In a bid to encourage the technological and educational development of indigenous communities in northern Jalisco, the University of Guadalajara (UdeG) is translating 40,000 Wixarika words for online use.
Wixarika is the language spoken by the indigenous Huichol people, or Wixaritari, as they refer to themselves, who inhabit parts of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas and Durango.
The UdeG has already translated 3,900 words for use in free OpenOffice software and now it is increasing its scope tenfold to create Huichol-friendly versions of the Mozilla Firefox web browser and Wikipedia.
UdeG linguists have been taking part in the translation marathon at the Centro Universitario del Norte campus in northern Jalisco throughout October and November, while others have also been helping in Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Tabasco and Yucatan. Their efforts will ensure that this ancient language is forever preserved through information technology.Previous UdeG projects to produce a Wixarika reference grammar and dictionary have been running since the 1980s, led by a team of investigators in the university’s Department of Indigenous Languages, and the first volume was published in 2006.
Some basic Wixarika words and phrases
One – Zevi
Two – Huta
Three – Haika
Four – Nauka
Five – Auzuvi
Man – Tevi
Woman – Uka
Dog – Chiki
Sun – Tau
Moon – Meceri
What is your name? – Ke peti tewa
What do you do? – Ke peti yuriene
Where do you live? – Ke pepeaka
How are you? – Ke aku
I’m fine – Aix neureu erie