1. 3RD INTERNATIONALCONFERENCEON LINGUISTICAND CULTURAL
DIVERSITY IN CYBERSPACE
28 June - 3 July, 2014,Yakutsk, Russia

2.  The “conquest” of Latin
America meant the
dramatic reduction or
disappearance of its
indigenous peoples, their
languages and cultures
 War, genocide, slavery, and
disease, reduced, absorbed
or eliminated the native
population in most of the
Region

3.  Scarce research about
LA indigenous languages
in cyberspace reveals a
vacancy area which
needs development, as
well as attention and
technical support from
UNESCO and other
international
organizations.

4.  Aymara: spoken in Bolivia, Argentina,Chile,
and Peru (Speakers total population in all
countries: 2,589,000).
 Guaraní: Spoken in Paraguay and parts of
northeastern Argentina,
southeastern Bolivia and southwestern Brazil;
it is a second official language of
the Argentine province of Corrientes; it is also
an official language of Mercosur

5.  Quechua is a spoken primarily in
Perú, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Chile, and Argentina
 It is the most widely spoken
language family of the indigenous.
Total speakers: 8.9 million
 The Mayan languages form
a language family spoken
primarily in Guatemala, México,
Belize, and Honduras.
 Spoken by at least 6
million indigenous Maya.

6.  In Paraguay, 48% of its population is bilingual
in Guaraní and Spanish (both official languages of the
Republic)
 Bolivia is officially multilingual, supporting Spanish
and 36 native languages
 Ecuador defines Spanish as its official language.
Spanish, Quechua and Shuar are considered as
official languages of intercultural relations

7.  Peru's official languages are Spanish and, in the zones
where they are predominant, Quechua, Aymara, and
other aboriginal languages.
 In Mexico, the government recognizes 62 indigenous
languages.There is no official language at the federal
level, although Spanish is the de facto state language.
 In Guatemala, 23 indigenous languages are co-official
with Spanish.

9.  Public policies on intercultural bilingual
education date from the late 1960s
 Since the 1970s the indigenous peoples
started to claim the recognition of their
cultural patrimony
 They expressed the need to receive an
education which included the contact
between the multiple languages and cultures
in the LA territory

10.  UNESCO Meeting in 1983 it was decided to
replace the concept of biculturalism by
interculturalism
 Cultures were conceived as diachronic processes
that develop and change with time and history,
instead of synchronic entities which stay
immutable through historic changes
 Based on that conceptual change, Latin
American countries started to implement
bilingual intercultural education policies

11.  Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Ecuador, Guatemala, México, Perú, among
other countries, have implemented
multilingual education
 Different degrees of implementation
 Diverse results

12.  LA countries are integrating educational efforts
with ICT in order to reach the overall population,
including small and remote communities
 One Laptop Per Child Programs
 Specific training of indigenous and non-
indigenous teachers
 Production of multilingual educational contents
 Systematization of information about the
educational situation of indigenous peoples,
educational research, and grants for indigenous
students.

14.  RELPE offers an open access search engine for contents
within Education Portals of LAC
 The initiative began in 2001 within the framework of
bilateral cooperation agreements
 Education Portals are full members designated as such
by the respective Ministry of Education in each country
 The Executive Secretariat of RELPE is currently the
responsibility of Argentina
 RELPE gathers and makes accessible multicultural and
multilingual contents, resources, and dictionaries to be
used both in in-person classrooms as well as in virtual
education
 http://www.relpe.org/

15.  The existence of public policies for intercultural and
multilingual education in cyberspace in LA countries
does not necessarily have a direct relation with the
number of indigenous peoples and languages in the
countries
 While countries such as Argentina, where the
indigenous population amounts to less than 3% are
developing effective public policies with the
participation of indigenous peoples, in other countries
with a considerable proportion of indigenous
population policies and actions do not come primarily
from the National State, but from indigenous
organizations.

16.  The efforts for multilingual education in
cyberspace cannot come only from State
policies
 It is desirable to promote bottom-up
initiatives from indigenous communities
 The goal: facilitating a constructive dialogue
between governments and civil society,
particularly the representative organizations
of the diverse ethnic and cultural groups

17.  Indigenous social movements have obtained some
successes, achieving the recognition of indigenous rights
by the National states
 However, in many cases, the new national and
international legislations regarding indigenous rights and
languages do not go further than well intentioned
declarations
 One of the problems in LA is not the lack of good
legislations regarding multilingual rights, but the lack or
insufficiency of policies´ implementation, as a
consequence of deep-rooted discriminatory practices
 Overcoming these limitations would require more
participative and democratic consultation policies with the
indigenous peoples

18.  Multilingual education in cyberspace is acquiring an
increasing importance due to the programs of digital
education and literacy, as the OLPC plans
 More and more these plans are including contents
about indigenous languages and cultures
 However, this tendency is recent.The impacts on the
educational community have not been studied in
depth yet

19.  When planning multicultural and multilingual
education in cyberspace it is necessary to consider BIE
not only for rural areas, but also for urban and urban
marginalized areas
 BIE in urban marginalized areas is the new challenge
in LA cities.
 Intercultural and multilingual diversity should not be
limited to primary education
 In LA countries young indigenous students are
accessing higher education
 New indigenous and intercultural universities are
being created
 BIE should not only be “for all”, but also “for lifelong
education and training”.

20.  Supporting the digitization and preservation of
content with anthropological or historical value
 Small communities are holders of valuable
cultural treasures that will be lost unless
documented
 Mobile technologies should be considered for
multilingual use and education in cyberspace
 Implementing an Observatory of Latin
American linguistic and cultural diversity, with
the direct participation of indigenous
communities.

21.  Recent initiatives, such as creating indigenous
universities (i.e. the Intercultural Indigenous
University (UII) in México, the Autonomous
Intercultural Indigenous University, or the
Universidad Autónoma Indígena Intercultural (UAII)
in Colombia are enterprises which should be
strongly supported to promote new articulations
among indigenous peoples and the Academia
 Provide online counseling to indigenous teachers
and professors in conflictive situations with the
national and regional educational systems

22.  Supporting the organizations of indigenous educators in
cultural and educational activities (training of
indigenous educators, congresses, virtual forums, etc.).
 Using the Internet to gather updated information about
schools of indigenous modality, number of indigenous
and non-indigenous educators and students, etc.
 Strengthening regional educational portals such as
RELPE to disseminate multilingual and multicultural
educational contents.

23.  Encouraging the creation and processing of and
access to educational, cultural and scientific
content in digital form in schools
 Ensure that all cultures can express themselves
and have access to the Internet in all languages,
including indigenous ones
 School teachers, computer technicians and
librarians can be trained to become digitizing
experts

24.  Promoting multilingualism in the Internet so that
everyone can have access to the content in their own
language
 Means: electronic translators, dictionaries and language
tools for indigenous languages, translation of useful
software tools, multilingual contents in government
sites, tax incentives and subsidies for the development of
content and software tools in local languages, among
other possible actions
 Promoting and supporting plurinational education
portals, such as RELPE, in order to provide access search
engines for multicultural and multilingual contents within
Education Portals of Latin America and the Caribbean.