Cabeceras Aid Project

Updated: December 19, 2019

The Iquito Language Documentation Project

ILDP Phase 2 (2007—present)

After the intensive team-based, fieldwork-oriented activities of Phase 1 of the ILDP (see below) ended in 2007, the focus of the project's team members shifted to various individual analytical and writing projects, including several team members finishing their graduate degrees. Products of the ILDP and its team members up to the present can be found on this page.

In 2008 and 2009, Beier and Michael were able to carry out two short periods of fieldwork in San Antonio. Then, from 2010 to 2014, the ILDP had a fieldwork hiatus.

Happily, in the summer of 2014 Beier and Michael were able to resume their research activities and efforts language documentation and revitalization efforts in collaboration with members of the Iquito community of San Antonio. That 2014 summer visit was followed by an intensive year of work, from August 2015 through August 2016, whose research activities were focused on updating and refining the Iquito dictionary database, as well as an extensive collection of texts. Our community-focused activities were focused on resuming community language classes and producing new teaching/learning materials to use in those classes.

In Spring and Summer of 2017, Spring and Summer of 2018, and Spring of 2019, Beier was able to push forward on all of these activites over a series of visits to San Antonio, in collaboration with Michael in each the Summer visits.

Now, from June 2019 through August 2020, Beier and Michael are dedicating a sabbatical year to finalizing as many products of the ILDP as humanly possible. As above, these products will appear on this page as soon as they are ready.

Stay tuned for further developments!

ILDP Phase 1 (2001—2006)

Phase 1 of the Iquito Language Documentation Project (ILDP) was officially launched in 2002 as a collaborative project of the indigenous community of San Antonio de Pintuyacu, in Loreto, Peru; Cabeceras Aid Project, Austin, Texas; and a group of graduate students at The University of Texas at Austin. Phase 1 was funded by Cabeceras Aid Project; the Endangered Language Fund; and the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme of the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, London. Research team members also participated in the ILDP using funding they obtained independently.

Click on the following links to learn more...

Products of the ILDP
Documents related to the ICLDC 2009 Conference
Background information on the organization of Phase 1 of the ILDP
Acknowledgments for Phase 1 of the ILDP
Text of the poster on the ILDP presented at the LSA meetings in Albuquerque, January 2006
Report from Iquitos on the ILDP team's field research for 2004 (PDF)
Images from the project, june–august 2002

Background information on Phase 1 of the ILDP

Convenio (formal agreement) between the community of San Antonio and Cabeceras Aid Project, signed August 2002 (PDF in Spanish).
Reglamentos (by-laws) that govern the Iquito Project, signed August 2002 (PDF in Spanish).
April 2002: La condición actual del idioma indígena iquito y las claves factores afectando al proyecto de su recuperación, a preliminary report on the state of the Iquito language (PDF in Spanish).
May 2002: a brief description of the Iquito Project (PDF in english) written in anticipation of our work in summer 2002.
July 2002: Summary of the project, written during the first phase of the ILDP (PDF in Spanish).
September 2002: Text of talks at the Special Colloquium of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, "The Iquito Language Documentation Project: Launching a community-based language documentation and revitalization effort", presented on September 16, 2002 (various PDFs in english).
Fall 2002: A brief study by Christine Beier of malaria in San Antonio in 2002 (PDF in english).
February 2003: El Proyecto de Documentación del Idioma Iquito: Ensayando un nuevo modelo de documentación de un idioma en peligro de extinción, text of a talk by Christine Beier describing the ILDP, given at the Primer Simposio de la Lingüística Amerida de la Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de la América Latina en Mérida, México, 28 de febrero de 2003 (PDF in spanish).
A series of articles by Sr. Gabel Sotil on the Iquito people, the Iquito language, and current language revitalization efforts (PDF in Spanish).

Organization of Phase 1 of the ILDP

Phase 1 of the Iquito Language Documentation Project was carried out by two primary groups of individuals, with different responsibilities, who worked together towards the documentation and revitalization of the Iquito language: The Investigatory Team and the Supervisory Team.
The Supervisory Team had eleven members, all residents of the indigenous community of San Antonio de Pintuyacu, and all selected annually by the community assembly; this structure for the composition of the Supervisory Team was authorized on the 7th of August of 2002 at the community assembly in San Antonio de Pintuyacu:

• Three elected authorities of the community (for example, president, vice president, lieutenant governor);
• Two Iquito schoolteachers from the community;
• Two native speakers of Iquito;
• Two semi-speakers of Iquito;
• Two young representatives of the community who do not speak Iquito but are interested in its revitalization.
The Investigatory Team included the following members:

• Two community linguists, or linguistas de la comunidad: Marcelo Inuma Sinchija and Hilter Panduro Güimack;
• Four Iquito language specialists, or especialistas del idioma: Hermenegildo Díaz Cuyasa, Ema Llona Yareja, Ligia Inuma Inuma, and Jaime Pacaya Inuma;
• A group of linguistic advisors from the University of Texas at Austin and La Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.
• The field coordinators of the ILDP, from UT Austin at the time, were Christine Beier and Lev Michael.
• The principal investigator and scientific advisor for Phase 1 of the ILDP was Nora England, Professor, Department of Linguistics, and Director, Center for Indigenous Languages of Latin America (CILLA), University of Texas at Austin.

Acknowledgments for Phase 1 of the ILDP

The Iquito Language Documentation Project would like to thank the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme of the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, based at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, for its support. The ELDP´s grant to the ILDP supported the second and third phases of the project, between June 2003 and December 2006.
The ILDP would also like to thank The Endangered Language Fund for financial support to fund the salaries of the community linguists and language specialists in San Antonio de Pintuyacu in 2002.
The project team received technical and/or financial support from The University of Texas at Austin through:

• The Center for Indigenous Languages of Latin America (CILLA)
• The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA)
• The College of Liberal Arts
• The Department of Anthropology and the Linguistic Anthropology Program
• The Department of Linguistics
• The Teresa Lozano Long Institute for Latin American Studies (LLILAS)
• The COLA/LLILAS Field Research Grant Program
• The Liberal Arts Graduate Research Grant Program
The project team would like to thank the following outstanding individuals for their mentorship and for the inspiration they provided us in developing the ILDP (in alphabetical order):

• Dra. Nora England
• Dr. Joel Sherzer
• Sr. Gabel Sotil
• Dr. Anthony Woodbury

Camisea River 2006