Territory, Identity, and Language among the Añun people (Venezuela)

la copie déposée est une première version de l'article paru en 2011. Cette publication fait suite au congrès 2005 de AAA à Washington session: "Endangered languages and Linguistic anthropology".The Añun language (also known as "Parauhano") is still spoken by a few aged individuals, all speaking Spanish in everyday activities and living in lake-dwellings between Maracaibo and the Venezuelan border with Colombia. The territory of the Añun people, disputed ever since the first contacts with the Europeans, has progressively shrunk with the increasing importance of the oil industry. Their linguistic situation, reflected in their oral narratives, takes us back to the power relations experienced by the speakers. Besides providing the community with the widest range of documentation as possible, linguistic anthropology assumes a participative approach, which can help create a partnership between elder speakers and young members of the community, in order to preserve traditional knowledge and develop different aspects of the language and the culture. To be effective, the revitalization of the language should go together with territorial claims and identity recognition