Tuesday, January 17, 2012

preliminary thoughts

I've been putting off my first post here because I haven't felt like I had the time to finish gathering my thoughts; but I'll just try to keep it concise instead of waiting for the perfect thing to write.

The purpose of this blog will be to serve as a place for me to develop my research plans for this summer. I plan to return to Ecuador, where I studied Amazonian Quichua last summer along the Napo river near Tena. This time I plan to stay in Puyo and perhaps travel elsewhere along the Pastaza river to gather more information about ideophones in the same dialect that my professor Janis Nuckolls has worked with for many years.

I am already familiar with the culture and the language in this area, but I still have a lot to figure out before leaving, so I'm looking forward to the motivation and support of my Field Studies class to help me prepare.

By the way- I may change the title of this blog, but I've called it "runa shimira maskani" for the moment in an attempt to say "I'm [re]searching Quichua," which is called Runa Shimi by its speakers. Quichua is an indigenous language in the Quechua family, which is the largest group of indigenous languages currently spoken in Latin America. Wikipedia provides a little more information on Nothern Quechua/Quichua/Quechua II here.

More about my project and the first few days of class readings to come soon! In the meantime, here's a picture of me doing research and drinking chicha (more on that later) in the field:

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