Making Kichwa Salasaka Visible: A Linguistic Landscape Analysis

Abstract

Linguistic landscape allows us to describe and identify the (in)visibility of languages in public space and to infer the motives, ideologies, and tensions behind people’s decisions on using one language or another in relation to the development of linguistic landscape in a given territory. This article examines the linguistic landscape of Kichwa Salasaka town, an Indigenous community in Ecuador, to assess the presence or absence of the Kichwa language on signs in public space. To do this, we gathered signage in one of the busiest roads in Salasaka, and observed the coexistence of Kichwa, Spanish, and English, as an evidence of multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of Salasaka. Subsequently, we explored the social meaning attributed to Kichwa in the linguistic landscape using ethnographic and sociolinguistic methods. On the one hand, the presence of Kichwa language in the Kwichua Salasaka town linguistic landscape shows a connection with the culture and the territory, and above all an effort by the community to make their language visible. On the other hand, these attempts to promote and maintain the language lack clear linguistic policies, which is reflected in the different ways of writing Kichwa. The study contributes to the understanding of how Indigenous communities create strategies of resistance and visibility in public spaces, providing inputs both for strengthening local language revitalization initiatives and for enriching academic discussions on multilingualism in Indigenous contexts.