23 interviews and counting

After these later interviews a new pattern is starting to take shape and some of the other information that I got earlier is making even more sense now. As a preliminary observation I would say that the population of speakers is not as homogenous as I thought earlier and there seems to exist a correlation between socio-economical factors and degree of language syncretism, i.e. the influence of Spanish - basically the way you speak Tol as well as Spanish tells a lot about how much power you have, both in terms of pure economics but indeed to a large extent prestige. These are preliminary observations which, if valid for the population at large, have implications for the future of this language only some of which may be possible to predict.
The grand total of interviews is going to be 30, the final 7 of which will be with speakers from outside of San Juan, the main community.

Starting up

It has been a little over two weeks since I got the Tol documentation project up and running out here in San Juan and, as so often happens during any kind of project in the field, a number of adjustments have been necessary, but the overall plan remains the same and things are running as scheduled, somewhat to my surprise.


The first thing that struck me upon arriving in the mountainous valley where the rivers and streams cut through the landscape and pine tress stand majestically covering every slope and hilltop is how peaceful and pretty this little pocket of Honduran forest really is. Also, I much appreciate the relatively low temperatures (22-27) offered by the highland climate even though lately it has also given us plenty or rain!

I am going to divide things up into themes as shown by the tabs in the top menu – this will hopefully give you access to just the kind of information you are interested in.

There is a theme called “Landing on The Moon” which talks about my experience of culture shock which has been quite forceful in spite of my ample experience living in these parts of the world and in Honduras in particular.

Another theme called “The Language Survey” tells about what discoveries I have made so far and which preliminary analyses seem to present themselves. It also talks about what difficulties I have run into and what unexpected situations have emerged.

A theme entitled “Recording” treats the issues I have come across when attempting to achieve the best possible audio and video quality while minimizing the intruding effects of the presence of recording equipment and not least my own presence.

This will be all for now, but more is to come...