Reviews
other, describing both good and bad aspects of today’s
they face are common to all of them, not limited to one
situation and how it has positively or negatively affected
community; the challenges, therefore, are shared.
the Maya peoples. That is, in some cases, changes in customs benefit their economic and social well-being. At the
Ana Teresa Luna del Olmo
end of the day, it should be underlined that the conflicts
Staff writer
Hai quih pti immistaj xah, comcaac coi ziix quih iti cöipactoj xah, ziix quih ocoaaj coi iicp hac Carolyn O’Meara, comp. Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas/unam Mexico City, 2014, 99 pp.
L
anguages are a universe of ideas, images, meanings,
lett as saying that it is considered an isolated language
and cultures; so, penetrating each of them suppos-
because it cannot be related to any other and it only has
es a journey with infinite different perspectives.
about 1 000 speakers.1
Carolyn O’Meara opens up the possibility of reading, lis-
In her Spanish-language introduction to the stories,
tening, and imagining the Seri world, or cmiique iitom, but,
O’Meara emphasizes the importance of creating didactic
above all, she offers students and speakers of the lan-
materials given the urgency pointed out by the Comcaac
guage a didactic tool and means of entertainment in Hai
themselves. Despite the fact that she collected the stories
quih pti immistaj xah, comcaac coi ziix quih iti cöipactoj xah,
through recordings and writings translated into Spanish,
ziix quih ocoaaj coi iicp hac. This is a collection of stories from
the final edition was monolingual. Following Marlett’s
the inhabitants of the northwestern coast of Sonora, the
advice, O’Meara decided that the book should not be pub-
Comcaac.
lished in a bilingual version, thus giving place and voice
The work is the product of O’Meara’s doctoral thesis
exclusively to the original language. While including Span-
research project about the linguistic classification of land-
ish-language versions would have attracted a larger read-
scape and the grammar of spatial reference. For several
ing public in other regions interested in knowing more
years starting in 2006, she gathered stories from the in-
about the Comcaac, it would not have been a means for
habitants of the towns of Socaaix (Punta Chueca) and
teaching and learning the language. Therefore, the didac-
Haxöl Iihom (at the mouth of the San Ignacio River). She
tic and cultural needs of the Sonora communities molded
quotes outstanding Seri language researcher Steve Mar-
the book’s structure. With this awareness of the language’s
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