Andean Aymara

Greetings from Tacna. I just thought I’d take this opportunity to make a quick update about plans here in Peru. About three days ago I left Muylaque for Moquegua. Yesterday I arrived in Tacna to do a quick visa run into Chile, and spent the night here. Today returning to Moquegua before heading off to Ichuña ( roughly 3756m = 12322ft above sea level). Although Ichuña is a Quechua-speaking, there are some Aymara speakers from Puno there attending a technical school. Since I am friends with them, and as they are familiar with the project and even know some linguistics, they are ideal contacts. I will conduct some interviews for a comparative part of work, together with Edwin Banegas Flores, my chief linguistic consultant. After about a week or so there, we will return to Muylaque via Moquegua for the final stage in this fieldwork trip which will be dedicated primarily to getting data for phonological analysis.

The work continues very productively, and we’ve gathered a lot of interesting data — though I’m hesitant to go into much detail here until I’ve had a chance to finish this ms. It’s pretty exciting though.

Incidentally, I saw on LinguistList today that the University of North Texas is looking for a specialist in Native American linguistics.

Update: The bus to Ichuña from Moquegua was full, so instead, rather than wait a week, tomorrow going to make the same trip via Arequipa. Will have to spend the night there to get the 7:30 combi the next day.