Documenting Children's Cuzco Quechua in Bolivia and Peru

FAIN: FN-50091-11

Susan E. Kalt
Roxbury Community College (Roxbury, MA 02120-3423)

The main goal of this study is to document children's comprehension and production of Quechua (quz) in rural highland Bolivia and Peru, where a continuum of permeation from Spanish can be observed. The secondary goal is to document variation within Cuzco-Collao Quechua, giving special attention to the Chuquisaca dialect spoken in South Bolivia. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of speakers of Cuzco-Collao Quechua, only a handful of studies of Andean children's grammar focus on their L1 grammar, and virtually all of these focus on Peruvian children, leaving a serious gap in documentation of indigenous children's language. (Edited by staff)

Media Coverage

The Quest to Save Endangered Languages (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Ruth Samuelson
Publication: Fox News Latino
Date: 8/25/2011
Abstract: English language description of various DEL projects featuring work of Kalt and also Jonathan Amith and Juan Bueno Holle for popular audience
URL: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2011/08/25/effort-to-save-endangered-languages/

Associated Products

Spanish as a second language when L1 is Quechua: Endangered languages and the SLA researcher (Article)
Title: Spanish as a second language when L1 is Quechua: Endangered languages and the SLA researcher
Author: Susan Kalt
Abstract: Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Quechua is the largest indigenous language family to constitute the first language (L1) of second language (L2) Spanish speakers. Despite sheer number of speakers and typologically interesting contrasts, Quechua–Spanish second language acquisition is a nearly untapped research area, due to the marginalization of Quechua-speaking people. This review considers contributions to the field of second language acquisition gleaned from studying the grammars of Quechua speakers who learn Spanish as well as monolingual Quechua and Spanish speakers in the contact area. Contribution to the documentation and revitalization of the Quechua languages is discussed as an ethical and scientific imperative.
Year: 2012
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Second Language Research,
Publisher: Sage Publications,

Cambios morfosintácticos en castellano impulsados por el quechua hablante (Article)
Title: Cambios morfosintácticos en castellano impulsados por el quechua hablante
Author: Susan Kalt
Abstract: Se plantea que los diferentes conjuntos de rasgos semánticos y fonológicos de los dos idiomas del bilingüe constituyen recursos que compiten por afiliarse a categorías gramaticales. Las configuraciones que resultan no son idénticas a las variedades monolingües, sino que pueden ser reducidas y enriquecidas a la vez (Mufwene, 2001; Sánchez, 2003). Exploro la aplicación de esta hipótesis en contextos del castellano hablado por adultos y niños cuya primera lengua es el quechua Cusco-Collao. Elicitamos datos de comprensión y producción por medio de una tarea controlada de selección y descripción de dibujos entre 100 niños monolingües y bilingües bolivianos en su castellano como segunda lengua (L2). Replicamos el experimento entre 100 niños peruanos y bolivianos en su primer idioma (L1). Los resultados sugieren una reconfiguración de rasgos del pronombre objeto le en construcciones locativas y posesivas del castellano L2.
Year: 2012
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Neue Romania
Publisher: Lincom

Diseño de investigaciones sistemáticas para idiomas poco documentados: el caso del quechua y el castellano andino (Article)
Title: Diseño de investigaciones sistemáticas para idiomas poco documentados: el caso del quechua y el castellano andino
Author: Susan Kalt
Abstract: Los psicolingüistas han hecho avances metodológicos en el campo de la investigación de gramática infantil, sobre todo dentro del marco que investiga la gramática universal, que permite examinar todos los idiomas como iguales. Sin embargo, el desarrollo de instrumentos lingüísticamente y culturalmente adecuados sigue siendo un reto difícil que requiere la participación activa de miembros de las comunidades que se evalúan. Menciono tres clases de metodología para elicitar la comprensión y producción infantil: dramatizaciones con preguntas precisas; grabación de conversaciones espontáneas y entrevistas; y tareas de selección y descripción de dibujos. La discusión de metodología se contextualiza dentro de las relaciones que tiene el investigador con las comunidades originarias, docentes y científicas. Se presenta informe preliminar sobre una investigación de la morfosintaxis infantil del quechua como primera lengua y castellano como segunda lengua realizada en el sur de Bolivia y el sur de Perú entre más de 200 niños.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://kellogg.nd.edu/STLILLA/proceedings/Kalt_Susan.pdf
Primary URL Description: Symposium on the Teaching and Learning Indigenous Languages of Latin America conference proceedings
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Actas del segundo simposio sobre enseñanza y aprendizaje de lenguas indígenas de América Latina (STLILLA)
Publisher: University of Notre Dame, Indiana

