Rising Voices deemed the Mayenzi digital language exhibition held in San Cristóbal de las Casas a success. Because it represents a meeting space for a wide network of digital activists who, under the principles of solidarity, cooperation and mutual listening, advance their work to promote, preserve and revive the Mayan languages.
The organization, which seeks to help new voices from communities speaking Indian or endangered languages to join a global conversation, carried out this activity on January 20 at “La Enseñanza”, with the aim of highlighting the important work of Mayan language speakers who are using tools such as the Internet or… technology or digital media to preserve, revitalize and enhance their languages.
The exhibition included demonstrations of the tools they use and the design of the stands; They exchanged materials, thus establishing a closer dialogue with people interested in their work. The event was held within the framework of the Mayansi Languages Digital Activity Summit 2024.
The exhibition invited projects from Chiapas, the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala and Belize. Participants nominated their projects through an open call organized by Rising Voices, and were able to collect a total of 36 platforms, 16 presentations and 27 selected talks.
In the pavilion area, participants shared materials conceived within the framework of their projects, as well as multimedia content, photographs and impressions of their works.
This space encouraged the exchange of ideas between projects and allowed attendees to closely immerse themselves in some of the actions undertaken to defend Maya languages. Among the participating projects are the digital magazine in Bats'il k'op, the revitalization of úuchben ts'íib and the Mayan language through linguistic landscapes, Uts'aty mi la'tyilel la lak ñop lakty'añ ch'ol – Let's learn lakty'añ, Learn maaya t'aan by playing, Mayan Comic “Beleje Ajmaq”.
At the same time, training spaces were promoted that allowed the acquisition of basic knowledge on some important tools for engaging in digital activism in defense of indigenous languages.
The demos covered various fields, such as stop-motion animation, digital illustration, artificial intelligence (AI), community journalism, free software, and editing Wikipedia articles. Among the participating projects, initiatives such as Proyecto Mantequilla, Boca de Polen, the Communications Network, the Wikipedia in Indigenous Languages Initiative, and others emerged.
The third project presentation format was through flash talks where brief 20-minute presentations were given to briefly share digital language activity stories and projects with a wider audience. In the conversations, the participation of Pedro Alonso Dzidz Tuz emerged through the presentation of the U péekbal waye project, María Leticia May Uc with Radio Tuklik or the presentation of Aricel López Intzin from Hablemos Bats'ik'op, Chiapas.
At the conclusion of this important activity, Slajebbal / Ultimmátum Rock participated in Tsotsil, who seek to introduce the importance of languages through music.
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