Emiliana Cruz facts for kids

Emiliana Cruz was born in Cieneguilla, a small community in Oaxaca, Mexico, on June 30, 1971. She is a modern expert who studies language and culture. She earned her highest degree in this field from the University of Texas at Austin. Today, she teaches at CIESAS-CDMX, a research center in Mexico City. Emiliana also helped start the Chatino Language Documentation Project. This project works to record and save the Chatino language.

Emiliana Cruz's Journey

Emiliana Cruz grew up in Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, a native community in Oaxaca, Mexico. She speaks Eastern Chatino, which is one of three Chatino languages. Her father was a respected leader in their community.

Emiliana's studies mainly focus on Oaxaca and the Chatino language. She learned a lot about how languages are built, including their sounds and word structures. She is especially interested in languages that use different tones to change word meanings.

Her work combines many different subjects. These include how language, culture, native studies, and geography are all connected. Emiliana believes it is very important to work with local communities. She wants to connect what scholars learn with what communities need. This helps to record and protect native languages and their traditions.

She is dedicated to including native communities in her research. For example, she trains people who speak native languages. She teaches them how to read and write in their own languages. She also shows them how to teach these languages to others.

Learning About Language Tones

Emiliana Cruz has organized special workshops to teach about language tones. In 2012, the first of these workshops took place. Each workshop lasted for ten days. Nine language experts from Mexico and the US taught these sessions. Emiliana Cruz was one of the teachers.

These workshops helped speakers of Oto-Manguean languages learn about tones. Tones are like musical notes that change the meaning of words. About fifty students attended each workshop. They came from major Otomanguean groups. These included Zapotecs, Mazatecs, Mixtecs, Triquis, and Chatinos.

In the mornings, students learned about how tones work in languages. They also learned ways to find and study tones. The afternoons were for hands-on practice. Students worked in smaller groups based on their language. The Chatino students came from seven different Eastern Chatino language groups. Many of the students were young people. Most of them worked as literacy trainers in a government program.

These were the first workshops ever held on tones for Otomanguean language speakers. Many students have continued to study their native languages. Some are even creating teaching materials for local schools.

Creating Teaching Materials

Emiliana Cruz also organized a three-year workshop series. This series was for people who speak native Mexican languages. It started in the summer of 2015 in Oaxaca City. The main topic was how to write grammars for teaching.

Professor Luiz Amaral taught this workshop. He is an expert in how languages are used and taught. Creating teaching grammars is a key step for studying any language. This workshop series helps connect language studies, native studies, and cultural studies. The goal is to create useful language and cultural information. This information helps communities understand their own language structure. It also supports every speaker's right to learn about their language.

Language, Land, and Culture

Through her study of the Chatino language, Emiliana Cruz also explores how Chatino-speaking communities live. Her current work focuses on native peoples' land rights. She also looks at how language and the land are connected. This work helps to record and keep endangered languages alive.

Her project studies the link between the language and the physical land in San Juan Quiahije. This project also explores how native people talk about the land. It tells how older Eastern Chatino speakers share special words and knowledge with their communities. This is important because modern influences can make these unique ways of speaking disappear.

Her research also looks at how people think about and use language. This helps to understand bigger topics. For example, she studies how government actions, local projects, and global changes affect how Chatinos describe their land.

See also

In Spanish: Emiliana Cruz para niños