Ancient tongue, culture fading fast in Honduras

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PUNTA GORDA, Honduras -- When Reina Martinez speaks to her 14-year-old granddaughter, she uses Garifuna, the language of her youth in this colorful island village.

But when Cassandra Ballesteros answers, it's not in Garifuna.

"I understand, but I don't speak it," she said. "I can't."

She responds in Honduran Spanish, the language she learns in school and the one she's more likely to hear on the dirt roads that run through her centuries-old village tucked between dense mangroves and vast coral reefs on the island of Roatan.

Mrs. Martinez, 52, and her companion, Celso Zapata, 59, are two of the older residents of Punta Gorda. Throughout the years, the couple have watched their Garifuna traditions fade into memory as the outside world entered their community of about 1,000.

Now, they are watching their language disappear, too.

Children "don't want to speak Garifuna anymore," said Mr. Zapata, who runs Punta Gorda's public-water system. "You've got to blame the parents. We parents, we've got to teach the kids."

When he wanders through the community on the north side of the 40-mile-long island, Mr. Zapata is as likely to speak Spanish or even a dialect of English Creole to neighbors as he is to use Garifuna.