The project The documentation of the Baure language of Bolivian Amazonia is financed by the funding program DoBeS (Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen - Documentation of endangered languages) of the Volkswagen foundation. The aim is a complex documentation of the seriously endangered South Arawakan language with the name Baure, spoken in the Bolivian department Beni, which belongs to the Amazonian fringe of Bolivia, close to the border with Brazil.
In this study we record and analyze all dialects of the Baure language, including Carmelito and Joaquiniano. In addition, the ethnologist describes the characteristics of the Baure ethnic identity. The language has to be captured exactly now, as its accelerated progress of decay can presumably not be stopped any more. This documentation is of great value and tremendous interest for Arawakan language studies, South American and in particular, Amazonian and Bolivian linguistics, and Typology in general. Up to the present time there is a gap in the documentation of South Arawak languages, and in particular Bolivian Arawakan languages.
All languages of this language family in Bolivia are either moribund or (seriously) endangered and will have disappeared in the coming decades. Baure is seriously endangered for the language has not been transferred to younger generations for the last decades and it is not used as a general means of communication any longer, having been replaced by Spanish. The attitude of the Baure populations towards the Baure language is quite negative, even though a tendency of a positive change can be noted in the last 10 years as a result of growing indigenous awareness and political activity in Bolivia.
Baure is closely related to the Moxo languages or dialects Trinitario and Ignaciano, which have also not been documented until today. The Baure language has been described to some part as a result of the PhD project of Danielsen (2007), only focussing on one dialect of the language which is spoken in the town Baures. Due to the lack of time the other dialects Carmelito (El Carmen) and Joaquiniano (San Joaquín) were excluded. The Baure language shows some interesting typological features, such as classifiers, a high number of place adverbs or demonstratives, and specific interrogative and subordinate constructions, which represent the complex characteristics of an Arawakan language. The project includes not only available data on other Arawakan languages, but it also analyzes historical sources on Baure and its dialects.
The project is designed as a collaboration of the fields of Linguistics and Ethnology and is hosted at the University of Leipzig. Prof. Balthasar Bickel (Linguistics) and PD Andreas Brockmann (Ethnology) function as the official heads of the project and take the role of the supervisors of the involved PhD students of their fields. The Postdoc position is held by Swintha Danielsen, who has completed her Dissertation with the title Baure: An Arawak language of Bolivia in 2007. She supervises the research team and the documentation in the field, studies the specific phonology of the Baure dialects, and further explores specific aspects of Baure grammar. The linguistics PhD student Femmy Admiraal investigates the expression of space in Baure. The ethnology PhD student Franziska Riedel is aiming at en ethnography of the Baure people. The student assistant Lena Terhart is writing her Master thesis on the classification system of Baure on the basis of recently collected field data. The local students are trained to work with the computer in order to transcribe data in Elan and Toolbox. They are trained in the use of the local computer and camera, and they have their own recording device for the collection of data.
The project is very important for the Baure people in many respects: Their culture finally gets some more attention and acknowledged as it never was, speakers of the language improve their status within the society, and the language is foregrounded and made accessible for the younger generations. The project participants held classes for beginners in Baures in the time from October 2008 till February 2009. The training within the project can lead to a revitalisation or teaching program of the language in schools for the future; the collected data will be published partly in booklets and posters for the language communities; and an online dictionary with approximately 3,000 entries and a vocabulary list of flora and fauna terminology will preserve the lexical knowledge.