Well, a few questions.

My school district is receiving an enormous number of immigrant children whose families are coming in from Central America -- from what I've seen, chiefly Guatemala, but also El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The increase in immigrant students for the past number of years had been in the double digits, but what I am seeing right now could rightly be described as a flood. They are nice children and nice families.

This year has been an introduction for me to the fact that some of these children and their families do not have Spanish as their first/home language. Instead they speak indigenous Mayan languages such as Q'eqchi'. In some cases the children and their parents have Spanish as a second language that they learned in school. But in some cases, not. My meager Spanish has been getting a workout, but it is not enough.

I have been subsequently educated in the fact that there are numerous indigenous languages in both Central and South America that are spoken by descendants of the Maya, the Incas, the Aztecs, and others.

For those who served in Central and South America, were you able to pick up any of the indigenous languages? Did you need them? Did you receive any training on this at the MTC?

Also, I have a couple of male Q'eqchi' students whose first name is "Elder." Any chance this name was picked up from the missionaries? I have no reason to believe that the families are Mormon.

Thanks for whatever information you are able to share. I would like to better understand my dear students.

Not a missionary but I was stationed at Howard AFB in Panama (the old Canal Zone when we owned it)

One of the first things that suprised people was that about half the population of central and south America do not speak spanish at all or it is a second language.

Predominantly Brazil speaks Portugues. Dutch, French and English are official languages of several countries.

There are enclaves of immigrants that speak German, Japanese or Italian as primary language.

My favorite was the Confederados of Brazil. A colony of Americans that relocated from the former Confederacy after the civil war.

There is of course a large Indigenous population that speak hundreds of dialects.

Wow! Thanks for your input, Heartless. A whole new world had been opened to me.

Several folks from my office were going on a trip to Belize. They were "brushing up" on their spanish.

I asked why?

They said well we're going to central America.

I reminded them Belize used to be called British Honduras and that English was the official language.

The stares I got were priceless.

I was in São Paulo, Brasil nearly 50 years ago and as far as I remember, everyone there spoke Portugese but even then, it was a pretty educated place and generally everyone we ran into spoke the official language. We didn't have much contacts with anyone who wasn't Brasileiro.

Of course we were always on the lookout to make sure contacts were lily white so they probably had a German back ground to make sure they didn't have the "lineage" to worry about (but shhhh, don't tell anyone).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2019 07:46PM by memikeyounot.

Yes, I imagine that's the case in urban areas. I have a feeling my students come from rural areas, but I am not able to ascertain that.

I'm not thinking the languages are similar. But hopefully the kids know a little pigeon spanish. At any rate you have my sympathy. These kids aren't going to have it easy in life.

Their ability in Spanish varies from none to quite a bit. Once they are up and running in English, they tend to do quite well. According to the data, in time, and as a group, they academically outperform native speakers in my district. Most come from two parent households with both mom and dad working.

By not being well versed in Spanish they probably will be more motivated to learn English which will give them a huge advantage. It’s easier to not learn English and stick with Spanish in the states now. English is more widely spoken worldwide.

Young people are an asset if they are educated and have a work ethic. I wish those kids well.