MANGUARÉ Lenguas Indígenas

Oscar Fabián Cabrera Santacruz

About this app

The Amazon region is characterized by its ethnic cultural diversity, with the greatest variety of indigenous population in the country. There are 400 indigenous groups that speak 300 different languages ​​(World Bank, 2019). 96% of the 6,000 languages ​​on the planet are spoken by 3% of the population (UNESCO, 2003 cited from Bernard 1996). The custody of the world's linguistic diversity is in the hands of a small number of people (UNESCO, 2003). In recent years, more than a hundred languages ​​have disappeared, 400 are in a critical situation and 51 are spoken by a single person, which means that his death would take with him a whole legacy of knowledge (FOWKS, 2016).

As in the world, in the indigenous communities of the Amazon, languages ​​are disappearing. In Colombia, 68 languages ​​are in danger, 65 are indigenous languages ​​(Semana, 2017). Indigenous languages, their stories and songs, make up an oral tradition and the means of teaching from parents to children, the environment, their experiences and their spirituality. The Political Constitution requires the national and territorial government to safeguard the cultural identity of indigenous peoples and promote their preservation.

The last alternative is to create a repository of languages ​​on the verge of disappearing. Google, Endangered Languages ​​(Languages ​​in danger of extinction), allows you to upload videos, audios and documents, in different languages, to preserve them and create a cultural record (El Espectador, 2016). The Amazon Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) program, led by the World Bank, supports collective efforts to protect the rights of indigenous people and preserve their traditions (World Bank, 2019).

New technologies and applications for mobile devices allow mass information and innovate teaching-learning processes; Hence, the software development of a translator dictionary is a good option to collect, preserve and disseminate the linguistic wealth of the Amazon and appropriate this knowledge in danger of disappearing.