Documentation of Brazilian Tuyuka, Brazil
Language | Tuyuka |
Depositor | Nathalie Pires Vlcek |
Affiliation | Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro |
Location | Brazil |
Collection ID | 0300 |
Grant ID | SG0279 |
Funding Body | ELDP |
Collection Status | Collection online |
Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/07536cb4-8853-4067-9377-cdfbaae80322 |
Summary of the collection
Tuyuka is an Eastern Tukano language spoken by approximately one thousand people distributed in some twenty communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories in northwestern Amazonia.
This collection shows a number of videos and audios that come from vocabulary list elicitations (as Swadesh) to natural spoken community gathers. The elicitations have served for a large phonetic and phonological investigation, and the natural spoken acts are still to be fully analysed. There are, also sessions with rich stories and diverse participants, such as narratives and procedurals.
All transcriptions were made with the community members as protagonist participants and more than Four workshops were developed within the community to engage as many members as possible.
Group represented
Tuyuka is an Eastern Tukano language spoken by approximately one thousand people distributed in some twenty communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories in northwestern Amazonia. Although Tuyuka is an endangered language, it is still used in Tuyuka communities in the upper Tiquié area. However, as with other East Tukanoan groups, the Tuyuka participate in a marriage system based on linguistic exogamy, with unions between members of different language groups, and is endangered by the growing use of the Tukano language, predominant in the greater Vaupés region.
Language information
Tuyuka is an Eastern Tukano language spoken by approximately one thousand people distributed in some twenty communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories in northwestern Amazonia. Although Tuyuka is an endangered language, it is still used in Tuyuka communities in the upper Tiquié area. However, as with other East Tukanoan groups, the Tuyuka participate in a marriage system based on linguistic exogamy, with unions between members of different language groups, and is endangered by the growing use of the Tukano language, predominant in the greater Vaupés region. The scope of this documentation was the Tuyuka language as it is used in natural contexts in communities served by the Tuyuka indigenous school, and to aid the school’s efforts toward language maintenance. The school serves five communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories: São Pedro, Cachoeira Comprida, Fronteira, Papunha, and Bella Vista, and my fieldwork will be conducted primarily in the first two, on the Brazilian side of the upper Tiquié river. The school was created in 2000 with the aid of both FOIRN (Federation of Indigenous Organizations of the Rio Negro) and ISA (Instituto Socioambiental) and has already made some progress in the revitalization of the language, by creating a literacy program in Tuyuka and also by instituting a policy of exclusive use of Tuyuka during the first years of primary education.
Collection contents
The scope of this project is to study the Tuyuka language as it is used in communities served by the Tuyuka indigenous school and to aid the school’s efforts toward language maintenance. The school serves five communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories: So Pedro, Cachoeira Comprida, Fronteira, Papunha and Bella Vista, and my fieldwork will be conducted primarily in the first two, on the Brazilian side of the upper Tiqui river. Tuyuka is an Eastern Tukano language spoken by approximately one thousand people distributed in some twenty communities in Brazilian and Colombian territories in northwestern Amazonia.
The majority of bundles in this collection are video recordings. There are around 10 hours of linguistic data with various situations. There are also 1h20 approximately of analysed data: transcriptions and translations, and also some text analysis.
Collection history
The data for this collection was collected during the doctoral research of Nathalie Vlcek, the principal investigator. The first set of data was collected in March 2013 and the last one in November 2014. There were in total five field trips: three to the community of São Pedro (March 2013, November 2013 and November 2014) and two to the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira (July 2013 and April 2014).
Acknowledgement and citation
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Pires Vlcek, Nathalie. 2016. The urgent documentation of the Tuyuka language. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000F-B666-6. Accessed on [insert date here].