Nhengatu: A Timely Lesson in Language Preservation

Showing off the Aikuma smartphone app for recording and translating spoken language The village of Terra Preta is a short boat ride up the Rio Negro from Manaus (satellite picture). I went there last Sunday, hoping to give the Nhengatu people a short lesson in language preservation, and wondering if I could interest them in doing some recording work using our mobile phone app.

After leaving Manaus, we tracked along the northern bank of the river, about 50m out, dense rainforest on our right an...