Publications

An essential part of our work is planning, editing and publishing works designed to promote linguistic and cultural revitalization, which has so far included books in the Nahuatl and the Wymysiöeryś languages. To date, three publications have been released within the monolingual series Totlahtol (“Our speech”): a short story collection, Malintzin itlahtol, authored by Refugio Nava Nava (2013), a volume of Nahuatl poetry, Chalchihuicozcatl, authored by Gustavo Zapoteco Sideño (2014) and a collection of myths and stories, Tototatahhuan inixtlamatiliz, compiled and edited by Eduardo de la Cruz (2015). Each of these books represents a different literary genre, but they are all closely linked to the colonial alphabetic writing tradition in Nahuatl, the role of oral tradition, and orality as a significant component of indigenous literature. They also each represent different variants of contemporary Nahuatl (Tlaxcala, Guerrero/Morelos, Veracruz). And for this reason, their publication required orthographical standardization (according to the rules which were rigorously applied to the whole series and based on modernized and standardized colonial orthography) for each of these variants. The Totlahtol series is therefore an attempt to revive and spread an indigenous writing tradition, based on a unified orthography which will facilitate interdialectal communication, as an important element of the Nahuatl revitalization program. Wymysiöeryś publications are related directly to activities aimed at teaching and preserving this language. So far, two books for children and youth have been published within the Ynzer śprӧh series; Ynzer Boümmüter, authored by Carlo Ritchie (2014) and Wymysiöejer fibl (2014), authored by Justyna Majerska.