Brazil will publish on the Internet its first Magna Carta translated into an indigenous language

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 25 (EFE) - Brazil's National Library announced Friday that in the coming weeks it will publish on its website a digital version of Brazil's first Constitution translated into an indigenous language to facilitate access to the historic document.

FOOTAGE: RECEPTION EVENT OF THE COPY OF THE CONSTITUTION TRANSLATED INTO NHEENGATU LANGUAGE IN RIO DE JANEIRO.

TRANSLATION:

Marco Lucchesi:

Well, it was a request from Minister Rosa Weber because the intention was to bring to our native peoples the constitution that actually represented them because it belongs to everyone. Therefore, it was born from a collaboration and the role of the national library was to receive this donation. I did the work as a specific curatorship, but the idea is that this material is accepted in the national library because we are expanding our ethnic shelves. We have a lot of material on the different languages that cross our country, but we need to expand it because it is a never-ending work.

Well, we have a very important capability in the national library to talk to planet Earth, which is the digital library. It is one of the greatest assets of our culture and we will soon make it available. It's clear that the prospect of a constitution in Nnhegatu actually has a stronger response in the upper Rio Negro. And the important thing was that the minister and the memory represented by the National Library were there face to face, making that same translation enjoyable for all those who believe in the homeland and in diversity.

It was an absolutely admirable experience, because first they were protagonists, they translated, we did not offer them, they worked in the mother tongue and the fascinating thing was to bring different concepts that are concepts of state, of constitution, in short, of a series of legacies and technical devices that needed to be translated into the Nheengatu language, which is a rich language, and it was even chosen because it has a tradition of writing for four centuries.

So they first felt they were protagonists, they were authors of this process and at the same time they saw themselves as in a mirror. They wrote themselves, but in writing they saw themselves as an important reflection in the mirror. I think that especially after years of very hard struggle, very negative in the relationship of the autonomies of the native peoples, this response could not have happened at a better time.

Camera: Janaína Quinet