Documenting Iranxe-Mỹky, an endangered isolate language of Brazilian Amazonia

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.

Mỹky is a severely endangered isolate language spoken by less than 100 people in Mato Grosso (Brazil) by two separate communities, Iranxe and Mỹky. The Iranxe community would like to preserve their dialect, spoken by only a declining number of elder speakers, and the knowledge of these remaining native speakers. This project aims to document the Iranxe variety of Mỹky and to enhance our understanding of this threatened isolate language, including its undescribed tonal system. The output will be recordings of narrative and conversational texts, transcriptions and annotations, and language materials for the community, and training of community documenters. Primary investigator: Bernat Bardagil-Mas

Project Details


Location: Brazil, South America, Brazil, Americas, United States of America Organiser(s): Endangered Languages Documentation Programme Project partner(s): University of California Berkeley Funder(s): Arcadia Funding received: £93,281.00 Commencement Date: 01/2014 Project Status: Active
Project owner? Update this project



Related Projects

EAP1402 Pub003

19th-century documents from the Peruvian asylum el Manicomio del Cercado

The Victor Larco Herrera Hospital in the centre of Lima, Peru, was closed in 1917. Its archives, dating back to 1859, consist of medical documentation as well as administrativ…

Explore project
EAP1306 Silk Museum

The Caucasian Silk Circle: Digitising Photo Collection of the State Silk Museum in Georgia

The State Silk Museum of Georgia holds the only documentary evidence of the practice of sericulture in the 19th century. Taken during expeditions of the Caucasian Sericulture …

Explore project
EAP1294 team

Safeguarding for Posterity Two Private Collections of Palm-Leaf Manuscripts from the Tamil Country

The Kalliṭaikuṟicci and Villiyampākkam collections are palm-leaf collections held privately in India. The collections are essential to study the prevalent reading practices in…

Explore project