Mapudungun language revitalisation

I participate in two organisations aimed at promoting and teaching Mapudungun both on Internet and in the city of Concepción, Chile.

Kimeltuwe

In 2015, alongside Víctor Carilaf and Alina Namuncura, I co-founded the digital artivism project Kimeltuwe, which means “place of learning.” Its Facebook page has over 200,000 followers. Our project has been widely disseminated in school environments thanks to the publication and distribution of pedagogical materials for teaching Mapudungun. Furthermore, it has inspired academic research and publications about our work. To learn more about these materials, visit the project’s website:

• Digital art and educational project Kimeltuwe

• You can learn more about Kimeltuwe in this report by Risingvoices written in English.

Fiwfiw ñi Dungun

Since its formation in 2019, I have participated in the organization Fiw-Fiw ñi Dungun, which hosts courses and language immersion camps for learning the Mapuche language. Similarly, we have developed materials for teaching and learning Mapudungun, ranging from textbooks and dictionaries to grammars.

• Language Institute Fiw-Fiw ñi Dungun

Since 2022, I have been part of a research team directed by Dr. Juan Héctor Painequeo Paillán (Universidad de La Frontera, Chile), together with Dr. Gastón Salamanca (Universidad de Concepción, Chile). The objective of this collaboration is to prepare and disseminate materials for teaching linguistics, with a special focus on Mapudungun, a language isolate from South America.

In 2024, we published our first book, Pu Mapuche ñi N’emül’, which is an introduction to the study of the discursive practices of the Mapuche people (the traditional speakers of Mapudungun) as well as its linguistic structures, focusing on phonology and morphosyntax. Written in Spanish, this publication can be downloaded from the website of the publishing house Ariadna Ediciones.

• Painequeo, J., Salamanca, G. & Berríos, A. (2024). Pu Mapuche ñi N´emül´: Una introducción al estudio de la lengua mapuche. Ariadna Ediciones. Descargar el PDF

The book has been well received since its publication. Its launch was covered by the Universidad de la Frontera news reels in July 2025, and the journal Anales de lingüística (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo) published a review of our book in English later that year.

• Campos, K. (2025, Jun 26). En UFRO se presentará libro que fortalece la enseñanza de la lengua mapuche desde una perspectiva intercultural. Noticias UFRO. https://www.ufro.cl/
• Navarro, H. (2025). Pu Mapuche ñi N’emül’. Una Introducción al Estudio de la Lengua Mapuche. Anales de Lingüística, (15), 233–238. https://revistas.uncu.edu.ar/ojs3/index.php/analeslinguistica/article/view/9616

We are currently working on a new volume on phonetics and phonology aimed at Mapudungun teachers and classrooms.

Sept-Oct 2024 – Lexicographic training

2022-2023 – Teaching Mapudungun at the University level

I have given interviews regarding my work in Mapudungun's language revitalisation effort:

• Alvarado, G. (2022). Aldo Berríos (Fiestoforo): “Siempre he pensado que el mapuzugun es una lengua de futuro.” Lenguas Radicales, 1(3) · PDF
• Carilaf, V. (entrevistado); Berrios, A (entrevistado) y Becerra, R. (entrevistador) (2017). Del compromiso político-cultural a la acción educativa en internet. Entrevista a Víctor Carilaf y Aldo Fiestóforo Berríos. En Becerra, R. y G. Llanquinao (Eds.), Mapun Kimün. Relaciones mapunche entre persona, tiempo y espacio. Editorial Ocholibros. pp. 271-292 · PDF