Introduction: Indigenous multilingualism in lowland South America

Recent decades have seen an exponential growth in our understanding of the indigenous languages of lowland South America – from their structures and interrelationships to the dynamics of their day-to-day use and the ways they are conceptualized by their speakers. These advances highlight not only the diversity of languages in lowland South America, but also the complexity of the dynamics of interaction among speakers in multilingual settings. The region is home to a range of interactive indigenous ‘regional systems’, such as the Vaupés, Upper Xingu, and other areas, where multiple languages have thrived alongside each other for generations, and interaction has been shaped by practices such as linguistic exogamy, multilingual song repertoires and ceremonial registers, and exchange networks. However, our understanding of these dynamics remains limited, even as they are eroded by new linguistic ecologies imposed by the national society. This special issue brings together a set of articles by scholars working in historically multilingual areas of lowland South America, whose collective experience and scope of interest spans temporal, geographic, and disciplinary perspectives. In the face of the accelerating loss of both linguistic and biological diversity today in the Amazon basin and beyond, the multilingual experiences of indigenous South Americans may have much to teach us about how language, society, and engagement with a range of others may be mutually constitutive and even mutually sustainable

Reflections on fieldwork: A view from Amazonia

Amazonia is both a place of exceptional linguistic, sociocultural, and ecological diversity and a place where the documentation of this diversity is limited and ever-increasingly urgent. While recent decades have shown considerable progress in this area, our understanding of Amazonian languages is still challenged by a low proportion of researchers relative to its many distinct language contexts. In light of Himmelmann's framing of language documentation as a 'fairly independent field of linguistic inquiry and practice', we discuss key facets of what we consider the single most important unifying question that underlies language documentation work in Amazonia: Just how much description and analysis is necessary for Amazonian language documentation to be coherent, useful, and interpretable by others? We argue that the social and cultural diversity of this vast region calls into question the actual separability of 'documentation' from `description and analysis' of Amazonian language data; and we advocate for taking Himmelmann's proposals as an invitation to finer-grained, broader-minded thinking about the kinds of research questions, methods, and focused training that best serve linguists working in Amazonian speech communities, rather than as a guide to defining an appropriate scope for fieldwork with an Amazonian language.National Foreign Language Resource Cente

Jean E. Jackson: a pioneering ethnographer in the Colombian Amazon

This essay celebrates the work of Jean E. Jackson, a pioneering female ethnographer who devoted most of her fifty-year career to the Indigenous peoples of Colombia. Her research, represented in an extensive set of publications from the early 1970s to the present, engages with themes of identity, stigma, and social inequality, manifested across a range of contexts. Jackson’s ethnographic contributions include her ground-breaking early work on Indigenous Tukanoan society in the Colombian Vaupés, focusing on the practice of linguistic exogamy (obligatory marriage across language groups) among the Bará people. Later, she expanded her focus to address Indigenous experiences in the context of rapid cultural change in Colombia, relating to evolving conceptions of indigeneity and its relationship to the national society, and how these transitions bear on processes and practices associated with identity, multiculturalism, and neoliberalism. A further thread of Jackson’s research, based in the United States, dealt with anthropological perspectives on chronic pain. In this essay, we focus primarily on her pioneering work with Colombian Indigenous peoples, while also considering how this work connects to her other lines of research, and how her explorations of these themes shaped her significant contributions to ethnographic methodology. We also emphasize the relevance of gender as a consistent thread throughout Jackson’s research trajectory—both as a topic of attention in her research and as a pivot point in her own approach as a female ethnographer

A linguística amazônica hoje

O presente artigo apresenta uma síntese das áreas de pesquisa mais ativas da linguística amazônica nos últimos dez anos. Abordam-se temas tais como os classificadores nominais, os sistemas de numeração, o tempo verbal e nominal, a evidencialidade, os diferentes sistemas de alinhamento sintático, problemas ligados à ordem de constituintes, as diversas formas da subordinação, as relações entre gramática, discurso e cultura, e a história e a classificação das línguas amazônicas. O artigo não privilegia nenhuma abordagem teórica em particular, mas procura pôr em relevo as linhas de pesquisa que interagem com disciplinas conexas, tais como a antropologia e a arqueologia, ou que exercem influência sobre a teoria linguística de um modo global. O artigo conclui com uma breve avaliação da situação atual das línguas indígenas faladas na Amazônia e do estado atual da linguística amazônica

