The Project

Ticha is an online, digital explorer for a corpus of Colonial Zapotec texts. (The name ticha — pronounced [ˈti.tʃə] — comes from the Colonial Valley Zapotec word for 'word', which can also mean 'language' and 'text'.) Zapotec languages are indigenous to Mexico. There is a large corpus of alphabetic texts written in Zapotec languages, the earliest dated to 1565 (Oudijk 2008:230). Reading and interpreting these colonial documents can be extremely difficult because of the challenges of early Zapotec orthography, vocabulary, grammar, and printing conventions, yet the documents contain rich linguistic, historical, and anthropological information.

Ticha allows users to access and explore many interlinked layers of these texts, including images of the original documents, transcriptions, translations into English and modern Spanish, linguistic analysis (including morphological interlinearization), and commentary. Ticha is innovative in bringing together data analyzed in FLEx (Fieldworks Language Explorer) a system for lexical and grammatical analysis, with current TEI standards (Text Encoding Initiative) for paleographic and translational representations of texts. Ticha seeks to make this corpus of Colonial Zapotec texts accessible to scholars in diverse fields (including linguistics, anthropology, and history), Zapotec community members, and the general public.


Videos

Professor Brook Lillehaugen on the Ticha Project

Carolyn Anderson on the Ticha Project

Janet Chávez Santiagoon the Educational Value of Ticha

May Plumb on the Ticha Project

Michel R. Oudijk on the Ticha Project

George Aaron Broadwell on the Ticha Project


Presentations

CPGC 2020, Speaking, Writing, and Resisting: Celebrating Zapotec Language Activism

LASA 2021, Recovering Words, Reclaiming Knowledge, and Building Community: Ticha Conversatorios

2020, The Ticha Project: Digital Humanities and Infrastructural Interventions

ICLDC 2021, Caseidyneën Saën: The collaborative creation of open educational materials… - Broadwell et al.


Publications

Broadwell, George Aaron; García Guzmán, Moisés; Lillehaugen, Brooke Danielle; Lopez, Felipe H.; Plumb, May Helena; & Zarafonetis, Mike. 2020. Ticha: Collaboration with Indigenous communities to build digital resources on Zapotec language and history. Digital Humanities Quarterly 14 (4).