CHILE: Keeping Indigenous Languages Alive (fwd link)

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CHILE:  Keeping Indigenous Languages Alive
By Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Sep 1 (IPS) - "Mari, mari!" shout the excited group of 20 Chilean,
Peruvian and Ecuadorean three- and four-year-olds, using the Mapuche language
greeting to welcome a visitor to their intercultural day care centre in
Santiago.

Some of the pupils at the Adkintun preschool are descendents of the Mapuche, the
largest indigenous group in Chile, while others belong to the Aymara ethnic
group, native to the Andean highlands of Bolivia, Peru and northern Chile. In
the past there have also been children descended from the Rapa Nui, the native
Polynesian people of Easter Island.

But the majority of the 60 children enrolled at the day care centre do not
belong to any indigenous ethnic group, which makes it genuinely intercultural,
said Jorge Clavería of the Coordinadora Nacional Indianista (CONACIN), the
non-profit indigenous network that founded the centre in 2005.

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