August 9th is International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. It was first celebrated in 1994 and its purpose is to raise awareness and protect Indigenous rights. ___🎙️___ This year the theme is “Honouring Indigenous Midwives: Safeguarding Life and Well-being”. There is an online conference happening Aug 10th on this topic and includes 8 interesting speakers from around our world. It looks like registration is still open if you’re interested: International Day of the Wo

Guatemala is a well-known home for nearly two dozen Mayan languages, but the Xincan (Xinkan) languages also live here as part of the Mesoamerican languages. There are at least four Xincan languages - with no demonstrated affiliations to other language families! They are considered sleeping languages, but with a growing number of semi-speakers. A 2002 census showed 1,283 people reporting as being Xinka speakers, although as semi-speakers with limited vocabulary. ---🎥--- Watch

Enjoy some metal music from the group Awkan! Awkan is a band founded in 2005. The members are part of the Indigenous Mapuche people of Wallmapu, the lands that today are also known as southern Argentina and Chile. Awkan provides a great example of the movement to incorporate traditional musical instruments and language into genres of music today such as hip hop and heavy metal. You can find a full length album with the link. There are 12 songs and most of them feature the Ma

This week’s learning isn’t from a song, but a way to hear the Kusunda language by listening to sisters separated in life but connected by language comment in their own language on the first ever video of the Kusunda people, what a twist! Kusunda or Kusanda is a language spoken by the Kusunda people in western and central Nepal. There are a few hundred people, perhaps 23 native speakers, and one fluent native speaker; Kamala Sen-Khatri. Kamala is in her 50s and is the younger