Promoting literary production in the indigenous languages of the Americas
Le Petit Prince parle amérindien
One of the projects of the Linguistics Department
of the University of Bremen is the promotion of literary production in the lesser-used
languages of the world.
An example of these activities is the forthcoming publication of the Yucatec Mayan
translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic text “Le Petit Prince” (which
currently boasts of some 175 translations world-wide). Elisabeth Verhoeven, Christel
Stolz, Thomas Stolz, the translator Amede Collí Collí, José Antonion Flores Farfán, Linguapax and the publisher Tintenfass in Germany have worked on this together in the hope to trigger off similar projects
for other indigenous languages of the Americas. Currently, there are several Quechua
translations, a Guaraní and a Toba version. To our mind, having a renowned piece
of world literature handy in one’s own language may have a positive effect on the
attitudes of native speakers to their ethnic language – and convince them of the
feasibility of (original) literature in their language.
We would like to see the Little Prince translated into many autochthonous languages of the
Americas.
Chan Ajau - Book Cover