University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)
Patience L. Epps (Project Director: September 2017 to December 2022)
Susan Smythe Kung (Co Project Director: May 2019 to December 2022)
PD-260978-18
Documenting Endangered Languages - Preservation
Preservation and Access
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[Grant products]
Totals:
$227,365 (approved)
$223,801 (awarded)
Grant period:
9/1/2018 – 12/31/2021
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Archiving Significant Collections of Endangered Languages: Two Multilingual Regions of Northwest South America
The processing and digitization of eight collections
of archived documentation for endangered languages in Brazil, Colombia, and
Ecuador, which express and preserve knowledge of culture, history, and ecology in
this part of South America. Materials would be accessioned by the Archive of
Indigenous Languages of Latin America and made available to researchers and the
public.
This project will gather together, curate and digitize a set of eight significant collections of South American indigenous languages, the results of decades of research by senior scholars; the collections will be archived at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. These materials constitute an important resource for further linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnomusical research, and are of high value to community members and scholars. They include six legacy collections from the Upper Rio Negro region of the northwest Amazon (Brazil and Colombia), and two collections focused on Ecuadorian Kichwa, most notably the Ca'ar variety. All of the languages concerned are endangered or vulnerable to varying degrees, and the collections are heavily focused on threatened forms of discourse, such as ritual speech and song. Of the Upper Rio Negro set, the collections of Elsa Gomez-Imbert, Stephen Hugh- Jones, and Arthur P. Sorensen, Jr. include the East Tukanoan languages Bar' (bao), Barasana (bsn), Eduria (bsn, widely agreed to be distinct from Barasana), Karapana (cbc), Tatuyo (tav), Makuna (myy), and Tukano (tuo). The collections of Howard Reid and Renato Athias are focused on Hup (jup, Naduhupan), while Reid's collection also contains a few materials from two languages of the wider region, Nukak (mbr, Kakua-Nukakan) and Hot' (yua, isolate). Robin Wright's collection involves Baniwa (bwi, Arawakan). Of the Ecuadorian Kichwa set, Judy Blankenship's and Allison Adrian's collections are both focused on Ca'ar Highland Kichwa (qxr, Quechuan), while Adrian's also includes some material from Loja Highland Kichwa (qvj, Quechua).
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