Typing in Quiché

You asked for it... I (finally) found it: good news from Guatemala!

Guatemalan Linguists Introduce New Software Prototype in Mayan Quiché Language

By Sergio De Leon, Associated Press Writer

Guatemala City (AP) -- Guatemalan linguists have distributed a prototype for a computer program that operates in the Mayan Indian language of Quiché, a project aimed at preserving the ancient language and raising its profile worldwide.

The prototype was developed by language experts at The Academy of Mayan Languages in conjunction with computer students at the state-run San Carlos University, and was distributed this week to about 100 potential users for their feedback, including native speakers, publishing houses, consultants and cultural experts.

The project was inspired by a law, passed last year, that promotes the use and preservation of native Indian languages, Academy president and linguist Modesto Baquiax Barreno said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

The law "challenged us with the important goal of distributing writings in the Mayan languages, and that led us to take advantage of existing technology," Baquiax said.

Academy director Rigoberto Juarez said designers hoped the project would "raise the status of the language to that enjoyed by others in these types of systems on a worldwide level."

"As Quiché speakers ... we want to give our language the same political profile that other languages have."

The program was created with OpenOffice.org software to operate on the Linux system.

The prototype contains menus, instructions, help texts, and grammatical and spell-checking programs in the Quiché language, a feat that took "hard and extensive work," Baquiax said, noting that designers inserted 8,000 Quiché words in the program. About 1.2 million of Guatemala's 14 million inhabitants speak Quiché.

In the future, the academy hopes to design programs in the majority of the other 21 Indian languages spoken in Guatemala.

The designers also will urge computer manufacturers and software designers to take the languages into account when designing their products, including redesigning keyboards to meet the languages' specific needs.

"Some in this country say it is difficult to write (in Quiché) and that it is impossible to learn because it doesn't have a fixed grammatical structure or because the sounds are different and strange," Baquiax said. "Those are discriminatory arguments."

The software is the second recent project in Guatemala aimed at promoting the Central American country's majority Mayan cultures. In December, President Oscar Berger announced the establishment of a university dedicated to rescuing and developing ancient Mayan knowledge.

The Mayans were a complex society known for building massive pyramids and cities. They were advanced astronomers who created a calendar to measure time that rivals those of today, and were accomplished mathematicians who introduced the concept of zero.

The Mayan Empire emerged in about 250 B.C. in and around what is now Guatemala, reached its peak from about A.D. 250-A.D. 900 and ended with the arrival of Spanish conquerors in the 16th century.

--The Academy of Mayan Languages (in English): http://www.iisd.org/50comm/commdb/desc/d37.htm

Posted by elcanche at March 3, 2005 02:21 PM