We are very excited to announce that OSU Spanish & Portuguese Alumnus Micah Unzueta is joining our kawsay waqaychaqkuna as a Research Consultant through June. After graduating from OSU, Unzueta earned a Fulbright Fellowship to teach English in Tumbes and Madre de Dios, Peru. Unzueta brings a unique set of skills and perspective to the project including a high level of proficiency in the Quechua language, experience with Kawsay Ukhunchay’s research and pedagogical methods, a focus on alternative approaches to both teaching and research, and a talent for collaborative interdisciplinary work.
Among other projects, Unzueta will work to develop a full-scale Muyuchina (Quechua Verb Wheel)—an interactive language tool for both Quechua learners and non-Quechua speakers to explore Quechua morphology. For example, Quechua is an agglutinative language which means a speaker can alter a given root verb by using suffixes that provide additional information. Unzueta’s wheel demonstrates this interesting linguistic pattern by allowing users to turn the wheel to add or subtract suffixes thereby changing the root verb’s meaning.
To learn more about the Muyuchina Quechua Verb wheel, click here, and stay tuned for project updates. Welcome back, Micah!