Documenting and describing Ecuadorian Siona

The Endangered Language Documentation Programme (ELDP) provides grants worldwide for the documentation of endangered languages and knowledge. Grantees create audiovisual collections with transcription and translations of endangered languages and practices. These collections are preserved and made freely available through the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR).

Ecuadorian Siona [snn] is a highly endangered language with less than 200 speakers left. It is spoken in six communities in the Cuyabeno reserve and on the banks of the Aguarico, the Eno and the Aguas Negras in Eastern Ecuador (latitute=0º0659'N, longitude=76º3989'W). Even within the underdocumented Western-Tucanoan branch of the Tucanoan family, there is little existing documentation on Siona. Therefore this dissertation project aims to fill this gap through documenting a corpus of various genres, to train Siona speakers to document their language themselves, and to develop a description of the language with a special focus on the evidential system. Primary investigator: Martine Bruil

Project Details


Location: Ecuador, South America, Americas Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): LUCL, Leiden University Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £7,454.00 Commencement Date: 01/2006 Project Status: Completed
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