📚 Wai Wai educators and the making of a community-based grammar

The Wai Wai are an Indigenous people of the Karib language family who live in the Wayamu Territory—across parts of northern Brazil, as well as neighboring regions of Guyana and Suriname. Their history includes forced displacements, interethnic contact, and continued resistance to external pressures.

Since the 1970s, the Wai Wai have returned to ancestral lands in Brazil, establishing villages like Mapuera and Jatapuzinho. Through their own association (APIW), they defend territorial rights and lead initiatives grounded in cultural and linguistic autonomy.

One such initiative is the creation of a school grammar written in the Wai Wai language by Wai Wai teachers. Based on oral histories and actual language use, this grammar was developed collectively between 2014 and 2019 in training workshops and educational gatherings.

The process is documented in the article:
“Wai Wai Pedagogical Grammar: reflections and methodological practices on developing didactic material for an Indigenous community”.

The publication highlights how education becomes a tool of resistance—connecting language, memory, and self-determination.

🪶 Read the full article:
👉 https://doi.org/10.25189/2675-4916.2025.v6.n3.id810

#IndigenousLanguages #LanguageDocumentation #WaiWai #LinguisticJustice #OpenAccess #DecolonizingEducation

The first public version of the Tugg speech transcription tool for language documentation has been released.

There are still no version numbers, and the installation consists of “git clone”. Sometime in the future we might add a better way of installing the tool. Tested on Mac and Windows, but should work anywhere Python works.

#tugg #languagedocumentation

https://codeberg.org/nakajimakoen/tugg

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be moving to #Philadelphia for a fellowship at the American Philosophical Society, where I will continue working on locating, building, and analyzing a corpus of #Tunica language documentation, as well as gathering all information I can on the history and culture of the Tunica-Biloxi people.

#linguistics #LanguageRevitalization #LanguageDocumentation

@linguistics

Hello, all! A brief #introduction post about us:

🤝 We're a collaborative online space for people to share knowledge & build community to support #LanguageRevitalization, and to uplift & celebrate #IndigenousLanguages and #EndangeredLanguages.

🎙️ We offer free online classes in #LanguageDocumentation each year - our 2022 webinars just wrapped up! You can watch all the videos on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3jgRRJS

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The Last Speaker: South Africa’s dying language
Compiling a dictionary of click-based words, Claudia works to save her grandmother’s dying San, or Bushman, language.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/africa-direct/2022/12/13/the-last-speaker-south-africas-dying-language
#LanguageDeath #EndangeredLanguages #LanguageDocumentation #linguistics

https://youtu.be/vviiDznj5QA

I guess it’s time for an #introduction!

I’m a linguistics PhD focusing on #LanguageRevitalization, #LanguageChange, #LanguageDocumentation, and #SecondLanguage teaching. I work with the Tunica Language Working Group on Tunica, an #IndigenousLanguage in Louisiana.

I’m also interested in #CorpusLinguistics, language and the law, #DoubleModals, and #Humor.

Outside of linguistics, I'm forever honing my trivia skills and editing Wikipedia.

Because connections to stuff I've written about: Laura Downing at #HDLS15 mentions biases in documentation e.g. salience of linguistic forms to outsider fieldworkers can determine what gets documented and documenting contrastive forms is less controversial than non-contrastive ones.

Also her work on laryngeal stop inventories in #African #languages relied on documentation of non-contrastive forms.

#typology #linguistics @linguistics #LanguageDocumentation

Pour ceux qui ne me connaissent pas ici, j'ai fait une thèse sur une langue en voie de disparition au Mexique : l'ayapaneco. Vous pouvez la télécharger par ici si ça vous intéresse. 👇

#linguistics
#endangeredLanguages
#languageDocumentation

https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-03004941