Overview

The Last Language on Earth is an ethnographic history of the disputed Eskayan language, spoken today by an isolated upland community living on the island of Bohol in the southern Philippines. After Eskaya people were first 'discovered' in 1980, visitors described the group as a lost tribe preserving a unique language and writing system. Others argued that the Eskaya were merely members of a utopian rural cult who had invented their own language and script. Rather than adjudicating outsider polemics, this book engages directly with the language itself as well as the direct perspectives of those who use it today. Through written and oral accounts, Eskaya people have represented their language as an ancestral creation derived from a human body. Reinforcing this traditional view, Piers Kelly's linguistic analysis shows how a complex new register was brought into being by fusing new vocabulary onto a modified local grammar. In a synthesis of linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence, a picture emerges of a coastal community that fled the ravages of the U.S. invasion of the island in 1901 in order to build a utopian society in the hills. Here they predicted that the world's languages would decline leaving Eskayan as the last language on earth. Marshalling anthropological theories of nationalism, authenticity, and language ideology, along with comparisons to similar events across highland Southeast Asia, Kelly offers a convincing account of this linguistic mystery and also shows its broader relevance to linguistic anthropology. Although the Eskayan situation is unusual, it has the power to illuminate the pivotal role that language plays in the pursuit of identity-building and political resistance.

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9780197509920

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Reviews

This fascinating work of linguistic anthropology is based on both the author's fieldwork in the Philippines and his meticulous and wide-ranging research. Kelly (Univ. of New England, Australia) treats the endangered Eskayan language more like a multifaceted, animate character in a historical narrative than a quiescent subject of stuffy academic scrutiny. He also takes care to center Eskaya voices in his telling of the story of this unique language, still used by an estimated 550 people on the island of Bohol in the Visayan region of the Philippines. * A. Kingston, University of Rochester, CHOICE * By the end of reading this book, you will not only have a good understanding of the Eskayan language's origin, lexicon, writing system, and literature, but you will also receive a sense of the ideals and hopes of the Eskaya. * Brooke Mullins, Northeastern Illinois University, Linguist List * This book is excellent for linguists interested in learning more about artificial languages and the context in which one such language can establish itself securely within a community. It is also intended for those interested in learning about the different peoples and cultures in the world that do not receive as much media attention as larger communities and nations. * Brooke Alyssa Mullins, Northeastern Illinois University, Linguist List *

By the end of reading this book, you will not only have a good understanding of the Eskayan language's origin, lexicon, writing system, and literature, but you will also receive a sense of the ideals and hopes of the Eskaya. * Brooke Mullins, Northeastern Illinois University, Linguist List * This book is excellent for linguists interested in learning more about artificial languages and the context in which one such language can establish itself securely within a community. It is also intended for those interested in learning about the different peoples and cultures in the world that do not receive as much media attention as larger communities and nations. * Brooke Alyssa Mullins, Northeastern Illinois University, Linguist List *

Author Information

Piers Kelly is a linguistic anthropologist whose research centers on the varied uses of writing and graphic codes in non-state societies, especially in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Australia. He has previously worked as a linguist with the National Commission on Indigenous People, Philippines, and is currently affiliated with the Centre for Australian Studies at the University of Cologne, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Leipzig, and the University of New England in Armidale, Australia. He is a co-editor of Skin, Kin and Clan: The Dynamics of Social Categories in Indigenous Australia (ANU Press, 2018).

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