The language of land and life: Connecting language and ecology in Wixárika (hch)

FAIN: PD-281082-21

New York Botanical Garden (Bronx, NY 10458-5126)
Alex C. McAlvay (Project Director: February 2021 to present)

The creation of a digital, open-access, interoperable database and handbook of Wixárika, an endangered Uto-Aztecan language from West-Central Mexico. It will serve as a resource for cultural knowledge surrounding the uses of plants, including management, ecological knowledge, and cosmological conceptions.

The project documents threatened semantic domains of plant use, management, and local ecological knowledge in Wixárika (hch), an endangered Uto-Aztecan language of West-Central Mexico. Collaboration among community language activists, an ethnobotanist, a linguist specialized in Wixárika, Mexican universities, and community centers will generate: (i) an online Ethnobotanical and Linguistic Database and printed handbook of Wixárika plants illustrating their nomenclature, use, management, cosmological significance, and local ecological concepts; (ii) an annotated corpus of texts to be archived at ELAR (SOAS, University of London) serving as a key resource for linguists and the language community; and (iii) capacity building for community documentation efforts and pedagogical resources for language conservation documentation efforts and pedagogical resources for language conservation.