Documenting Language Practices, Cultures and Ideologies among Indigenous Communities in the Peruvian Amazon

FAIN: FT-286554-22

Stephen Fafulas
University of Mississippi (University, MS 38677-1848)

Writing a scholarly article that summarizes ethnolinguistic research on endangered Indigenous languages in the Peruvian Amazon.

The currently-proposed work draws on data collected with three Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon to highlight the importance of including typical measures of language vitality, such as intergenerational transmission of the minority language, as well as participant accounts of their cultural practices and ideologies when documenting language shift. The long-term project goals include documenting: (1) The linguistic, ideological, and cultural legacies of Indigenous populations in the Peruvian Amazon; (2) How these legacies can be used in efforts to revitalize, valorize and better understand Indigenous peoples and languages in the Peruvian Amazon; and (3) What the emerging ethnolinguistic Spanish varieties in the Peruvian Amazon can add to current theoretical and empirical research in various subfields of linguistics. By valorizing the Indigenous languages and having their needs acknowledged, these communities may be able to reverse the tide of losing their cultural legacy.

Media Coverage

Professor Using NEH Summer Stipend for Language Study: Stephen Fafulas studying indigenous communities along the Peruvian Amazon (Media Coverage)
Author(s): EDWIN B. SMITH
Publication: University of Mississippi News
Date: 7/27/2022
Abstract: University of Mississippi professor is spending his summer translating Spanish transcriptions of his interviews with members of indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon into English, thanks to a summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
URL: https://news.olemiss.edu/professor-using-neh-summer-stipend-for-language-study/