Amerindian languages represent a mannifold source for linguistic research, from both the strictly structural point of view and their sociohistorical dimension. concerning the former, these languages exhibit diverse systems of structural organization, whose study and analysis can shed light for both descriptive linguistics and language theory; as for the latter, these languages carry a wealth of world views which constitute part and parcel of humankind. There is, however, a third aspect that makes the study of theses languages an unescapable task, namely the latent -and in many cases already materialized, threat of extinction. According to the Foundation for Endangered Languages, more than 50% of the approximately 6,000 living languages will not make it through the second half of the 21st. Century. The Amerindian languages are no exception ot this trend. There are four main language families in Central America, Mayan (Guatemala, Honduras), Misumalpan (Honduras, Nicaragua), Chibchan (Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama), and Choco (Panama). Most of the members of these families are spoken in Lower Central America, and are currently endangered (see Appendix 1.) In the case of the Chibchan languages, for instance, the death of the last native speaker of Boruca in 2003 put an end to this language (cf. Quesada 2001-2); Guatuso has 330 speakers and Rama only 24. Concerning previous studies, only the Mayan languages have received considerable attention by both linguists and institutions; both Misumalpan and Choco languages have received little or no attention. As for the Chibchan languages, there has been a long-term research program at the University of Costa Rica, which studies and describes the languages of Costa Rica and neighboring areas. It has published grammars, dictionaires, partial phonological descriptions of some of these languages, plus a considerable amount of narratives. It also edits the journal Estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. The only study of of Chibchan comparative morphosyntax is Quesada (2007); though this book represents a good starting point, it has to be complemented by other studies either sanctioning or refutting the analyses advanced there.
Whereas the Mayan languages and those of Colombia have been studied in more detailed by on-going research programs such as Proyecto Lingístico Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala) and the Centro Colombiano de Estudio de las Lenguas Aborígenes de Colombia (CCELA), respectively, in Lower Central America there are no programs designed to describe, analyze and revitalize the indigenous languages of the region. It is therefore imperative to start actions aiming at preventing the extinction of these languages, or at least of some of them. A good starting point in that direction consists in the systematic and exhaustive description of these languages. On the basis of these descriptions, it will be possible to initiate actions tending to revitalize these languages. The Program Indigenous Languages of Lower Central America: description, typology and revitalization (henceforth referred to by the Spanish acronym PROLIBCA), has set to systematically articulate projects and activities aiming at describing, analyzing and revitalizing the indigenous languages of Lower Central America. Each of the activities contained in the program's title stands for a stage of the program; thus the first stage is concerned with the description of a sample of languages from Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama (see below); the second stage -which can overlap with the first one, includes more in-depth, typologically and areally-oriented studies of relevant aspects of structure of the languages in the sample; finally, the third stage will start once the languages in the sample have been described to a satisfactory extent, and will include revitalization projects. The latter objective implies the creation of interdisciplinary teams, including language teachers, linguists and anthropologists.
PROLIBCA seeks to articulate descriptive and typological projects from a theoretically and methodologically (and even teleologically) unified perspective. The program has chosen a sample of 9 Lower Central American languages:
Both the description and the analysis, as well as the revitaliozation of these languages will constitute a significant contribution of the National University (UNA, Costa Rica) and participanting institutions, such as the University of Erfurt (Germany) in the urgent task of reducing the risk of language extinction.
Although PROLIBCA originated at the School of Literature and Language Sciences at UNA, it has been conceived since its inception as an international, interinstitutional and interdisciplinary program. Practically since the beginning it has benefitted from the cooperation of the Chair of General and Comparative Linguistics of the University of Erfurt, Germany. The coordinators of the program are thus J. Diego Quesada (jquesad@una.ac.cr) from the Costa Rica side, and Christian Lehmann (Christian.Lehmann☯Uni-Erfurt.De) from the German side. The link between both institutions is the German Service of Academic Exchange (DAAD); thanks to the CONARE-DAAD Agreement, the program foresees the exchange of researchers, professors and doctoral students. Nontheless, PROLIBCA does not rule out the possibility of external funding.
The lack of abundant and reliable descriptions allowing large-scale language-revitalization projects in Lower Central America is the norm in the region. The first step thus consists in carrying out high quality and modern linguistics-oriented language descriptions, on the basis of which further in-depth studies can be conducted. Once this has been done, revitalization tasks can be undertaken. The Chibchan languages appear as the most studied languages in Lower Central America; these descriptions do not suit the goals of PROLIBCA entirely; the need for reference grammars is urgent; a glimpse at the existing literature confirms this: there are only two reference grammars of Chibchan languages, Guatuso (Constenla 1999) and Teribe (Quesada 2000); there are, in addition, sketches of Paya (Holt 1999), Miskitu (CIDCA 1985, Salamanca 1988), and Rama (CIDCA-Craig 1990), and a somewhat outdated description of Cuna (Holmer 1947). The remaining languages have been described rather superficially, mainly in their phonology. In other words, the languages of Lower Central America are still unknown territory as far as the production of modern reference grammars is concerned.