As you’ve probably noticed, there are ‘Atalayas’ scattered across Peruvian Amazonia. I know of no etymology that relates ‘Atalaya’ to any indigenous language, and given that it has an easily identifiable Spanish origin — and one that makes sense in the colonial context — I’d say that the name is of Spanish origin. I didn’t know that the name originally came from Arabic, btw. Thanks for that.

I have a related question that you can probably clear up in a trice: I’ve gotten the impression that the ethnonym ‘Maina(s)’ is sometimes used to the refer to the Jibaroan groups in the colonial records, but sometimes it seems to be used to refer to other groups as well, judging by its broad geographical scope at times. What insight do you have about the use of this term?

I was interested to see the element /awa/ meaning ‘people’, this could add a whole new level of speculation regarding the origin of Aguaruna.

I was trying to be funny rather than flippant. Sorry about that.

Naturally with some exceptions, I have seen and heard all kinds of wonderful reactions to the film from the general public–from Sundance through the worldwide festival circuit through hundreds of ancillary screenings to PBS. I have in my possession countless letters from high school students and college kids telling me how it’s opened their eyes. Amazingly, many want to be linguists or enter a similar field.

The native groups with whom I’ve screened have also enjoyed it (again with some exceptions). Many are overwhelmed by the stories of language loss (sometimes because they have felt isolated in their struggle), the meaning of languages to communities, its ties to culture, etc. The number of stories that have been recounted to me of personal language loss, the tears that have been shed, and the hugs that have been given as a result of this film are innumerable.

Then there are linguists. I have been in both extremely positive screenings and also ones like Lev attended that spark criticism and debate. I love both. A few common threads I’ve found in the critical screenings.

1. Some linguists don’t like being portrayed as outsiders. Even though we portray two expeditions into countries where David and Greg have worked for many, many years and one that is a pilot expedition, these linguists want the film to explicitly state that they mainly work with communities for long periods of time. They feel that the movie at times portrays them as culturally insensitive. David and Greg, as human beings, sometimes are. General audiences identify with this, but for linguists, it speaks to age-old criticisms of their work.

2. Some linguists want to be shown helping native people revitalize their languages. We do feature some of that in our film, but they generally want more.

3. Some linguists want more of a native perspective. That perspective is usually one that puts a strong value on native languages and revitalization efforts.

4. Some linguists don’t want to be portrayed as esoteric collectors of words; others want more linguistic analysis of documentation. Sometimes the same linguists feel both ways.

Simeon, your criticism of our film as a Hollywood-style contributor to language loss is a first. But if anything, it goes to show that linguists are a damn tough audience.

There’s one thing I do know: if we made a movie that suited the needs of all linguists, I’m not sure we’d have a hit. I love all your feedback and it inspires me to keep trying though. So truly thanks, and no hard feelings whatsoever.

There are several different reasons that people might critique ‘The Linguists’, one of them being an objection to the oversimplification of complex topics for the purposes of popularization. But I think that actually the strongest critique of the film concerns the way that it uses standard Hollywood-style narrative structures (including “buddy movie” and “Indiana Jones” as well as “National Geographic”) to show the linguists in a primary role and the minority speech communities in a secondary role. This is problematic because – as anyone who takes a critical look at media can attest – white, male, English-speaking protagonists dominate Western media.

Reproducing these kinds of narrative structures actually doesn’t have anything to do with making complicated technical linguistic issues accessible to the general public, but rather has to do with how people of different races, genders and nationalities are marginalized in our media (often with excuses about “marketability”). In fact, some might argue that the influence of Western media in minority language communities actually contributes to the devaluing of local cultural practices, including negative effects on the use of minority languages! So some critics of the film may be reacting to what they see as an inconsistency between the film’s stated goals and its representational practices.

It is true that many, perhaps most, field linguists are white English-speaking men, however many of us who fit this description try to maintain an ongoing dialogue about why this demographic skewing is problematic and about the possibilities for making our profession more diverse. At a few institutions special emphasis is being put on training native speakers of indigenous languages so that they will have the tools to do their own linguistics research in ways that is meaningful for their communities. Maybe someone should make a documentary about their efforts.

>The one comment of his that struck me was that the much of the film’s presentation – its narrative thread, for example – is that of the filmmaker(s) and not of David Harrison and Greg Anderson. He added that they didn’t have anything to do with the direction or production of the film. I’m not (necessarily) trying to defend them; rather, I wonder if a full discussion of the film’s presentation needs to consider the motivations of others in the production.

Given the way the film turned out, I had assumed that Harrison and Anderson had very little to do with the production, and it’s nice to hear you confirm that. A couple of years ago I had a close call with a journalist who wanted to write some of my work as a Manichean struggle between evil missionaries and enlightened secular linguistic anthropologists (the reality is much more complicated), so I’ve had visceral personal experience of how certain media formats and their creators can exert a powerful force on the ways in which stories are ultimately told.

>Another question that comes out of this discussion for me is the role of popularizers of academic disciplines like linguistics and anthropology. Some of the comments made after your screening of The Linguists make me think of criticisms I’ve heard leveled at anthropologists like Wade Davis. Davis, Anderson, and Harrison make issues like language and cultural endangerment available to audiences who might not ever consider or encounter such ideas. And, it might be argued that they bring academic topics of real social importance to audiences more effectively than most academics. How do you navigate the line between academic scholarship and popularization?

This is the real issue behind much of this discussion, isn’t it? I wonder if makes sense to look at popularizations of the hard sciences. Some, to be sure, are awful, but many of them really do a good job of explaining the ideas and issues in the field to an interested lay audience (e.g. Nova, In Search of Schrödingers Cat). For that matter, think about the popularity of Pinker’s pop linguistics books. I think that one of the things that makes works like these successful is that they evince intellectual respect for the subject matter, the audience, and the practitioners of the science in question.