Help Save the Arawak Language!

Hi, my name is Keisha and I'm a linguist! My specialty is working with endangered Native American languages. About a year ago, I was alerted to the existence of a highly motivated Arawak (Lokono) language teacher named Ivan Cornelius who was struggling to save the Arawak language in his community in Guyana. He needed funds and equipment to keep his language classes going.  I knew I could help, and I was finally able to write a grant for him this year. Fortunately, we were able to secure a small grant from the Endangered Language Fund ! This money allows me and a teammate, Sheldon Noel, to travel to Wakapoa, Guyana in South America and train Ivan and other community members in language documentation and language teaching. It also allows us to buy a laptop for the language classes. 

How you can help

Unfortunately, we need more equipment, and thus more funds to turn the Wakapoa community members into language documenting rockstars. We are requesting additional funds for:

a microphone and/or digital voice recorder
a printer plus paper
a video camera
projector
thumb drives and external drives
sd cards
a solar charger
notebooks and office supplies

We welcome as much support as you can give. Thank you for helping the fight to save Indigenous languages!

Other questions

I have equipment I can donate, where can I send it to?
Please contact me. If it is small and can be carried in my suitcase I will be happy to deliver it. Bigger or heavier items might need an arrangement with a shipping company. 

How many Arawak speakers are left? 
There are roughly 10,000 Arawaks (who call themselves "Lokono")  across South America, but only around 1,000 speakers. The language is critically endangered. Fortunately, Wakapoa holds a number of monolingual speakers, but most are elderly.

Where is Wakapoa?
Wakapoa is located on the Pomeroon River in Guyana, south of the community of Charity. You can learn more about the community at their website Indigenous Rainforest Keepers .

About the members on this project

Ivan Cornelius - Ivan is the main teacher for the Arawak language in Wakapoa. (He is the one with the hat in the middle of the main picture). He is affectionately called "Uncle Banch". He is a tireless fighter for the Arawak language, even using modern day apps such as Whatsapp to teach the language to others. 

Keisha Josephs - Keisha is a Kalinago linguist who is in her final year of the Ph.D. progam in Linguistics at the University of Arizona. She specializes in historical linguistics, language documentation and language revitalization. She has worked with Kalinago, Chemehuevi, Northern Pomo and Jicarilla Apache. 

Sheldon Noel - Sheldon is member of the Dakota Nation and is a fluent Dakota speaker. He is also a teacher of the Dakota language and will be training Arawak members to use the Before You Know It (BYKI) software to create language lessons.