Imprensa: "Student documents rare Amazonian language " (Akuntsú)

[Moderadores Etnolinguistica.Org]

Publicado em The Daily Utah Chronicle, 6/fev/2009
http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/news/student_documents_rare_amazonian_language-1.1356952

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Student documents rare Amazonian language

Rosemary Campbell
Friday, February 6, 2009


Carolina Aragon has spent months in the Amazon Rainforest trying to
preserve a language that is nearly extinct. Aragon, a first-year
graduate student at the U, came to Utah from Brazil to study
linguistics six months ago. She first began studying indigenous
languages at the University of Brazil in the lab coordinated by Aryon
Rodrigues, a linguistics professor.

In 2004, the National Indian Foundation of Brazil went to the
university looking for someone to work with the Akuntsú Indian tribe,
an indigenous group with just six people whose spoken language is
endangered. Aragon was chosen to work with these people to learn,
document and preserve their language.

Aragon said the first time she visited the tribe, she stayed for one
month, researching and learning from tribe members as they went about
their day-to-day lives along the banks of the Omeré River.

"I have to live with them to learn the language through their daily
activities," Aragon said. "Language and culture are always related."

The Akuntsú tribe has a terrible history, she said. In the mid-1980s,
ranchers and colonizers who wanted the tribe's land massacred them and
left just six alive.

The National Indian Foundation made contact with the tribe in 1995,
but the genocide survivors have no children and no way of creating
another generation—they are all family and can't intermarry. The fear
is that when all of them die, their language will become extinct.

That's where Aragon comes in. She has lived with the Akuntsú four
different times, each for a month or more. Her three-month expedition
in 2007 was the first time they allowed her to sleep in their village.
On earlier expeditions, she would walk an hour through the forest each
time to reach the tribe.

Learning the language is difficult because the Akuntsú only know their
own dialect. During the time Aragon has lived with them, however, she
has been able to understand who they are as people. She said it is
important to her that she explain what they think and who they are in
a way that genuinely reflects their identity.

Having learned more of their language each time, Aragon knows what
they need and can explain that to the National Indian Foundation.

As she learns the language, Aragon documents it in the best way she can.

"It is important to me to do it carefully and very well," she said.
Aragon said she feels she has a responsibility to pass their language
on and put her best efforts forward in doing this work. The tribe
trusts her now, but she said "it's more than trust, they know that
what (I'm) doing is good for them," she said.

Thiago Chacon, a fellow graduate student from Brazil, does the same
kind of work as Aragon, but with different tribes.

"She has a very difficult task for the methodology of field work
because (the tribe) doesn't speak any (other) language," Chacon said.
"So she must be very skillful in getting data."

The tribe isn't the only monolingual tribe in the Amazon. In Brazil
alone, there are about 220 indigenous tribes that speak 180 different
languages, Aragon said.

Chacon and Aragon said it is important to preserve these indigenous
languages because all human languages have something in common. The
important thing is to discover what is universal and what is unique
about each one, Aragon said.

Lyle Campbell, director of the U's Center for American Indian
Languages, said Aragon's goal is to describe the Akuntsú language and
finish a dissertation that will ultimately be a comprehensive grammar
of the language by the end of her program at the U.

The dissertation will help Aragon and others in their ongoing work,
but Aragon is also trying to preserve songs and stories from the
tribe's history that she has been told. She wants to show the tribe
members videos and photographs of themselves and have them listen to
recordings to help them better understand the meaning of her work.

Campbell believes that Aragon won't be finished when she's done with
her dissertation.

"Almost all linguists have a major commitment to their communities," he said.

And he likely will be right.

"Akuntsú is my passion," Aragon said. "Time will show what the next
step is. When you are learning a language, it is for your whole life."


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