Emerging Vitality in “Endangered” Forms of Verbal Art in Naso

Abstract

Abstract: This article provides evidence of change in verbal art in Naso (Chibchan, Panama). ‘Profound words’ ( tjlõkwo rong ) are ideologized as a poetic lexical category practiced exclusively by Naso ancestors, but are emergent in practice. Profound words number upwards of four hundred lexical constructions of different patternings, but primarily difrasismos . In a language documentation project, Nasos innovatively determine membership in the profound words category on the basis of formal analogization to difrasismos , and noncompositional meaning. Thus, the category is productively and creatively determined.