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| Laboratory of Indigenous Languages of Latin America | |
|---|---|
| Name | Laboratory of Indigenous Languages of Latin America |
| Established | 1990s |
| Type | Research institute |
| Location | Latin America |
Laboratory of Indigenous Languages of Latin America is a research institute devoted to documentation, description, revitalization, and digital archiving of indigenous languages across Latin America. The institute integrates fieldwork, corpus linguistics, computational methods, and community-based programs, connecting with universities, museums, and archives to support language rights and cultural heritage. It frequently engages with scholars, policymakers, and indigenous organizations to produce grammars, dictionaries, and multimedia resources.
Founded in the 1990s amid rising interest in documentarian linguistics, the institute emerged following conferences and initiatives linked to Summer Institute of Linguistics, UNESCO, International Congress of Linguists, Smithsonian Institution, and regional programs in Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Early collaborations involved researchers associated with University of Texas at Austin, Harvard University, University of Chicago, University of São Paulo, and National Autonomous University of Mexico. Influential field projects referenced methodological developments from figures connected to Noam Chomsky, William Labov, Michael Silverstein, Ken Hale, and Claude Lévi-Strauss-era ethnographic paradigms, while engaging with indigenous movements such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and policy shifts like the Mexican Cultural Rights reforms.
The institute's mission aligns with principles enshrined by United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, advocating linguistic diversity via documentation, revitalization, and access. Objectives include producing descriptive grammars inspired by frameworks from American Structuralism, Generative Grammar, and Functional Grammar traditions; developing orthographies consulted with communities and regional bodies like Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas; and promoting materials for schools affiliated with ministries such as Secretaría de Educación Pública and educational programs in Bolivia and Guatemala.
Research spans phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicography, and discourse analysis with case studies on language families including Uto-Aztecan languages, Arawakan languages, Tupian languages, Quechuan languages, Aymaran languages, Mayaan languages, Takanan languages, Panoan languages, Cariban languages, Mayan languages, Chibchan languages, Macro-Jê languages, Tucanoan languages, Gê languages, Arauan languages, Mapudungun, and Guarani. Computational linguistics efforts draw on tools developed in projects at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Linguistic Data Consortium, European Language Resources Association, and software from SIL International and ELAN (software). Anthropological linguistics interfaces reference ethnographies from Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ruth Benedict, and modern studies connected to Edmund Leach and Mary Douglas.
Major projects include collaborative grammars, bilingual dictionaries, and multimedia corpora modeled on archives like PARADISEC, APIC, and Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Publications appear in journals such as International Journal of American Linguistics, Language Documentation & Conservation, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Anthropological Linguistics, and monographs published by presses including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Chicago Press, and MIT Press. Field reports reference casework with communities associated with leaders and activists linked to Rigoberta Menchú, Evo Morales, Subcomandante Marcos, and cultural projects coordinated with institutions like Museo Nacional de Antropología (Mexico), Museu Nacional (Brazil), and Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas.
The institute partners with universities and research centers such as University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Columbia University, University of British Columbia, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), and Universidad Nacional de San Martín. It collaborates with indigenous organizations, local governments, and international bodies including Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Organization of American States, and NGOs like Survival International and Cultural Survival. Funding and technical collaborations have involved agencies such as National Science Foundation, European Research Council, Ford Foundation, and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Facilities include fieldwork laboratories, audio-visual suites, and digital archives compatible with standards used by Dublin Core, Open Archives Initiative, and repositories like Internet Archive and British Library collections. Hardware and software resources employ systems from ELAN (software), Praat, FLEx, and databases interoperable with initiatives at Max Planck Digital Library and CLARIN. The institute maintains collections housed in partner institutions such as Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, Biblioteca Nacional de Argentina, and university special collections at Yale Beinecke Library and Harvard Peabody Museum.
Training programs offer field methods courses modeled after the SIL Field Methods Course, summer schools akin to Leipzig Summer School, workshops in descriptive techniques linked to Linguistic Society of America meetings, and doctoral supervision in collaboration with departments at University of Texas at Austin, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Oxford, and University of Cambridge. Community-oriented workshops coordinate with local teacher training programs under ministries such as Ministerio de Educación Pública (Costa Rica) and NGOs like Teach For All adaptations, promoting bilingual education initiatives similar to projects in Ecuador and Peru.
Category:Linguistic research institutes