Documentation of the Ofayé Language
Eduardo Ribeiro, Universidade Federal de Goiás
Project Details:
Individual Postgraduate Fellowship. Duration: 2003-2006. £33,312
Project Summary:
The main purpose of this project is to document the Ofayé language (Macro-Ję stock), spoken by approximately fifteen individuals in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Ofayé is an extremely endangered language, given the reduced number of speakers and the fact that the Ofayé children are acquiring Portuguese as their first and only language. There are no comprehensive phonological, lexical, and grammatical descriptions of Ofayé to date. Through intensive documentation and study of the language, this project intends to fill this void, substantially improving the scientific knowledge of a severely under-described language and providing a wealth of data for comparative studies of the Macro-Ję stock - one of the lesser-known language groups of South America. The documentation and analysis of the language will also create a solid foundation for future projects of language preservation and revitalization, thus answering the desires of the Ofayé community, who want their language to be documented and preserved for the present and future generations.
Ongoing project description:
For more information please see: http://www.geocities.com/avepalavra/ofaye/
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