Sai i Putum, Language Justice and Educational Technology

What fosters creativity and advances dignity in our self-expression and articulation? How might we orient the design of educational technology to be culturally relevant and sustaining? My research and artistic exploration encompassed the intersection of these questions. Inspired by studies on indigenous epistemologies and indigenous languages, I sought to apply a critical speculative lens in creating an artistic work that offers one response on how decolonizing technology may look in concrete action. Considering a particular educational tool of the past, El Silabario Hispanoamericano, a phonetic guide to the Spanish language, I offer my reimagining of what the tool may look like if it had been designed to revitalize Sai i Putum, a dialect of Lenca; a dormant indigenous language of El Salvador.