The Creation of the Moon: A Traditional Story Publication and Pedagogical Reference for the Karapanã Language Community

Abstract

Para una traducción aproximada, no oficial pero completa al español de esta tesis, consulte los archivos suplementarios conectados a esta publicación. This thesis highlights aspects of an ongoing, community-driven collaboration with Karapanã language speakers from the San Antonio community residing in Mitú, Colombia to publish a bi-translational picture book and derive cultural, linguistic, and pedagogical resources from its content. The book is based on a traditional oral narrative with deep cultural significance titled The Creation of the Moon. Associated efforts include the creation of a light grammar sketch of the Karapanã language, a glossed section of part one of The Creation of the Moon story, and sample resources for cultural and language pedagogy. Karapanã is an endangered Tukanoan language of the Vaupes region of Colombia. The health, sovereignty, and well-being of the Karapanã community is inextricable from the continued, healthy expression of the community’s shared cultural identity and relationships through the Karapanã language. Caring for, respecting, and valuing not only the Karapanã language but also the Karapanã community is the primary objective of this research and of the utmost importance. Through linguistic capacity-building fieldwork and documentation under the guidance of Dr. Wilson de Lima Silva during the summer of 2019, community-derived language goals and interests were identified. It was expressed that a bilingual picture book in Spanish and Karapanã would be a valuable resource for Karapanã families. The linguistic analysis presented in the grammar sketch and glossing is based on language data graciously shared with me by Karapanã speaker Jhon Edison Vargas Correa and his family. It makes specific reference to the transcription of The Creation of the Moon story as told by community member Carlos Vargas Acosta. Karapanã exhibits a number of interesting typological features as a highly agglutinating, strongly affixing language with a unique system of noun classification, nasal harmony, serial verb constructions, and grammatical evidentials. Documenting the language will help support the health and well-being of the Karapanã community as well as its current language revitalization goals. Taken in isolation, however, a sketch grammar will not transmit the language across generations nor protect and create valuable spaces to validate and/or facilitate language use. Efforts to mobilize cross-community collaborations, secure language speaking domains, establish a culture-based pedagogy, create just and protective Indigenous language policies, and empower community language leaders are also vital to initiate and sustain a Karapanã language revitalization movement. The thesis begins by positioning the research and introducing the Karapanã community and their language in chapter one, including sociolinguistic information and some historical background. Chapter two presents a phonological description of Karapanã, followed by a description of the parts of speech and morphosyntactic properties -- including nominal morphology, adjectives and adverbs, and verbal morphology. Chapter three presents a 164-line glossing of part one of The Creation of the Moon story. Lastly, chapter four presents a few examples of prospective pedagogical lesson templates based on story content.