=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=98Our_language_is_our_soul=E2=80=99=3A_?=saving Aymara (fwd link)

[Hardman,Martha J]

This is good news. However, Aymara has had an Internet presence for
at least a decade and there are several sites dedicated to Aymara, the
Aymara course http://aymara.ufl.edu also used by the Bolivian
government, and the ILCA site http://ilcanet.org/ are two that have been
around for a long time. ILCA was teaching Aymara in the classrooms a 2~3
decades ago; unfortunately, at that time there was no governmental
follow-through. Then, when it finally came, they accepted bad advice,
which made it unpopular. The implementation of our program was a step in
the right direction. I am glad to see that things are better now.  

A
note: there is an Aymara site in Chile which also carries the name Jaqi
Aru https://www.facebook.com/jaqiaru?fref=ts . Not a surprise, given
that in Puno as well some people call the language Jaqi Aru. MJ 

On
Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:29:10 -0700, Phil Cash Cash wrote: 

> 'Our language
is our soul': saving Aymara
> 
> By Alexia Kalaitzi 
> Published on June
17, 2014
> 
> 'Could you imagine yourself speaking a language, your
mother tongue, at home and then going to school and learning a foreign
language? It is a big shock,' says Ruben Hilare, an activist from the
Bolivian indigenous community of Aymara, trying to describe the reality
of many children in the community.
> 
> Aymara is a language as well as
a people: it is a native American language spoken by over a million
people in Bolivia and several large communities in Peru, Chile and
Argentina. Although it is an official language in Bolivia, it is
underrepresented in the public sphere, where Spanish dominates. The only
media sources exclusively in Aymara are a handful of television shows
and radio programmes, while the language is taught at school for only an
hour a week. 
> 
> Until recently, Aymara did not have an online
presence, either. But this is changing. Ruben Hilare and other community
members are making an effort to save their language and promote it on
the internet, establishing a virtual community called Jaqi Aru. 
> 
>
​Access full article below: 
>
http://newint.org/blog/2014/06/17/endangered-languages-aymara/ [1] 
>
​

  

Links:
------
[1]
http://newint.org/blog/2014/06/17/endangered-languages-aymara/
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