Donations to HRELP from the Americas

At the 3L Summer School held in June 2008 in Lyon, France, HRELP was represented by Professor Peter Austin, Dr Friederike Lüpke, and David Nathan. We were honoured by the following donations:

OKMA jade plaque and books

The Asociación Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA), an association of Mayan linguists documenting the indigenous languages of Guatemala, donated an inscribed jade plaque and a set of books to HRELP.

The plaque is inscribed in Mayan hieroglyphs (in the K'iché language) and says Donated to Endangered Languages Project, University of London May 2008. Romelia Mó Isém from Guatemala, a participant at the Summer School, recited prayers in her language (Poqomchi') and then formally presented the plaque to Prof Austin representing HRELP. The research work of Romelia and other scholars was sponsored under an ELDP grant under the direction of Prof Nora England.

OKMA also donated copies of their published dictionaries and grammars of several Mayan languages to HRELP.

Brazilian endangered languages materials

Research students from Museu Goeldi in Belem, Brazil (supervised by Prof Denny Moore), presented some outputs from their research to Peter Austin, representing HRELP. Thiago Castro donated a set of CDs of stories and songs that he recorded in the Djeromitxi language from Rondônia, and Ana Carolina Alves presented videos on the Aweti language from the Xingú Indigenous Park (Manufatura da rede de Aweti) that were produced in connection with the VW DOBES project on Aweti directed by Dr Sebastian Drude.

The plaque, CDs and videos will be kept in a locked cabinet in the Rausing Room (R201) at SOAS and will be available for view and study by students, researchers and visitors.