Tamayama Language Resources Project

FAIN: FN-298543-24

Tyler Peterson
Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ 85281-3670)

Research and writing of a dictionary, a description of the grammar, and a set of transcribed and analyzed texts for Tamayame, an endangered language spoken in central New Mexico.

Tamayame (kee) is the name of the Keres language spoken in the Pueblo of Santa Ana in central New Mexico. It is estimated that there are fewer than 100 people that still speak Tamayame fluently. There is no contemporary linguistic documentation of Tamayame. Even though it is possible to hear people speak Tamayame in ceremony, it is experiencing a steady and rapid decline of use within the community. Many community-driven reclamation efforts are actively underway to reverse this familiar trend of language loss, but these efforts lack the support that would be provided by a base of recorded, analyzed, and accessible Tamayame language. These facts point to the need for a set of foundational linguistic resources for Tamayame. This project responds to this need by creating a dictionary, a description of the grammar, and a set of transcribed and analyzed texts. These resources are integrated to form a linguistic infrastructure that we call the Tamayama Language Resources Project.