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Paper short abstract

This paper discusses the language reclamation initiative of an Afro-Brazilian reinado. The initiative is motivated by the need for inter-cosmic communication with more-than-human entities, which are incorporated in reinado sessions but speak a different language, Língua da Costa.

Paper long abstract

Much of the literature on language endangerment and revitalization documents language ideological tensions between utilitarian ideologies as drivers of language shift, and ideologies of language as indexing group identity as motivators for maintenance or revitalization (Kroskrity 2009). Both are based on the assumption of an ontological equivalence of languages (Course 2018; Hauck & Heurich 2018). All languages are commensurable.

In this presentation we will critically examine this assumption discussing language reclamation of the Língua da Costa (language of the coast) in an Afro-Brazilian community in Divinópolis, Minas Gerais. Língua da Costa is a contact language based on rural Brazilian Portuguese grammar with a largely African lexicon (Queiroz 1998). Recently, the first author of this paper was contacted by members of a reinado (Afro-Brazilian religious practice) in Divinópolis for assistance in the reclamation of Língua da Costa. The motivation was not only on grounds of its indexical function, but for fairly “utilitarian” reasons: Sessions of the reinado involve the incorporation of more-than-human entities, some of which spoke Língua da Costa. The inability to understand them led to a series of communicative disjunctures, compelling reinado members to seek help with language reclamation.

We will analyze those disjunctures to understand the practices of inter-cosmic translation within this setting. We will also discuss to what extent these practices might imply an ontological nonequivalence between Língua da Costa as being imbued with a cosmological force required for ritual efficacy, and Brazilian Portuguese, and how we might be able to analyze that difference methodologically.