Projekt

Baure is a seriously endangered South Arawak language spoken in the Bolivian Amazonia. The language has to be captured exactly now, as its accelerated progress of decay can presumably not be stopped any more. All languages of this language family of Bolivia are either moribund or (seriously) endangered and will have disappeared in the coming decades. Baure is seriously endangered as the language has not been transferred to younger generations for the last decades and it is not used as a general means of communication any longer, having been replaced by Spanish. The project team (the linguist Dr. Swintha Danielsen, the social anthropologist Franziska Riedel and another PhD student of linguistics) will record and analyze all dialects of the Baure language, including Carmelito and Joaquiniano. In addition, the characteristics of the Baure ethnic identity will be described. In the final phase of the project, a workshop for Arawak languages of Bolivian Amazonia will bring together Moxo and Baure speakers and focus on the shared history, the comparability and the future of these genetically related languages.

• Prof. Dr. Balthasar Bickel

  Universität Leipzig
  Philologische Fakultät
  Institut für Linguistik
  Professur für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
  Leipzig
  

• Priv.-Doz. Dr. Andreas Brockmann

  Universität Leipzig
  Fakultät für Geschichte, Kunst- und Orientwissen-
  schaften
  Institut für Ethnologie
  Leipzig