Von Humboldt’s parrot and the countdown of last speakers in the Colorado Delta

In this paper I analyze the rhetorical practice of “counting down” last speakers of endangered languages as those speakers age and eventually pass away. In recent media attention on language obsolescence, a popular narrative convention is to announce the death of “one of the last speakers” of an endangered language. Drawing on fieldwork in a Cucapá settlement in the Colorado River Delta of northern Mexico, I examine the effect of enumerating language speakers in the context of the death of a prominent elder and fisherwoman. I show how for some Cucapá people at the center of this “countdown,” the technique has induced an enumerative malaise, or an exasperation with these measurement practices.

► In this study I analyze the practice of enumerating speakers of an endangered language. ► I examine the effects these counting practices have on the language community. ► Enumeration techniques have induced a malaise among the local population. ► Locals find these practices dehumanizing as they are associated with the enumeration of animals.