Hup

The story Mohõ̀y wäd nɨ̀h pɨnɨ̀g ‘Story of the Deer Spirit’ with introduction and interlinear glossing

Multiculturalismo, gênero e etnografia: trajetória e contribuições fundamentais de Jean Elizabeth Jackson para a antropologia sul-americana

O presente trabalho busca apresentar a trajetória e as principais contribuições de Jean E. Jackson para a antropologia sul-americana no âmbito do dossiê “Femmes pionnières de l’anthropologie sud-américaniste”. Retoma-se o caráter pioneiro de seu trabalho etnográfico com povos indígenas do Uaupés colombiano, e o modo como a perspectiva etnográfica da autora interliga suas outras linhas de pesquisa com identidade, movimentos indígenas e pacientes de um centro de tratamento de dor crônica. Por fim, enfatiza-se a relevância da temática das relações de gênero que estabelece uma linha transversal ao longo da trajetória da pesquisa de Jackson. A temática de gênero constitui-se tanto como tema de atenção em sua pesquisa quanto como um ponto de articulação em sua própria abordagem como etnógrafa.This paper presents the trajectory of Jean E. Jackson’s principal contributions to South American anthropology within the scope of the dossier “Femmes pionnières de l’anthropologie sud-américaniste.” While we focus on her pioneering ethnographic work with the Indigenous peoples of the Colombian Vaupés, we also consider how her ethnographic perspective connects to her other lines of research on identity, indigenous movements and chronic pain patients. Our discussion draws on Jackson’s many publications and on our conversations with her in the context of several interviews. Finally, we emphasize the relevance of gender as a consistent thread throughout Jackson’s research trajectory—both as a topic of attention in her research, and as a pivot point in her own positioning as a female ethnographer.Cet article présente la trajectoire et les principales contributions de Jean E. Jackson à l’anthropologie sud-américaine dans le cadre du dossier « Femmes pionnières de l’anthropologie sud-américaniste ». Il souligne le caractère pionnier de son travail ethnographique chez les peuples indigènes du Vaupés colombien ainsi que la manière dont la perspective ethnographique de l’auteure relie ses autres thèmes de recherche que sont l’identité, les mouvements indigènes et les patients dans un centre de traitement de la douleur chronique. Enfin, la question des relations de genre apparaît comme une ligne transversale tout au long de la trajectoire de recherche de Jackson. Le thème du genre constitue à la fois un objet de recherches et un point d’articulation dans sa propre démarche d’ethnographe

OS ACERVOS E A DOCUMENTAÇÃO LINGUÍSTICA

This article is derived from a conference at the ABRALIN ao vivo, held online, in 2020. The goal is to discuss the benefits and challenges associated with archiving in language documentation considering our accumulated knowledge as scholars who are deeply involved in administering, contributing to, and drawing on language archives, with an emphasis on the indigenous languages of Latin America. We focus in particular on the relevance of language archiving in Brazil, and its significance for scholars, community members, and other stakeholders.Este artigo é oriundo de uma conferência na ABRALIN ao vivo, realizada online, em 2020. O objetivo é discutir os benefícios e desafios associados à documentação e criação de acervos linguísticos considerando nosso conhecimento acumulado como pesquisadores profundamente envolvidos na administração e manutenção de acervos de línguas, com ênfase nas línguas indígenas da América Latina. Focamos na relevância de acervos linguísticos no Brasil e sua importância para a comunidade acadêmica, membros de comunidades indígenas e outras partes interessadas

The paleobiolinguistics of domesticated chili pepper (Capsicum spp.)

Paleobiolinguistics employs the comparative method of historical linguistics to reconstruct the biodiversity known to human groups of the remote, unrecorded past. Comparison of words for biological species from languages of the same language family facilitates reconstruction of the biological vocabulary of the family's ancient proto-language. This study uses paleobiolinguistics to establish where and when chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) developed significance for different prehistoric Native American groups. This entails mapping in both time and geographic space proto-languages for which words for chili pepper reconstruct. Maps show the broad distribution of Capsicum through Mesoamerica and South America mirroring its likely independent domestication in these regions. Proto-language dates indicate that human interest in chili pepper had developed in most of Latin America at least a millennium before a village-farming way of life became widespread. © 2013 Society of Ethnobiology