About the project

 

In the collaborative documentation project on the Secoya language spoken on the Ecuadorian side (Secoya is also spoken in Peru) people’s natural speech about different topics and in different contexts and functions is recorded, transcribed, and translated in order to establish a rich primary source pool about the language varieties, culture, and history of the contemporary Ecuadorian Secoya. We are also producing pedagogical linguistic materials and a trilingual dictionary (Secoya – Spanish – English) that are of immediate benefit for the speech community. The project receives funding from Arcadia in the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Programme since September 2012.

The current project can build on previous documentation commitments:
In 2011, in a team comprising the two Secoya researchers Carmen Piaguaje and Eduardo Payaguaje and the linguist Dr. Anne Schwarz we have started conducting interviews on traditional practices and collecting oral traditions among the Secoyas living along the Aguarico River. The collected audio -video data are digitally processed and annotated. For some parts of the recordings subtitled video clips are produced. We were fortunate to receive generous funding from James Cook University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, in 2010, and from the Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research in 2011, and benefit from the continuous technical and practical/linguistic advice by Dr. Connie Dickinson.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the following institutions:

  • Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Programme (Arcadia) (UK)
  • Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research (US)
  • James Cook University (Australia)

We wish to thank the Ecuadorian Secoya Community:

  • The Governors of the Ecuadorian Secoya Nation and all Secoya consultants and friends for their support and participation in the documentation.

We express our thanks for the logistic/administrative assistance provided by the following institutions:

  • Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) (Berlin, Alemania)
  • FLACSO (Quito, Ecuador)
  • FEPP (Quito and Lago Agrio, Ecuador)
  • Colegio Rio Aguarico (San Pablo de Kantetsiaya, Ecuador)
  • Colegio Abya Yala (San Vincente/Lago Agrio, Ecuador)
  • Dirección de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe de las Nacionalidades Siona, Secoya and Cofan del Ecuador (DEINASSCE) (Lago Agrio, Ecuador)
  • Dra. Connie Dickinson (Ecuador and University of Oregon)
  • Orlando Cruz (2010 in Colegio Abya Yala)
  • Marcelo Araña (FEPP Lago Agrio)
  • Dra. Patricia Bermúdez (FLACSO)
  • Robert Kaeser (Ecuador)
  • Dr. Simeon Floyd (Max Planck Institute Nijmegen)

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