A lifelong language nerd, Nashua resident Priscilla Colón started learning about her indigenous roots in 2019 during what she calls a “spiritual awakening slash midlife crisis.” She found herself gravitating towards efforts to bring back Taíno, the most common language in the Caribbean at the time of the Spanish conquest 500 years ago.
Even though Taíno is still widely considered extinct, Colón said that traces of it are still preserved in everyday words like “hurricane,” “potato,” “iguana” and “barbecue.” She founded Casa Areyto to teach more people how to speak a modern variant of Taíno.
“In the same way that I started developing my roots, I've been helping others develop theirs,” she said. “This language that we think is lost is really just there, an undercurrent in all of these other languages just waiting to be awakened.”
Adriana Torres, a Cuban native who has lived in Milford for years, recently attended a short class by Casa Areyto at the Nashua Public Library to learn more about her own history.
"It’s a culture that is very rich, that is worth recovering, that can’t be lost,” she said in Spanish. “And through that, we also learn where we came from, who we are, and where we’re going. Looking at it from the perspective of where we came from — what our origins, our ancestors, and our past are."
The class was also transformative to Nashua resident Stari Gonzalez-Aviles. She was invited by her friend, Madeline Fluckinger, a former intern at Casa Areyto. Growing up Puerto Rican, Gonzalez-Aviles was taught that the Taíno people and their language were both extinct.
“I was used to thinking that Taino was one of those people and the culture was something super far back,” she said. “It was really a great revelation: It's still alive. Even though it was wrongfully deemed extinct, in other ways, it’s still active and thriving.”
Casa Areyto also offers free resources to teach Taíno, including videos, books, and a free online course through several New Hampshire public libraries.
