Pipil People - Modern Pipil

Modern Pipil

The Pipil have had a strong influence on the current culture of El Salvador, with a large portion of the population claiming ancestry from this and other indigenous groups. Some ninety percent of today's Salvadorans are mestizos (people of mixed native and European descent), with only 2 percent or less of unmixed European ancestry. A small percentage (estimated by the government at 2%, by UNESCO at 5%, and by scholars at between 5 and 10%) is of pure or mostly pure indigenous ancestry, although numbers are disputed for political reasons. A few Pipil still speak Nawat and follow traditional ways of life. The traditional groups live mainly in the southwestern highlands near the Guatemalan border but numerous self-identified indigenous populations live in other areas, such as the Nonualcos south of the capital.

According to a special report which appeared in El Diario de Hoy in 2009 due to the current preservation and revitalization efforts of various non-profit organizations in conjunction with several universities combined with a post-civil war resurgence of Pipil identity in the country of El Salvador the current number of Nawat speakers has risen from 200 in the 1980s to 3,000 speakers at the time of the reports writing, the vast majority being young people giving the language hope of being pulled from the brink of extinction.

Furthermore there is also a greatly renewed interest in the preservation of the traditional beliefs and other cultural practices of the Pipil plus a greater openness by the communities to perform their ceremonies in public and don traditional clothing.