"The book is organised into three sections. The first addresses the link between indigenous knowledge and indigenous language, and explores the opportunities this interconnection provides for understanding and countering declines in both. The second section examines how the loss of indigenous knowle
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dge due to insensitive school programmes may be countered by integrating indigenous knowledge and languages into school curricula. The third section explores the need for the revitalisation of indigenous ways of learning, generally outside of a classroom environment, and how this may be practically viable in modern contexts." (Structure of the book, page 6-7)
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"Topics covered include the ongoing linguistic processes, controversies, and implications of language modernization; the functions of South Asian languages within the legal system, media, cinema, and religion; language conflicts and politics, and Sanskrit and its long traditions of study and teachin
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g. Language in South Asia is an accessible interdisciplinary book for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language planning and South Asian studies." (Publisher description)
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"In order to promote and bolster linguistic and cultural diversity in cyberspace, the most underprivileged languages need help to gain access to it. If it is possible to do this with a small, oral, unwritten, endangered language, there is all the more reason why this should be possible with all poor
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ly endowed languages which are in somewhat better circumstances. The first stage consists in undertaking the necessary studies in order to develop the linguistic resources that are indispensable: a list of phonemes, an alphabet, a spelling system, a grammar, a dictionary and a collection of texts. The second stage involves work on computerization of the language in order to identify or develop compatible IT resources: a character set in at least one font, a virtual keyboard and corpus processing programmes, which may also be used to fine-tool linguistic analysis of the language and enhance its linguistic resources. The third stage consists in developing and adapting cultural resources so that they may be shared in cyberspace. This means recording and digitizing as many text, sound and graphic records as possible and making them ready for posting on websites. It is also necessary to design the various ingredients of a website, such as menus, navigation bars, titles and other texts for human-machine communication. In some cases, it will be necessary to localize programmes in order to develop the language as a working tool and endow it with supplementary IT resources. Finally, it is useful to learn to develop websites in the poorly endowed language, possibly in tandem with a more widely used language. All tools necessary for such training and tools for creating forums and localizing freeware may be found on the Internet. Once it has a website, a forum, a mailing list, IP telephony, music, still photographs and video, the lesser-used language can now be well ensconced in cyberspace, but to survive there, a community capable of using it intensively must be developed. Assistance to local associations in developing such communities will contribute to the promotion and enhancement of the diversity of languages and cultures in cyberspace." (Conclusion, page 45-46)
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"Esta es precisamente la característica del periódico CONOSUR Ñawpaqman: recuperar las voces cotidianas. Y es precsiamente lo que Fernando Garcés ha logrado en su investigación: rastrear, a partir de la inscripción del discurso oral, un aspecto de la etnografía de la comunicación quechua, al
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recoger la creatividad de los hablantes y propiciar la divulgación de los enunciados tal y como se generan desde la identidad quechua. Es una transferencia "de la voz al papel", en la cual los individuos y la colectividad se mantienen con voz propia, son dueños de su palabra." (Cubierta del libro)
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"Traditional indigenous education and its structures should be respected and supported. Our knowledge has not been written down by us – on the contrary: we dance it, we draw it, we narrate it, we sing it, we practise it. There is a need for a deeper understanding of what knowledge and learning are
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and the many paths that lead to them. This is in line with what was observed by the Delors Commission: Western formal education systems tend to emphasize the acquisition of knowledge to the detriment of other types of learning (UNESCO, 1997). I believe that indigenous peoples can contribute significantly both to our own education systems and to the renewal of education systems of other peoples. We need to: establish effective arrangements for the participation of indigenous parents and community members in decisions regarding the planning, delivery and evaluation of education services for their children, young people and other community members; increase the number of indigenous people employed as education administrators, teachers, coaches, curriculum advisers, teachers assistants, home-school liaison officers and other education workers, including community people engaged in teaching indigenous culture, history and contemporary society, and indigenous languages; provide education and training services to develop the skills of indigenous people to participate in educational decision-making; develop arrangements for the provisions of independent advice from indigenous communities regarding educational decisions at all levels; and to achieve the participation of indigenous children, young people and adults in education for a period similar to that for other students." (Preface, page 7-8)
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"[...] la lógica del aymara es trivalente, no nada más que bivalente como la del español. Es decir, la sintáxis del idioma indígena revela una lógica "no Aristotélica" porque no tiene solamente los dos valores de la lógica tradicional occidental: verdadero, falso. Tiene tres: verdadero, fals
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o, incierto. En observancia del principio de "tercero excluido", la lógica del español sólo permite hacer inferencias a partir de premisas necesariamente verdaderas o falsas. En la lógica no dicotómica, que es la del aymara, los enunciados se construyen con sufijos, en vez de palabras de conexión, y se torna posible derivar conclusiones a partir de premisas dudosas o apenas plausibles. O sea, algo puede - creámoslo o no los no aymaras - ser "quizás cierto y quizás no cierto". La ambigüedad tiene valor; la incertidumbre importa. No se trata, pues, simplemente del conflicto común entre dos vocabularios diferentes pero equiparables. Son dos maneras de pensar marcadamente opuestas que trasuntan universos culturales muy alejados entre sí. De ahí que el riesgo de incomunicación no es en este caso un problema de mera divergencia semántica puesto que, por ejemplo, "para el hombre que piensa en aymara su premisa es que el pasado está adelante y el futuro atrás". En el presente informe de la investigación que el CIID auspició, Guzmán deseoso de alcanzar con sus resultados no solamente a otros especialistas como él ofrece más de una explicación de aquella diferencia. Para los versados en lingüística e idóneos en aymara, densos capítulos de argumentación lógica y demostración matemática. Para los legos, sencillos ejemplos iluminantes y hasta un gracioso pero efectivo recurso didáctico: un diálogo imaginario entre Aristóteles y una "india" aymara. Pero ¿qué implicaciones tiene la distinción hallada por el investigador boliviano?
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