The last living speaker of an indigenous language from South America’s extreme south has passed away, marking the end of its cultural heritage. Cristina Calderon passed away on Wednesday at the age of 93. She mastered the Yamana language of the Yagan community and was the last person left in the world to speak it after the death of her sister in 2003. Her work included creating a dictionary of the language with its translations into Spanish so that she could preserve her knowledge.
‘With her gone, part of the cultural memory of our people is gone,’ said Lidia Gonzalez, Calderon’s daughter, on Twitter. In Chile, Gonzalez is one of the representatives drafting a new constitution. However, the dictionary offered hope of preserving the language in some form, she said. The possibility for saving and systematizing the language remains open, despite the loss of linguistic knowledge created by her departure.
Despite the fact that there are a few dozen Yagans left in the world, people from the community stopped learning the language, which was considered ‘isolated’ because its origins could not be determined. Calderon lived in Chile’s Villa Ukika, a town created by Yagans on the outskirts of Puerto Williams. He made his living by selling knitted socks and a simple house. The ancestral ethnic group inhabited the archipelagos near the extreme south of South America, now Chile and Argentina, an area that nudges towards the frozen Antarctic.
Post Your Comments