Contextualizing Yukpa language and myths. The linguistic and ethnological position of an outsider in the Cariban language family and the northern Andean lowlands

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ernst Halbmayer
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 289269884

This project focuses on the Yukpa, a Cariban-speaking people who live at the Colombian-Venezuelan border area on both sides of the Sierra de Perijá. Their language, also called Yukpa, shows significant dialectal variations in the various subgroups. Due to their location, isolated from other Cariban-speakers but close to two other language families, the Yukpa and their language are outsiders, linguistically as well as socio-culturally. The immediate neighboring groups of the Yukpa are Chibchan- and Arawakan-speakers, while all other Cariban-speaking groups are located in great geographical distance. There are no systematic studies that deal with the position of (the) Yukpa, neither linguistically nor socio-culturally. This project aims to expand our knowledge about the structure of the Yukpa and their language, mythology and socio-cosmology by processing (transcription, glossing, and translation) and analyzing Yukpa creation myths. Specifically, the project aims to understand, differentiate, and possibly revise the status of the Yukpa and their language by combining anthropological and linguistic analysis in order to transcend beyond their respective perspectives. For this purpose, the linguistic and ethnological analysis will be executed from three different angles: (1) pertaining to the variation between the various Yukpa subgroups, (2) at the level of the Cariban language family and (3) with respect to the other language groups in the immediate vicinity. The results will fill existing research gaps about (the) Yukpa. The project contributes (1) to the ethno-linguistic documentation and analysis of the creation myths of the Yukpa, taking variation between the individual subgroups into account, (2) to the linguistic analysis of Yukpa as part of the Cariban language family as well as in relation to adjacent languages families and (3) to the ethnological analysis of mythology and cosmology of the Yukpa in the context of the Cariban-speakers and the regional environment.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands, USA
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Willem Adelaar; Dr. Eithne Carlin; Spike Gildea