were spontaneously created and agreed on by speakers during one of my elicitation sessions. Rows 1–9 and 12–15 represent the Generic taxa in the system of folk taxonomies; rows 10–11 represent Life Form taxa. Finally, rows 16 and 17 represent covert categories that are undergoing a process of lexical shift. The term puputukat, for example, means ‘reeds that smell good’, and it is applied to all herbs which are not classified as kilit. In contrast to other categories however, taxa within the category puputukat do not have Nahuat-Pipil names, and thus they are not subject to lexical nominal classification. Finally, the category of citric fruits is one that appears to be expanding as neologisms are created for taxa within this category. The prototype is lala, ‘orange’, and it is possible that the nominal classifier for this category might also be lala, but it remains to be seen and depends on the lexical form of future neologisms for items within this category.

The data presented here and in the following sections was compiled and collected via active discussions and interactions with native Nahuat-Pipil speakers. I worked with 73 participants (45 females; 28 males) in total, and of these 52 (33 females; 19 males) took part in the plant identification and pile sorting tasks. All participants were willing and comfortable to speak Nahuat-Pipil in my presence and were all between the ages of 52–90+.Footnote 8 The goal was to include as many participants as possible who varied in age and gender. Ideally participants of different social statuses and professions would also be represented (Berlin, 1992, p. 204), however, considering within this context the limits of intergenerational transmission, the perception of Indigeneity as a social status, and the gendering of profession or skilled work), it was not possible to vary these factors much.

A range of methods were used to collect different types of data. Ethnographic observation was used throughout the data collection process as a means to gather social contextual data for TEK. Initial elicitation sessions focused on individual free listing of plants, fruits and vegetables (Martin, 2007; Puri, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). In addition, semi-structured interviews and discussions as well as experimental methods such as elicitation of plant names, plant identification, and pile sorting were utilized. As my research is mostly focused on consultants’ biological knowledge, interaction with the natural world was maximized. This was done by taking consultants on forest and hill walks, doing individual and group-based tasks, and asking direct and indirect questions about consultants’ knowledge of agricultural practices, staple foods, as well as prominent local flora (Martin, 2007; Puri, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c).

Folk Nomenclature

When it comes to nomenclature, Berlin (1992) argues that universals are found in ethnobiological nomenclature i.e. the patterns that underlie the naming of plants and animals in systems of ethnobiological classification. Such nomenclature is said to represent a natural system of naming that reveals much about the way people conceptualize living things in their environment (Berlin, 1992, p. 26). To analyze nomenclature, we look at the linguistic patterns found in the emic naming of plants by looking at the internal lexemic composition of folk nomenclature. Generally, lexemes of nomenclature are productive, or transparent, allowing meaning to be embedded in names. Proto-Aztecan nomenclature for generic and life form taxa, for example, often have descriptive or onomatopoeic names for birds, (Hunn & Brown, 2011, p. 322). Proto-Aztecan examples include kakalo, ‘crow’ or ‘animal that says /kaka/’, and tukulo, ‘owl’ or ‘animal of the night which says /tuku/’. Nomenclature for specific and varietal forms is often accompanied by an adjective which describes color or size e.g. ‘red sparrow’ or Nahuat-Pipil ayutzin, ‘small turtle’. Berlin argues that the above two systems can be found in all languages, and while many have confirmed these claims, some skeptics (Baker, 2007; Dwyer, 2005; Si, 2011) maintain that far more languages need to be investigated in detail before these naming conventions and levels of categorization can be treated as universal.

In terms of ethnobotanical folk nomenclature, Berlin (1992, p. 26) claims that the formal linguistic structure of plant names is similar in all languages. He also claims that salient morphological and behavioral features of plant and animal species are often encoded directly in the ethnobiological names used to refer to these species. He suggests that this purposeful assignment of names to plants and animals may have adaptive significance because such terms will be less difficult to learn, easier to remember as well as to utilize, thus reducing the cognitive effort required of people of non-literate traditions who must control large ethnobiological vocabularies. Furthermore, the transparency and productivity of lexemes allow meaning and knowledge to be embedded in plant nomenclature, meaning the name of a plant can communicate important information such as how to identify the plant and how to interact with it. Finally, it is important to note that a comparative analysis of the mapping of names demonstrates that while a name indicates the existence of a particular taxon, the absence of a name does not imply the absence of a category.

