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Why did many speakers of Lenca and Cacaopera stop using their languages after the 1932 massacre in El Salvador?

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Three women sit together outdoors, smiling and laughing as they talk, with trees softly blurred in the background. — Language Spoken language is just one type of language, which has been defined in many different ways across history.

Following the 1932 massacre in El Salvador—a brutal event known as la matanza—speakers of the Lenca and Cacaopera languages abandoned their native tongues to avoid being identified as Indigenous.12

During this period, the military government under Gen. Maximiliano Hernández Martínez suppressed a farmworker revolt by executing at least 10,000 people, most of whom were Indigenous peasants. In the wake of this state-sponsored violence, Indigenous people faced severe persecution and systemic efforts to eliminate their cultural identity. By ceasing to speak their traditional languages, Lenca and Cacaopera speakers sought to protect themselves from further discrimination and the lethal consequences of being targeted by the state.123

This tragic suppression contributed to the broader decline of Indigenous cultural practices in El Salvador, as the government continued to stifle such activities throughout the 1930s.3