Tepehua de Huehuetla

About

This language is known as Lhima'alh'ama' by the community who speaks it. This Living Dictionary contains audio recordings by speakers María Catalina Plata Máximino and Antonio Garcia Agustín (Maestro Toño). The dictionary was compiled and edited by Antonio Garcia Agustín and Rita M. Palacios with help from Nicolas Pedroza. They received technical assistance from Anna Luisa Daigneault and Diego Córdova Nieto at Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. ABOUT The Lhima'alh'ama' Project is an initiative that set out to create a Living Dictionary for Lhi’ma’alh’ama', also known as Huehuetla Tepehua, the language of the Ma’alh’aman (united people) of Huehuetla, Hidalgo. Lhima’alh’ama' is spoken by approximately 1600 people today, the majority of whom are over the age of forty, making it a “definitely endangered language”, according to UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2010). The Lhima'alh'ama' Project is a collaborative transnational project, featuring a Living Dictionary (Lhima'alh'ama', Spanish, and English) of medicinal plants with audio files, photos, and materials. The project aims to document and revitalize an endangered language using digital technologies. Digital technologies make an impact in our day to day living and, in the right hands, these technologies are powerful tools to document, revitalize, and promote languages that are minoritized due to a host of reasons and circumstances. Moreover, individuals and communities can overturn linguistic conventions, stewarding the protection of their own traditional knowledge on their own terms. In the case of Lhima’alh’ama’, the language of the Ma’alh’aman of Hidalgo, Mexico, this has meant creating a place ta lhitajukan chibinti la’ajunta “where living words are found.” For this project, we catalogued more than fifty plants names, including images taken in and around Huehuetla, and audio files with the voices of speakers of the language. If you're interested in learning more about the…