Documenting Iquito: Text Corpus and Archiving

FAIN: FN-230216-15

Christine M. Beier
University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA 94704-5940)

Iquito is a critically endangered Zaparoan language of northern Peruvian Amazonia. There are now only 18 fluent speakers of Iquito, the youngest of whom are in their late 60s. A DEL fellowship will support my ongoing work to document Iquito. Central to meeting this goal is my collaboration with Lev Michael. I will 1) prepare a large corpus of existing Iquito texts for publication, including a small number of new Iquito texts, and 2) archive all existing and new texts and some of their derivative materials with two internet-accessible digital archives, the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America and the California Language Archive. Michael will 1) prepare Iquito-English and Iquito-Spanish bilingual dictionaries and 2) prepare a detailed description of Iquito morphology. Our collaboration will produce two principal types of data: audio recording of texts and their derivatives (my primary responsibility) and a FLEx database [designed for morphologically segmenting and glossing texts] and its outputs (Michael’s primary responsibility). From those data, our work will result in the following products: a publication-ready collection of transcribed, translated, and annotated texts (one set Iquito-to-Spanish; another Iquito-to-English); a publishable Iquito-to-English dictionary, including a detailed morphological description; and a complete Iquito-to-Spanish dictionary, ready for copyediting by a native Spanish speaker. We have the full permission of all relevant parties and authorities in the speech community to carry out the work and meet the objectives described in our collaborative proposals. We, our consultants, and the broader Iquito speech community all feel that it is urgent to bring the documentation of Iquito to a successful conclusion within the next few years. (Edited by staff)

Associated Products

Ikíitu language revitalization and (re)valorization, from 2001 to 2016, and beyond (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Ikíitu language revitalization and (re)valorization, from 2001 to 2016, and beyond
Author: Christine M Beier
Abstract: This talk explores the complex, winding, and fascinating trajectory of revitalization and (re)valorization of the Ikíitu language (a.k.a. Iquito; Zaparoan; ~15 elderly speakers) within the Ikíitu heritage community, as seen from my perspective as a participant in the ongoing Iquito Language Documentation Project (ILDP). Initiated in 2001, and designed with a core revitalization component, the ILDP provides a useful temporal frame within which to examine key changes and developments in the community-internal status of the Ikíitu language, anchored to a broader context of historical, social, economic, and political facts and factors. In this talk, I will discuss how various attitudes toward the language, both positive and negative, have been expressed in the Ikíitu community of San Antonio de Pintuyacu, Loreto, Peru, over the years, not only through overt discourse — ranging from informal conversation to reported speech to political rhetoric — but also more subtly through community members’ and leaders’ actions and inactions; and I will describe how these attitudes are fundamentally implicated in shaping the future of the language.
Date: 02/17/2016
Primary URL: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~survey/activities/events.php
Primary URL Description: Group in American Indian Languages (GAIL) at the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages
Secondary URL: http://lx.berkeley.edu/christine-beier
Secondary URL Description: Author's website at UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics.
Conference Name: Group in American Indian Languages (GAIL), Berkeley

A telling of a humorous tale, or a humorous telling of a tale? Structure, structuring, and ethnopoetics in don Hermico's Aniita asáana (Ikíitu/Iquito, Peruvian Amazonia) (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: A telling of a humorous tale, or a humorous telling of a tale? Structure, structuring, and ethnopoetics in don Hermico's Aniita asáana (Ikíitu/Iquito, Peruvian Amazonia)
Author: Christine M Beier
Abstract: Aniita asáana (The glutton) is, in many ways, one of the most prototypically ‘Ikíitu’ narratives in the extensive text corpus of the Iquito Language Documentation Project. When narrated by Hermenegildo (Hermico) Díaz Cuyasa and audio-recorded on July 4, 2002, the content is at once mundane, morally-charged, and outlandish; and his telling of the tale is both unapologetic and funny, both deadpan and slapstick. Three fundamental themes of this narrative -- social isolation, theft, and gluttony -- are typically of great local social consequence, and not inherently humorous at all by Ikíitu norms. What, then, are the structures and structuring devices, revealed through an ethnopoetic analysis of this telling of this narrative, that distinguish a humorous telling from a humorous tale?
Date: 01/04/2017
Primary URL: http://www.cabeceras.org/aniita_asaana.htm
Primary URL Description: "Aniita asáana" webpage at Cabeceras Aid Project website.
Secondary URL: http://lx.berkeley.edu/christine-beier
Secondary URL Description: Author's website at UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics.
Conference Name: Rethinking Native American Discourse: Rhetoric and Poetics 30 years later (UT-Austin)

General number exponence and concord in the Iquito noun phrase (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: General number exponence and concord in the Iquito noun phrase
Author: Christine M Beier
Abstract: This paper describes the expression of number in Iquito [iqu], (Zaparoan; Peruvian Amazonia) focusing on the morphological exponence of Iquito's general number system within noun/determiner phases (Nps/DPs), and on the principles that permit facultative concord between NPs/DPs and their real-world referents. The Iquito number system demonstrates a contrast between plural and general (non-number), and while number morphology is obligatory in many environments, concord is not strict in the context of connected discourse in parsed texts. I argue that in Iquito, reference to number is governed by pragmatic principles of relevance and sufficiency, not by grammatical principles of exhaustive concord.
Date: 01/09/2017
Primary URL: www.ssila.org
Primary URL Description: Website of The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas.
Secondary URL: http://lx.berkeley.edu/christine-beier
Secondary URL Description: Author's website at UC Berkeley Department of Linguistics.
Conference Name: The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas Annual Meeting, 2017

Materials of the Iquito Language Documentation Project (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Materials of the Iquito Language Documentation Project
Author: Beier, Christine M
Author: Michael, Lev D
Abstract: This collection, ongoing in its development, contains materials created by team members participating the Iquito Language Documentation Project (ILDP).
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.7297/X2PC30JV.
Primary URL Description: This collection, ongoing in its development, contains materials created by team members participating the Iquito Language Documentation Project (ILDP).
Access Model: Open access digital archive deposit.

Iquito–English Dictionary (Book)
Title: Iquito–English Dictionary
Author: Lev Michael
Author: Christine Beier
Author: Jaime Pacaya Inuma
Author: Ema Llona Yareja
Author: Hermenegildo Díaz Cuyasa
Author: Ligia Inuma Inuma
Abstract: This dictionary documents the lexicon of Iquito, an indigenous language of northern Peruvian Amazonia. Iquito is a member of the Zaparoan language family, whose other members include Andoa, Arabela, and Sápara (also known as Záparo). Formerly spoken in a large region between the Tigre and Napo Rivers in what is now the departamento of Loreto, Peru, Iquito is currently spoken by a small number of elders in communities on or near the Pintuyacu River, four of whom, Jaime Pacaya Inuma, Ema Llona Yareja, Hermenegildo Díaz Cuyasa, and Ligia Inuma Inuma, contributed to the broad linguistic, cultural, and historical knowledge documented in this dictionary. This dictionary serves not only as a comprehensive record of the Iquito lexicon; it also documents the unpredictable allomorphy and grammatical features of Iquito lexemes, and describes aspects of Iquito culture relevant to understanding their use and meanings. A glossary of Loretano Spanish terms used in the definitions is also provided.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97h5t0gz
Access Model: open access
Publisher: Ediciones Abya-Yala
Type: Multi-author monograph
ISBN: 9789942096654
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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