The Wayuu language is Wayuunaiki (wayuu: person and naiki: language). It is spoken by 400 thousand people, 97% of the population speak Wayuunaiki and 32% speak Spanish.
The Wayuu culture and its customs are transmitted from one generation to another through oral expression. To ensure the survival of this ethnic group, promote cultural integration in learning wayuunaiki.
Actions have been carried out such as:
The Colombian Government has translated works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez into the Wayú language. Gabriel García Márquez had Guajira descent. His grandparents, Colonel Nicolás Márquez and Doña Tranquilina were from the capital (Riohacha). A place that he narrated with great affection in his most representative novels such as: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and Live to Tell It.
He Kamusuchiwo'u Ethno-educational Center was created the first illustrated dictionary Wayuunaiki-Spanish, Spanish-Wayuunaiki, used today in all schools in La Guajira.
Thanks to Microsoft and the Wayuu Foundation Taya launched the first computer dictionary in wayuunaiki. A great movement of incorporation into the technological world for the Wayuu indigenous people.
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. The Ecos de la Macuira radio station and the Wayuunaiki Newspaper are the best known.
The Little Prince Book (Pürinsipechonkai) has been translated into Wayuunaiki thanks to the support of Jean Marc Probst Pour Le Petit Foundation 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 an intangible heritage of humanity by Unesco in 2010). Said office cannot be carried out if you do not think, feel, speak and transmit in wayuunaiki.
