Description
The Last Language on Earth is an ethnographic history of the disputed Eskayan language, spoken today by an isolated upland community living on the island of Bohol in the southern Philippines. After Eskaya people were first 'discovered' in 1980, visitors described the group as a lost tribe preserving a unique language and writing system. Others argued that the Eskaya were merely members of a utopian rural cult who had invented their own language and script. Rather than adjudicating outsider polemics, this book engages directly with the language itself as well as the direct perspectives of those who use it today.Through written and oral accounts, Eskaya people have represented their language as an ancestral creation derived from a human body. Reinforcing this traditional view, Piers Kelly's linguistic analysis shows how a complex new register was brought into being by fusing new vocabulary onto a modified local grammar. In a synthesis of linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence, a picture emerges of a coastal community that fled the ravages of the U.S. invasion of the island in 1901 in order to build a utopian society in the hills. Here they predicted that the world's languages would decline leaving Eskayan as the last language on earth. Marshalling anthropological theories of nationalism, authenticity, and language ideology, along with comparisons to similar events across highland Southeast Asia, Kelly offers a convincing account of this linguistic mystery and also shows its broader relevance to linguistic anthropology. Although the Eskayan situation is unusual, it has the power to illuminate the pivotal role that language plays in the pursuit of identity-building and political resistance.
Table of Contents
Maps AcknowledgmentsA Note on TerminologyPrologueChapter One: IntroductionWhat this Book is AboutWhat Pinay Understood About LanguageA Language Forgotten, a Language ForetoldPART I: Locating the EskayaChapter Two: Language, Literacy and Revolt in the Southern PhilippinesPre-contact Visayan LiteracyThe 'Problem' of Language Diversity in the Colonial and EarlyCommonwealth periods (1593-1937)Shamanic Rebellion and Indigenous Outlaws in Bohol (1621-1829)Enter the Eskaya (1902-1937)Chapter Three: Contact and ControversyFirst ContactMediaInstitutional TribehoodA Formal Alliance and a Lost ReportEskaya Responses and a New Research AgendaPART II: Language, Letters, LiteratureChapter Four: How Eskayan is Used TodayBohol in the VisayasLanguage use in BoholA picture of the FieldsiteThe Spoken and Sung Somains of EskayanThe Written Domains of Eskayan and Ideologies of WritingChapter Five: The Writing SystemWriting Eskayan SoundsNumbersScriptThe Past and Future of Eskayan writingChapter Six: Words and Their OriginsEskayan GrammarThe LexiconSources of InspirationPinay's Lexical AgendaChapter Seven: Eskaya Literature and Traditional HistoriographyThe Origins and Scope of Eskaya literatureLanguage History in Eskaya Literature: A Summary and AnalysisDiscussionPART III: Insurrection and ResurrectionChapter Eight: From Pinay to Mariano Datahan (and Back Again)Datahan and the Origins of the Biabas EncampmentThe Return of Militant Cults 1902-1922Accommodation with the US Regime ca. 1914-1937Datahan's Final War and Posthumous legacyChapter Nine: Eskayan Revealed: A ScenarioThe Rise of English in Bohol as a Catalyst for EskayanHow Pinay's Language was RevealedProphecy, Prolepsis and Time DepthSummaryChapter Ten: Conclusion: The First Language and the Last WordImagining Indigeneity from Above: The View from the HelicopterThe Form of Eskayan and the Identity of PinayImagining Indigeneity from Below: The View from the VillageRegional ParallelsThe (Re)invention of Linguistic TraditionThe Future of EskayanReferences Glossary of Eskayan Terms Used in this VolumeIndex
