Santo Domingo, Sonsonate

Santo Domingo de Guzmán ( Witzapan ) on the map of El Salvador

Santo Domingo de Guzmán ( Nawat: Witzapan in classical Nahuatl spelling Huitzapan ) is a municipality in El Salvador in the department of Sonsonate. It is located 69 km west of San Salvador, near the border with Ahuachapán.

Name

History

The old Huitzapan was founded by Pipil north of the present village. At about 1200 it came under the rule of Cuzcatlán.

After the conquest by the Spaniards in 1528, the town was in 1572 placed under the Dominicans of Sonsonate, which gave the place the name of Santo Domingo. Around 1770 the Parroquia Santo Domingo Nahuizalco been assigned. The village had 146 inhabitants at that time. From 1821 to 1823 belonged to Santo Domingo to Guatemala and from 1824 Salvadoran department of Sonsonate. 1890 had 1026 inhabitants.

1932 was Santo Domingo in the uprising area in which peasants rose against the landlords and the military rule of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez. Santo Domingo de Guzmán, in which there is practically only Pipil, so there was no Ladinos and no coffee cultivation, however, was not directly involved in this uprising, well, it was affected by the subsequent suppression of indigenous culture. After the suppression of the rebellion it came to Matanza, a massacre, where about 30,000 people fell all over El Salvador beginning of 1932 to the victim. The Nawat ( Pipil ), which had been the language of the whole population of Santo Domingo until then, was banned. Who Nawat said or wore traditional clothes, went back in mortal danger because people have been killed because of these characteristics.

Pipil culture today

According to the latest census, El Salvador 2007 Santo Domingo has the highest percentage of native speakers of Pipil language Nawat, the last remaining indigenous language of El Salvador, but are also the hereafter only 35 of the nation's 97 speakers, for a total of 7055 inhabitants, half of one percent of the local population. The Nawat Genaro Ramírez Vázquez teacher was one of the very same time in the municipality of 133 speakers. This corresponds to a share of almost two percent. The linguist Jorge Lemus of Don Bosco University in San Salvador in turn estimated in 2010 that were free from the his opinion about 200 native speakers in all of El Salvador about 80 % of the residents of Witzapan. The longer preservation of Nawat he explains with the isolation Witzapans that has a paved road only a few years Transport.

Witzapan is a center of efforts to rescue the language and culture of the Pipil. Genaro Vázquez Ramírez ( born 1933), Chairman of the Initiative for the recovery of Nawat language ( Iniciativa para la Recuperación del Idioma Nahuat ) IRIN and director of the cultural center, lives here. Due to the efforts of the indigenous organization Asociación Coordinadora de Comunidades indigenous de El Salvador ( Accies ), the IRIN initiative and Don Bosco University in San Salvador Nawat is despite the lack of government programs at some schools in the department of Sonsonate taught, funded by the Fundación Círculo Solidario. In 2008 Witzapan learned at primary school 166 pupils with a teacher Nawat. The project has been running since 2003. Besides a monolingual nawatsprachiger kindergarten was in August 2010 here in collaboration with Don Bosco University and the Ministry of Education established the " Nawat - cradle" ( Cuna Nahuat or Xuchikisa Nawat, " where the Nawat flourish "). Here supervise four native speakers of 35 children ( early 2011 ) and talk to them exclusively on Nawat.

Not all people in Santo Domingo de Guzmán find the Nawat - Revitalisierungsprogamme good; many deny their indigenous origin still or lean " backward-looking " indigenous culture. Some call for English- Nawat take lessons or mock people who talk on the street Nawat.

Political Structure

The four Cantone Municipalities of Santo Domingo de Guzmán be: El Carrizal, El Caulote, El Zope and El Zarzal.