Naming Conventions and Examples

In this section we can look at the naming conventions of folk nomenclature in Nahuat-Pipil by looking at the internal linguistic composition of names and considering how they can be analyzed differently to account for semantic meaning. Concrete results include a 300-item wordlist of local names in Nahuat-Pipil for local plants. A note on data presentation: All Nahuat-Pipil plant names are accompanied by their corresponding Salvadoran Spanish names (SV) and, when possible, their corresponding English names (EN). Most plant names have been identified by their scientific name presented in italics and prefaced with ‘bot.’, and they are also presented when available.

As was previously mentioned, some participants were unable to identify many of the samples provided during the plant identification task. Taking the mentioned factors into consideration, the plants that consultants had the most problems with were those which are not native to the Americas and would have been introduced in the years following contact with the Spanish colonizers. Such plants include onions, rue, and carrots and were often found in the consultant’s gardens and houses. While in most cases the consultants were able to correctly identify these plants in Spanish, they were not able to produce their corresponding names in Nahuat. Not surprisingly, none of the consultants had any issues identifying and naming plants native to Central America in Nahuat-Pipil, such as tomatoes, avocados, maize, beans, and so on. Comparison to plant terminology found in previous documentation of Nahuat-Pipil (Campbell, 1985), showed that terms were already missing from the lexicon when Lyle Campbell carried out fieldwork in the 1970s. Comparison to early 1920s botanical guides (Carpenter Standley, 1922; Choussy, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978) did not bring up any Nahuat-Pipil terms for non-endemic plants.

Morphosyntactic Structure

The processes of breaking down the internal composition of botanical nomenclature clearly demonstrate that many of these terms include reference to the root category to which they belong. Research on a different variant of Nahuatl, Cuetzalan Nahuatl spoken in Mexico, demonstrates a similar strategy for the creation of color terms (Castillo Hernández, 2000).

As an agglutinating and polysynthetic language, the lexical items of Nahuat-Pipil are a composite of root words or concepts paired with morphemes to signpost lexical items’ relationships with each other. As a result, it can sometimes be difficult to uncover the etymology of a given plant name. Thus, the following presents approximations of etymologies based on the nominal structure of plant names by analyzing in detail the internal morpho-syntactic structure of naming conventions of plant names. These are ultimately indicative of the noun phrase structure. The internal nominal structure incorporates three principal strategies: N, NN, and NAdj. These are outlined in the following subsections.

N

Nomenclature of plants classified as Generic within Berlin’s (1992) Folk classification paradigm are often primary names, as outlined previously. Primary names can be simple and composed of single nouns (e.g. fish), productive and composed of compound nouns (e.g. catfish), or unproductive and composed of Adj + N (e.g. silverfish). In Nahuat-Pipil, simple primary names usually refer to both the superordinate category and the prototype of the category, which is in line with Berlin’s (1992) views on protypicality. Examples include: tzaput, shukut, and et.

Given the agglutinative nature of Nahuat-Pipil, however, it can be difficult to analyze the lexical composition of plant names. It is not clear where one form ends and another begins. For example, as seen in Table 9.4, eshut has been analyzed as one semantic category but lexically it could be analyzed as either a single noun (N) or a compound noun (NN). Therefore, eshut could also be analyzed as a productive primary name, however more research would need to be carried out to see if it behaves in a productive manner, or if it has become fossilized as a simple primary name. I would suggest that generally, the shorter the name, the less likely it is to be composed of a compound. For example, et ‘beans’, and ‘water’, are single concept words.

Table 9.4 Nahuat-Pipil plant categories (Dohle, 2020)
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Nn

I found that the use of compound nouns in ethnobotanical naming conventions is most common when the referent of the term is less likely to resemble the prototype of the category it belongs to. This strategy is always agglutinative and combines key features of the fruits or categories in question. When combined, the listener can determine in an intuitive manner what the object being referred to might resemble. For example, kuyulmatza combines the concept kuyul ‘small hard fruit’, with matzaj ‘prickly but not spiny fruit’. This is the same strategy used in English when compounding names for fruits e.g. crab-apple or eggplant. This is an example of what Berlin (1992) refers to as ‘secondary names’, which are often employed to refer to taxa that are folk specific.

Alternatively, these could also be analyzed as primary productive names, or folk-specific or folk varietal names that are monothetic. Generally, to be monothetic, names must be defined in relation to a simple feature contrast such as color or size. In Nahuat-Pipil, the size of a fruit is usually indicated by referring to a small or large animal. Something small, for example, would be indicated in relation to michin ‘fish’, or muyut ‘fly’ e.g. muyulala ‘mandarin’, and muyutzaput ‘nispero’ (bot. Manilkara achvar).

