The Yorem Nokki language is the one that predominates in Sinaloa, which has more than 42 thousand people who speak it, and who live mostly in northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora
Mazatlan, Sinaloa.- According to the young Yoreme, speaker and teacher of the Mayo-Yoreme language, Abel Akki Valenzuela, the 68 indigenous languages of Mexico are in danger of extinction, and this is mainly due to discriminatory factors that originated from the arrival of the colonizers to Mexico when the people were forbidden to speak in their original language.
However, for some years, the UN has recognized the importance that ancient languages have for humanity, since they help us understand the knowledge of our ancestors, where we come from and who we are as a society to which we belong, so This 2019 was decreed by the same organization, such as the International Year of Indigenous Languages.
Also, promoters of education and culture such as Abel Akki, have been in charge of teaching at a university in Los Mochis and in small workshops such as the Yoreme festival that took place last weekend in Mazatlan, where greetings are promoted and short sentences among the attendees
“If our language continues as it goes right now, not only one language is lost, but a part of the world is lost, and so, very hard to return, then we at the university are trying to reduce the risk in which it is” .
Abel said that it is important to know that an indigenous language must cease to be classified as a dialect, since it has all the components that determine a system of oral and written communication to be cataloged as a language; therefore, they should be referred to as such.
“The formal greeting is Lióos emchim aniabo, ketchëm alheyya !, the answer is Lios emchi jióokore ket türi !, the simple greeting is Ketchë alheyya! and the answer is Ket türi! ”
What you just heard (or read) are greetings, the first one literally translates into a plural like, God help you, good day! and the answer May God pity you, good day! While the second sentence is a simple greeting that could be similar to a Hey, what’s up!
Until 2015 in Mexico, more than 25 million Mexicans recognized themselves as indigenous, but of this figure, 7.4 million said they know how to speak a language, a figure, which represents only 6.6 percent of the country’s total population.
Finally, another teacher of the Yorem Nokki language, clarified that the term “Cahíta” used in the same books to refer to the Mayos-Yoremes is incorrect, since its translation is “I do not understand you”, a word that their ancestors used when Spaniards were asked And who are you?
Source: el debate, santiago benton, imagine mix
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