The Wayuu language is Wayuunaiki (wayuu: person and naiki: language). It is spoken by 400,000 people, the 97% of the population speaks wayuunaiki and the 32% he speaks Castilian.
The Wayuu culture and its customs are transmitted from one generation to another through oral expression. To ensure the survival of this ethnic group, they promote cultural integration in learning Wayuunaiki.
Actions have been carried out such as:
The Colombian government has translated works by Gabriel García Márquez into the Wayú language. Gabriel García Márquez had Guajiro descent. His grandparents, Colonel Nicolás Márquez and Doña Tranquilina they were from Riohacha, place that he narrated with great affection in his most representative novels as One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and Live to Tell It.
The Kamusuchiwo'u Ethno-educational Center created the first illustrated dictionary wayuunaiki-spanish and Spanish-Wayuunaiki, used today in all the schools of La Guajira.
Thanks to Microsoft and the Taya Foundation launched the first computer dictionary in wayuunaiki, which was a great movement of incorporation to the technological world for the Wayuu indigenous people.
Dictionary of Computing in Wayuunaiki Edition 2011
By the Colombian government created means of communication in the Wayuu language with the purpose that the Wayuu people were up to date on news and issues of their culture. Radio Ecos de la Macuira and the Wayuunaiki Newspaper are the best known.
The book The Little Prince Pürinsipechonkai has been translated into Wayuunaiki thanks to the support of Fondation Jean-Marc Probst pour pe Petit Prince of Switzerland, in alliance with Editorial Milagros Rosales.
The palabrero or pütchipü'üi, is in charge of orally directing in the Wayuu language the Wayúu Normative System (declared intangible heritage of humanity by Unesco in 2010). Said office cannot be carried out if not you think, feel, speak and transmit in wayuunaiki.