NAdj

Without getting into a discussion about whether adjectives exist in Nahuat-Pipil, for this specific section, an adjective is defined as terms with the morpheme ending /-tik/. These terms can sometimes be interpreted as nouns meaning ‘something coloured X’ (Campbell, 1985). The combination of a noun or root word with an adjective is in some cases, agglutinative and other cases paired as a compound. Thus, et istak can also be called istaket. In both of these cases, there is emphasis on the color of the bean istak ‘white’. These names are secondary names within Berlin’s (1992) principles of nomenclature, as they only appear in contrastive sets, the most common contrastive sets being made between istak ‘white’, and chiltik ‘red’ as in et istak and et chiltik, tzaput istak, tzaput chiltik.

On occasion, however, the NAdj compound has become fossilized as is the case for tzanajtultik ‘stem’. It would appear that in this example, the color term is no longer an active component or a focal point of the term. This needs to be investigated further to see if distinctions are made between different types of stems within a plant. In general, folk names with this linguistic construction are secondary names and are classified as folk specific taxa.

Non-Agglutinative Noun Phrases

Non-agglutinative noun phrases are also employed in ethnobotanical naming strategies, particularly when speakers are not confident in their responses. For example, tzaput pal mico ‘category.prep.monkey’, is a descriptive noun phrase (NPrepN) as is kuyul ne mistun ‘category.art.cat’ (NArtN). When this strategy is employed, the superordinate classifier is always used, as seen in this case with tzaput and kuyul. Noun phrases are more commonly employed to name plants which were identified but not frequently seen. This is to say that these plants did not feature in the everyday lives of the speakers and thus had to be described rather than named. Within Berlin’s Folk Classification paradigm, these names refer to varietal taxa, however he does not refer to this naming strategy within his principles of nomenclature.

Within Berlin’s (1992) principles of nomenclature, N names are simple primary names assigned to the Generic level and prototype of that level, NAdj are secondary names used for taxa at subgeneric level such as folk-specific levels as they usually only occur in contrastive sets, and NN names are productive primary names. Finally, the use of noun phrases to refer to varietal taxa and the inclusion of superordinate classifiers within the naming convention is evidence that these classifiers are still productive.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have explored the interactions between language, migration, environment, and historical events which have affected speakers of Nahuat-Pipil. We have discussed how the disruption of the transmission of traditional knowledge and the historical trauma endured has resulted from the historical violence against Indigenous people in El Salvador. Nevertheless, it is observed that their marginalization has also resulted in the preservation of TEK as it is this knowledge which has contributed to their survival. The ability to name and identify plants is essential to being able to live off the land, and certain aspects of language such as lexical categorization and folk nomenclature are essential strategies for quickly grouping and communicating information about the plants which are of cultural and practical significance. We see evidence of how this is used in Nahuat-Pipil in the way that lexical categorization indicates how items are to be handled to be consumed. All members of the tzaput category must be held in the palm of the hand compared to members of the shukut family which are held with the tips of the fingers. This is aligned with Berlin’s (1992) view that behavioral and morphological features are encoded directly into names. Linguistic analysis of folk nomenclature also demonstrates that the more prominent and important items have simpler names e.g. et ‘beans’, a staple in Nahuat-Pipil diet, compared to perunhet ‘lentils’ a lesser available legume. We can consider how the purposeful assignment of names to plants and animals may be of functional significance. Such terms will be less difficult to learn, easier to remember, and utilize, and thus reduce the cognitive effort required of people of non-literate traditions who must control large ethnobiological vocabularies.

The Nahuat-Pipil have a shared background knowledge that is unique to El Salvador. Aspects of this knowledge base are found among people who do not identify as Indigenous, however, this constructed world or belief system is much richer and more ‘real’ within the Indigenous communities and Nahuat-Pipil speakers themselves because of the language they share. The descriptions in this chapter of TEK as it is encoded within the Nahuat-Pipil language offer examples of knowledge that are still relevant and productive within the language-speaking community. As the Nahuat-Pipil speaking population dwindles and access to land and the natural world becomes more restricted, this type of knowledge begins to disappear, however, this does not mean that it is any less relevant or significant, especially given the current environmental crisis. I believe there is still much to be learned from those who have lived in such close proximity to nature for many generations, and who despite facing adversity have continued to survive as a result of this close relationship.