Revitalize Shipibo Language through Radio Program

Axenon Ikanwe, the Shipibo-Konibo radio program aimed at keeping the language fresh, relevant, and widely spoken while celebrating their culture continues to be a hit and has the highest listener ratings of all Shipibo-Konibo programs. The past few months have been highlighted by two language awareness workshops with Shipibo-Konibo from urban communities and a special poetry competition.

Inspired by the Shipibo-Konibo cosmovision, poetry about the Water World –the first of four worlds– was solicited by the producers Percy and Ketty to be part of a collaborative art instillation in Los Angeles, California, with artist Mike Saijo. The poetry provided an opportunity for adults and youth to practice their creativity with the spoken word, and also provided our linguistics team with written examples of the language. Over thirty entries were received and they will be collaboratively published later this year. Subsequent poetry competitions will follow with the other three worlds of the Shipibo-Konibo cosmovision. 

The language awareness workshops were equally inspiring. The first workshop in April focused on:

• The history and evolution of the Shipibo-Konibo language…
• A technique called Semaforización (Traffic Lighting) to define environments where Shipibo-Konibo is spoken regularly, occasionally, or not at all.
• Detailing the Peruvian laws that explicitly address the rights and development of ‘Original Languages’ in Peru.
• Finally, we examined what those laws meant to the group in relation to their language.

The results of the workshop where encouraging and it helped us to gather energy and allies for further language revitalization work. While a success, the workshop was attended by nearly all males, so the following workshop in May was designed and directed for a nearly all female audience. Those results clearly showed that Shipibo-Konibo youth are using the language less and less, even within their homes.

A real urgency to act was voiced by each of the workshop groups, and the women have taken action and called for a follow-up workshop that will take place July 13-14. Participants of the workshops have since taken part in live interviews on Axenon Ikanwe. The recently elected ‘Miss Indigena’, Eva Melendez Rengifo, has also been part of the program promoting the practice and use of traditional culture and language.

As we move forward with Axenon Ikanon and our language revitalization work it will be important to connect with indigenous language allies to gather our resources and achieve our goals. We thank the many who have supported us here and beyond the Global Giving platform. We also hope to continue this import work with all of your continued support!