The Last Language on Earth: Linguistic Utopianism in the Philippines (Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language)

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. Cover The Last Language on Earth Copyright Contents Untitled Maps Acknowledgments Abbreviations A Note on Terminology Prologue 1. Introduction What This Book Is About What Pinay Understood About Language A Language Forgotten, a Language Foretold PART I: Locating the Eskaya 2. Language, Literacy, and Revolt in the Southern Philippines Pre-​contact Visayan Literacy The “Problem” of Language Diversity in the Colonial and Early Commonwealth Periods (1593–​1937) Shamanic Rebellion and Indigenous Outlaws in Bohol (1621–​1829) Enter the Eskaya (1902–​1937) 3. Contact and Controversy First Contact Media Institutional Tribehood A Formal Alliance and a Lost Report Eskaya Responses and a New Research Agenda PART II: Language, Letters, Literature 4. How Eskayan Is Used Today Bohol in the Visayas Language Use in Bohol A Picture of the Field Site The Spoken and Sung Domains of Eskayan The Written Domains of Eskayan and Ideologies of Writing 5. The Writing System Writing Eskayan Sounds Numbers Script The Past and Future of Eskayan Writing 6. Words and Their Origins Eskayan Grammar The Lexicon Sources of Inspiration Pinay’s Lexical Agenda 7. Eskaya Literature and Traditional Historiography The Origins and Scope of Eskaya Literature Language History in Eskaya Literature: A Summary and Analysis Discussion PART III: Insurrection and Resurrection 8. From Pinay to Mariano Datahan (and Back Again) Datahan and the Origins of the Biabas Encampment The Return of Militant Cults, 1902–​1922 Accommodation with the U.S. Regime, Circa 1914–​1937 Datahan’s Final War and Posthumous Legacy 9. Eskayan Revealed: A Scenario The Rise of English in Bohol as a Catalyst for Eskayan How Pinay’s Language Was Revealed Prophecy, Prolepsis, and Time Depth in the Revelation of Eskayan Literature Summary 10. Conclusion: The First Language and the Last Word Imagining Indigeneity from Above: The View from the Helicopter The Form of Eskayan and the Identity of Pinay Imagining Indigeneity from Below: The View from the Village Regional Parallels The (Re)invention of Linguistic Tradition The Future of Eskayan References Glossary of Eskayan Terms Used in This Volume Index "The Eskayan language of Bohol in the southern Philippines has been an object of controversy ever since it came to light in the early 1980s. Written in an unusual script Eskayan bears no obvious similarity to any known language of the Philippines, a fact that has prompted speculation that it was either displaced from afar, fossilized from the deep past, or invented as an elaborate hoax. This book investigates the history of Eskayan through a systematic review of its writing system, grammar and lexicon, and carefully evaluates written and oral narratives provided by its contemporary speakers. The linguistic analysis largely supports the traditional view that Eskayan was the deliberate creation of a legendary ancestor by the name of Pinay. The study traces the identity of Pinay through the turbulent history of early 20th-century Bohol when the island suffered a series of catastrophes at the hands of the United States occupation. It was at this time that the ancestor Pinay was channelled by Mariano Datahan, a multilingual prophet who foretold that English and other languages would be abandoned and that Eskayan would one day be spoken by everyone in the world. To make sense of this situation, the book draws on theorizations of postcolonial resistance, language ideology, mimesis, and the utopian political dynamics of highland societies. In so doing, it offers a linguistic and ethnographic history of Eskayan and of the ideologies and historical circumstances that motivated its creation"-- Provided by publisher