|
Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen (DOBES) Documentation of endangered languages A project series funded by the Volkswagen Foundation A multimedia documentation of Uru-Chipaya languages and cultures in their territorial setting (mainly in Bolivia and in Peru) - Documentation and description of the Chipaya language as spoken today 
Chipaya belongs to the Uru-Chipaya language group which is documented for the first time in the early colonial period (mid 16th century) on the high plateaus called Altiplano in the Southern Central Andes (in what today is Bolivia and Peru). It was then spoken by a group of the population that lived around the great lakes and on the so-called floating islands of Lake Titicaca. It was different from the surrounding herding and peasant Aymara and Puquina speaking groups in that the subsistence of the Urus was based on fishing and bird-hunting as well as their use of a particular language. With Inca and later Spanish colonial resettlements the Urus lost much of their lifestyle and in the 20th century they have become reduced to small groups. The best known of these are the Urus on Lake Titicaca who now speak Aymara and make their living mostly through tourism. Also the Urus of Irohito at the southern end of Lake Titicaca and the Muratos on the shores and islands of Lake Poopó have lost most of their language. However, in their oral traditions, clothing and certain elements of their material culture the Uru-Chipayas consciously maintain particular cultural elements. The only group that has retained its language are the Chipaya north of Lake Coipasa. As opposed to the other formerly Uru speaking groups who maintain vocabulary items, in the community of Chipaya with ca. 1.800 inhabitants the language is fully functional and used in daily life by almost all the villagers. Chipaya is located on the Altiplano (3.670 m altitude); efficient agriculture and animal breeding are limited by extreme day-night temperature variations, salty soil and inundations during the wet season. Many Chipayas therefore migrate to Chile or eastern Bolivia; however, there is a strong tendency to return to their community. In Chipaya efforts are being made to maintain and strengthen the language and have it taught in school. The community has elected a committee that is dedicated to the promotion of the language. In this context the DOBES team aims at documenting and describing Chipaya. Existing material on the Uru-Chipaya languages is limited to short vocabularies, some texts and grammatical notes. The genetic relationship established on this basis as a language family which separated the northern variety from the Southern variety in ca. 200 BC has therefore to be considered as preliminary. The earliest language documentation dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. For the Chipaya language there is a phonological study, an alphabet and a short tagmemic grammatical sketch made in the 1960s (Olson, SIL) as well as some descriptive work by a Peruvian linguist (Cerrón-Palomino) and a few published texts (Métraux; Porterie-Gutiérrez, posthumously edited). The pilot phase of the DOBES project (2002; in collaboration with the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara, La Paz) was dedicated to establishing contacts with the different groups on the Lake Titicaca islands, the Urus living on the Southern shore of Lake Titicaca, the Muratos, and the village of Chipaya. In Chipaya collaboration took place on the alphabet the language committee had elaborated as it was considered an urgent matter by the Chipayas in order to be able to participate in bilingual education programmes. A workshop was held by the team in Chipaya with participation of delegates from all social sectors of the community in which both sides' expectations and necessities were presented and discussed. Some linguistic data were collected. At the end of 2003 the Volkswagen Foundation approved the subproject of the team's proposal which aims at the documentation and description of the Chipaya language. The first fieldwork period is scheduled for 2005. Project director: Collaborators: Nathalie Böcker M.A., Bonn University Katja Hannß M.A., Nijmegen University & Bonn University Further information: |
State of research and bibliography: Uru-Chipaya