Bolivia: New Mobile App Offers 5 Indigenous Languages

The Minister of Culture-sanctioned Languages of Bolivia mobile application, which features Aymara, Guarani, Mojeño Trinitario, Quechua and Uru Indigenous languages, is now available in the Google Play Store.

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"We have worked with the Organization of Ibero-American States with a good result that is very well suited to the new generations and to the use of technologies, but fundamentally for the defense of our cultures, of our Indigenous peoples, in this case of languages," Minister of Culture and Tourism, Wilma Alanoca, state about the application which offers both individual and collaborative learning options.

"The contents are framed in all orthographic, grammatical and syntactic norms issued by the Plurinational State of Bolivia," a statement from the ministry detailed.

The app was developed by the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture (OEI) within the framework of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages and aims to teach using sessions of learning, practice and competitions.

"This application teaches the person to learn the necessary dialogues and enough to communicate with people," a representative of the Bolivian OEI, Cesar Cordoba, explained, adding that the app is currently only available for Android devices.

Alanoca disclosed that the project has been in motion for to years and its purpose is to "strengthen the use of Indigenous languages."

The application is also available on idiomas.oei.bo.

"In the near future, speech recognition technology will be incorporated to work on the competence of oral expression," the OEI announced through a press release.

Each of the featured languages offers various levels of linguistic skills such as listening, reading and writing.

The five languages are spoken in different regions of Bolivia: Aymara in the western Andean zone, Quechua in the central valleys, Mojeño Trinitario​​​​​​​ in the Amazon, Guarani in the southeast and Uru in the highlands.

Bolivia’s first elected Indigenous President Evo Morales is Aymara, which is one of the country’s 36 Indigenous peoples whose languages are constitutionally recognized.

“The loss of a language means the loss of a worldview; a decline and belittling of human intelligence,” Morales remarked at the U.N. General Assembly for the opening ceremony of the International Year of Indigenous Languages early February.

“Is part of dearest treasures our ancestors left us."

Some 370 million Indigenous peoples represent 5,000 cultures in 90 countries around the world but only 7,000 languages are still spoken, according to a recent U.N. report.