Indigenous names that were all but forgotten have been making a comeback in Peru thanks to a new initiative to gather them together in a national register, language researchers have revealed to EFE.
The names were not officially recognized and often written off for sounding "weird," incomprehensible or having an unknown script.
Until recently, it was not easy to have an indigenous name in Peru and last year the majority of newborns were given anglophone names, like John or Dylan.
In order to reverse this trend, the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (RENIEC) began work on a register to collect names in all of Peru's original languages.
"It's a tool so that communities exercise their rights, mainly those relating to name, ethnic and individual identity," Danny Santa María, assistant manager of academic research at RENIEC, told EFE.
Since 2012, names in Quechua, Aymara, Jaqaru, and the Amazonian languages Aguaruna, Huambisa, Matsés, and Shipibo-Conibo have experienced a revival.
The project bears even more importance in 2019 owing to Unesco's "International Year of Indigenous Language," a bid to revive the almost 3,000 languages at risk of falling out of usage around the world, 21 of which are native to Peru.
The document also acts as a guide for registrars traveling the vast, diverse territory that is Peru, who reject indigenous names but accept ones in Castillian Spanish, like Jesús, María, José or Jorge.
For the guidance on Jaqaru, a language that is in danger of extinction and only spoken by some 600 Peruvians high up in the Andean province of Yauyos in the Lima region, linguist Yolanda Payano played a key role in rescuing names like Shumay, which means beautiful, Inti, which means sun, Wayrq'aja, which means wind, and Qajsiri, which means waterfall.
The Jaqaru expert told EFE her language was not even recognized by the State in years gone by.
"When a language is not recognized, the existence of its culture is not recognized either," she said. "For that reason, the linguistic right is the first (step) towards (gaining) other rights," she added.
Santa María said many indigenous names are linked to nature, with sun and moon reflected in Quechua as Inti and Killa, in Aymara as Willka and Phaxsi, and in Aguaruna as Etsa and Nantu.
Aymara speakers living around Lake Titicaca converted their indigenous names into surnames, which they did not have previously, so they would not be lost.
Huambisa speakers, living on the border with Ecuador, used their indigenous names, although they did not appear on official documents.
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Publicado: 15/2/2019