Proyecto Yachay q’ipi: colaboraciones para revitalización y documentación de la lengua y cultura quechua (Article)
Title: Proyecto Yachay q’ipi: colaboraciones para revitalización y documentación de la lengua y cultura quechua
Author: Martin Castillo Collado
Author: Susan Kalt
Abstract: Nuestro equipo de investigación independiente estudia la gramática infantil quechua y castellana en las escuelas rurales andinas de Cusco y Chuquisaca, comenzando en 2000 y aumentando sus actividades a partir de 2008. En 2010 recibimos fondos de la Foundation for Endangered Languages para volver a las comunidades de origen para crear y validar un prototipo de vehículo curricular en las escuelas rurales. Durante una residencia rural impulsamos actividades de aprendizaje integral de lectoescritura, matemática y ciencias naturales en diálogo con la comunidad y los miembros de nuestra red; luego estas actividades se convirtieron en un guía y láminas que se compartieron con más de 200 docentes en Perú y Bolivia por medio de reuniones y conferencias. Nuestro modelo es el "curriculum kit" ofrecido por museos lúdicos como el Boston Children’s Museum a los educadores de primaria en Massachusetts. Estos equipos son q'ipikuna temáticos de multimedia que incluyen artefactos, herramientas, libros, canciones, juegos, proyectos y planes de lecciones. Susan Kalt compartirá las maneras en que el diálogo con las comunidades de origen ha resultado en un mejoramiento de los instrumentos psicolingüísticos y una profundización de la observación científica practicada por los que participan en el proyecto. Martin Castillo Collado, que ha promovido esfuerzos de construcción social de currículum y realizado investigaciones entre grupos de sabios originarios y docentes, tanto en Perú como en Bolivia, compartirá sus críticas a las diferentes actitudes que tienen varios actores interesados en la lengua y cultura quechua: los lingüistas, docentes, las Academias de la Lengua Quechua, el Estado y los usuarios, al mismo tiempo alcanzará propuestas de revitalización cultural.
Year: 2011
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Endangered Languages - Voices and Images.
Publisher: Foundation for Endangered Languages

The Speech of Children from Cusco and Chuquisaca (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: The Speech of Children from Cusco and Chuquisaca
Author: Susan Kalt
Abstract: Our main goal in creating this collection is to document children’s comprehension and production of Quechua (quz, quh) in rural highland Bolivia and Peru, where a continuum of permeation from Spanish can be observed. The secondary goal is to document variation within Cuzco-Collao Quechua, giving special attention to the variety of Quechua spoken in rural Chuquisaca in South Bolivia. An understanding of rural Bolivian variants is essential for producing school materials for South Bolivian children and for preserving an understanding of their cultural heritage. Among the scant documentation of the variety spoken in Chuquisaca is a sizeable vocabulary to be included in a dictionary of Bolivian Quechua in preparation by Dr. Pedro Plaza Martínez, and a pedagogical grammar by Louise Stark, Manuel Segovia Bayo and Felicia Segovia Polo (1971). Variation in Cuzco-Collao affix order and interpretation is also detailed by Simon Van de Kerke in his doctoral dissertation (1996) including a morphosyntactic study of the Quechua spoken in the town of Tarata, in close proximity to the highly relexified Cochabamba dialect. Our goal is to study rural and less relexified varieties. According to a Peruvian Census (2007:2.4.1) declaration of Quechua as the language learned in childhood declined 3.3 percent between 1993-2007. Anecdotal evidence indicates a similar trend in Bolivia. Clearly, the rapid loss of a major indigenous language spoken in childhood represents a threat to the vitality of indigenous cultural transmission in the region as well as a major setback for humankind’s understanding of child first and second anguage acquisition, bilingualism and language contact. Despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of speakers of Cuzco-Collao Quechua, only a handful of published studies of Andean children’s grammar focus on their L1 grammar, and virtually all of these focus on Peruvian children, leaving a serious gap in documentation of indigenous children’s language.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: https://www.ailla.utexas.org/islandora/object/ailla%3A124493
Primary URL Description: The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America: www.ailla.utexas.org. Media: video, text.
Access Model: Restricted until children reach age 18; anonymized version available from author

Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua (Article)
Title: Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua
Author: Jonathan A. Geary
Author: Susan E. Kalt
Abstract: We compare speech production and find morphosyntactic change among children and adolescents speaking two closely related varieties of Quechua in Cuzco, Peru, and Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Quechua languages traditionally employ Object-Verb (OV) word order in main clauses, but robust case marking permits other orders, especially to focalize new information through constituent fronting. In Chuquisaca, but not Cuzco, we find that schoolchildren often omit the accusative suffix -ta from direct objects while retaining a prosodic trace of -ta. In other varieties, loss of accusative marking is associated with a shift towards Verb-Object (VO) word order, as in Spanish. However, we find that Chuquisaqueños use more canonical OV and possessor-possessed order in declarative sentences than do Cuzqueños, who employ a wide range of word orders at the sentence level and deviate from the possessor-possessed norm for Quechua noun phrases. Our finding of more rigid word order in Chuquisaca highlights the complex factors contributing to typological shift in word order and morphology: Omission of case morphology places a greater burden on word order to identify grammatical roles. Further, we find that Chuquisaqueño schoolchildren alone have begun to use huk, “one,” to mark indefiniteness, perhaps to replace determiner-like functions ascribed to -ta and to obsolescent markers such as evidentials.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6010042
Primary URL Description: Languages (ISSN 2226-471X) is an international, multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed open access journal on interdisciplinary studies of languages, and is published quarterly online by MDPI. The first issue has been released in 2016.
Secondary URL: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages/special_issues/indigenous-america
Secondary URL Description: (This article belongs to the Special Issue Indigenous Languages of the Americas) Editors Liliana Sanchez and Jose Camacho
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Languages
Publisher: Languages

---