Documentation and Description of Nam Trik, an endangered language of the Colombian Andes

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide to for the linguistic documentation of endangered language and knowledge. Grantees create multimedia collection of endangered languages. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) housed at the library of SOAS University of London.

This project aims at documenting and describing Nam Trik (Barbacoan family), a poorly described language of the Southwestern Colombian Andes spoken by about 8.000/199.000 people. The project will focus on two highly endangered dialects of Nam Trik, spoken in the communities of Totoró (76 speakers) and Ambaló (163 speakers). In collaboration with trained members of the community, a Nam Trik audio-video corpus will be collected. Part of this corpus will be used to produce a grammatical description and a bilingual multimedia dictionary. This study will also contribute to the typology of Barbacoan languages since Nam Trik does not have a grammar yet. Primary investigator: Geny Gonzales Castano

Project Details


Location: Colombia, Cuba, Colombia, Caribbean, South America, Americas Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): CNRS - Laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (DDL), Université Lyon 2 Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £67,623.00 Commencement Date: 01/2010 Project Status: Active
Project owner? Update this project



Related Projects

Arcadia Logo high res

Documenting the contemporary history of science in India

To collect, preserve and make available online endangered cultural artefacts related to the contemporary (~200 years) history of science in South Asia. It will also develop a …

Explore project
Arcadia Logo high res

Digital Preservation of Kerala Archives

To survey and digitize some of the most important collections of palm-leaf manuscripts in the Thrissur and Ernakulam districts, Kerala, India in both institutional and family …

Explore project
Arcadia Logo high res

Mapping Archaeological Pre-Columbian Heritage in South America

To produce an integrated public access database for the pre-Columbian archaeological heritage of South America, focussing on Brazil and Colombia.

Explore project