It’s general knowledge that the primary language in Bolivia, as with most countries in South America, is Spanish. But did you know that only around 75% of the Bolivian population speaks Spanish? A whopping 43% of Bolivians speak an indigenous language as their mother tongue, with the Bolivian constitution recognizing 36 languages, including some extinct languages, as official. More than 10% of Bolivians only speak an indigenous language. Today, we’re looking at the Moxo languages, two relatively prominent indigenous languages of Bolivia.
Collectively boasting a native speaker count of over 10,000, the Moxo languages, also known as Mojo, comprise two related but highly distinct languages spoken in northeastern Bolivia. Despite only being spoken by roughly half of all ethnic Moxo people, it maintains a relatively strong footing in the community and is generally used in town meetings. Moxo classes are also compulsory for younger grades within the speaker community. But like most other indigenous languages in Bolivia, the Moxo languages are also endangered. At TranslationServices.com, we’re proud to support these languages how we can: with dedicated Moxo translation services.
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Diving into the proud indigenous Moxo languages
The Moxo languages are spoken in the Llanos de Moxos, a region in the Beni Department of northeastern Bolivia. Historically, there were three Moxo languages, but Magiana has since become extinct—today, the only Moxo languages that remain are Ignaciano, with roughly 4,500 speakers, and Trinitario, with about 5,500 speakers. Despite both being classified as Moxo languages and often treated as a unit, Ignaciano and Trinitario are as distinct from each other as they are from the other indigenous languages in the area.
The Moxo languages come from the Arawakan family, a large family of languages that spans across most countries of South America. Like other languages in the family, the Moxo languages are morphologically complex, with complicated verbal inflection making the languages difficult for learners to acquire. Verbs are marked for both the subject and the object, and since the Moxo languages demonstrate an active–stative alignment, it can be difficult to know how to mark the subject and object. In some cases, what functions as the subject in English is marked as the object in the Moxo languages. But since we hire native speakers for our Moxo translation services, you don’t have to worry about these grammatical complications—we know how to handle them.
What kind of Moxo translation services would you like?
We take our commitment to providing Moxo translation services seriously. We offer translation services for both Ignaciano and Trinitario, gathering the top translators across Llanos de Moxos for both variants of Moxo. Additionally, since our team translates both to and from Moxo, you can always access the type of translation services you need, whether you’re looking to spread Moxo messages abroad or cater your message to the Moxo-speaking people of northeastern Bolivia.
Our translators have racked up translation experience from various types of projects, which allows them to offer multifaceted support for a wide range of translation needs. One example is academic translation—whether you need translation from Moxo for the transcript of an interview you conducted for research or translation into Moxo for educational materials for Moxo-language classes, we have you covered. We also offer specialized translation services for businesses wishing to establish a deeper connection with local Moxo-speaking clients, as well as literary translation services for anyone who wants to translate stories to or from the Moxo languages. In fact, we can even localize software like apps and games into Moxo, ushering the language into the digital age.
We’re eager to assist you with your Moxo translation project. Send us an order today to get started with Moxo translation!