Blog: The last two speakers of Ayapaneco aren’t talking

3rd May 2011

The language of Ayapaneco has been spoken for centuries in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, but now the last two surviving speakers of the language, Manuel Segovia, 75 and Isidro Velaquez, 69, who live just 500 yards apart, aren’t speaking to each other.

A linguistic anthropologist from Indiana University who is producing a dictionary of Ayapaneco said, “They don’t have a lot in common” and people who know them said they’ve never really enjoyed each other’s company.

Mr Segovia continued to speak the language with his brother until his death ten years ago and still uses it to converse with his son and wife who can understand him, but can’t speak more than a few words themselves, leading to slightly one-sided conversations.

There are 68 indigenous languages in Mexico, but the advent of education in Spanish in the mid 20th century, together with urbanisation and migration has led to the break-up of the core group of speakers.

You can read more on this here.