The 2016 proclamation of the United Nations General Assembly’s of 2019 as the International Year of the Indigenous Languages has been the framewok in which the International Seminar on the Revitalization of Indigenous Languages in Latin America: Good Experiencies was developed.
Thus, on October 10 and 11, 2018 grass roots indigenous people’s organizations, academicians, researchers and institutions of Abya Yala, who, following their own agendas, have been working in the necessary and important revitalization of the indigenous languages gathered together in the city of Cochabamba (Qulla Suyu, Bolivia).
This important Seminar was organized by the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC) together with the Training Program in Bilingual Intercultural Education for Andean Countries (PROEIB Andes), and the participation of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Vice Ministry of Interculturality of Bolivia and the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI).
Through outstanding presentations from México, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, a balance was initially made on public policies for the linguistic and cultural revitalization in the continent, and thereby the participants expressed their concerns over the necessity and importance of the indigenous languages as repositories of epistemologies, ancestral knowledge systems and of other forms of feeling, thinking and doing in the interrelationships between humans and the mother earth.
After this needed balance, the participants presented their good practices of revitalization of indigenous languages in the following domains: institutional experiences on research and linguistic normalization, experiences on interculturalization of educational systems, experiences of linguistic and identity strengthening by means of ITC information technologies, teacher training and the academic role in cultural and linguistic revitalization processes.
Key words: indigenous languages, interculturality, language revitalization, good practices.
