Panel: "Language documentation from young fieldworkers of the Bolivian Andes"

This panel brings native speaker perspectives in documenting endangered Andean language varieties and cultural traditions in Northern and Southern Bolivia. The documentation projects are carried out in three rural towns by L1 speakers of Andean languages: Quechua & Aymara with longstanding ties to their own communities. The goal is to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity of Andean languages of Bolivia.

Talk 1:
Grammatical aspects of Speech Play and Verbal Art in traditional texts of Northern Bolivian Aymara

Talk 2:
Morphological variation in South Bolivian Quechua

Talk 3:
Toponymy in an undocumented variety of Southern Bolivian Aymara

1. Janina Sánchez Poma (Northern Bolivian Aymara community)

Janina was born and raised in the rural town of Peñas, Los Andes Province, La Paz, Bolivia. She is an L1 speaker of Northern Bolivian Aymara spoken in Peñas. She has a BA in Applied Linguistics from San Simon University. She is currently documenting the speech of elders in her community. She is interested in language description as well as Andean Spanish and language contact and variation. She is currently teaching Spanish at the Academy of Clermont-Ferrand, France.

2. Gladys Camacho Rios (University at Buffalo)

Gladys Camacho Rios is an L1 speaker of South Bolivian Quechua. She was born and raised in the rural town of Kalallusta, Esteban-Arce, Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is a linguist, a writer and a language activist. She obtained her PhD in linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. She is currently documenting Bolivian Quechua spoken by elderly people in rural towns. She is the founder and the leader of the Linguistics Summer School Bolivia (LSSB) since 2016. The LSSB is a grassroots initiative to enhance documentary linguistics for minority languages of Bolivia, likewise, to foster a pioneering group of native speakers of minority languages documenting their native languages.

3. Nati Sylvestre Cruz (San Simon University)

Nati Silvestre Cruz is an L1 speaker of Southern Bolivian Aymara. She was born and raised in Yawri-Totora in the province of Tapacari, Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is currently finishing her BA in Applied Linguistics at San Simon University. She documents Aymara spoken in her town. The result of her documentation project will yield a Cultural Book for her town. She is also a language activist. She promotes the variety of Aymara spoken in Yawri-Totora.

In cooperation with the Institute of Romance languages (ROM 2), University of Vienna (Campus)
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 8, 1090 Wien