Arawak Video

The video pursues the last remaining speakers of the Lokono language,
otherwise known as Arawak, in Guyana. I does so on the Essequibo Coast
in the area of Mainstay/Tapakuma and Wakapoa on the Pomeroon River. Of
the 20,000 ethnic Arawaks in Guyana, only a diminishing number of people
over 60 years of age can speak the language. This is a dying language.
The video seeks to alert us to this tragedy of the 'Silencing of the
Tongues' through interviews with some of the last speakers of the
language and hearing the language spoken. The interviews were conducted
by Ian Robertson, Hubert Devonish & Daidrah Smith

UNESCO LogoJamaican Language Unit