Daily life of the Tektiteko (Guatemala)

Tektiteko figures among the most threatened languages of Guatemala, as well as the country’s smallest Mayan community, with only 2077 speakers censused in 2002. The Tektiteko are mainly settled in the municipio of Tectitan, Huehuetenango Department, though their language is also spoken in Chiapas, Mexico, by around a thousand people.

Tektiteko belongs to the Mam branch of the Mayan language family and is affected by a wide influence of Spanish, as one may hear on these videos.

Watch all videos in Tektiteko

Read description sheet on Tektiteko

NB: Should one of our users happen to speak Tektiteko, we would be more than happy to hear from you at contact@sorosoro.org, as we still have a significant amount of rushes in this language which have yet to be edited and published, in absence of translators…

The culture of corn

A villager from Tectitan tells us about the culture of corn, the right time to sow, the harvest, the celebration that follows, and the contemporary changes undergone by local methods of cultivation, especially regarding the use of fertilizers and herbicides.

Pottery

In the following video, we turn it over to a Tektiteko potter from Guatemala describing the whole production process from clay to sale! Also a way to discover the simple yet harsh lifestyle of the inhabitants of Tectitan in the light of beautiful footage by José Reynes.

Linguist: Juventino de Jesus Pérez Alonzo
Image & sound: José Reynè
Editing: Caroline Laurent

Daily life of the Xârâcùù speaking Kanak (New Caledonia)

Xârâcùù is one of the 28 Kanak languages of New Caledonia, a group belonging to the Austronesian language family. Xârâcùù is one of the languages spoken in the Xârâcùù area, alongside Xârâgurè, Haméa, and Tîrî. It is the most widely spoken of these four languages, with 5,729 speakers over 14 years old accounted for in the 2009 census. One third of them live essentially around Nouméa, while the other two thirds have remained in their traditional area, on the eastern coast of Grande Terre, and mainly in the Canala and Thio municipalities. Xârâcùù is also the fourth most widely spoken Kanak language in New Caledonia, following Drehu, Nengone, and Paicî – it is also one of the best maintained: spoken in every municipality of the Xârâcùù language area, it reaches over 90% of the population in Canala.

See all videos in Xârâcùù

Read description sheet on Xârâcùù

Building huts on Xârâcùù territory

The following video is not about the language’s status, transmission, and teaching …  but rather about building a hut! Step by step, Adam Jorédié and “Tonton Blanc” tell a group of youngsters how to build one of those beautiful traditional huts meant as homes to all the important discussion ruling life in the communities: looking for wood (not just any wood), putting up the posts, covering the roof and sides with niaouli bark and straw, adding a spire and its conch shells, and of course the carved door jambs marking off the entry…

Linguist: Claire Moyse-Faurie (LACITO/CNRS)
Image & sound: José Reynes, assisted by Karl Jorédié
Translation: Annick Kasovimoin (Académie des Langues Kanak – ALK)
Editing: Caroline Laurent

Visit the Académie des Langues Kanak website (in French).