The Aymara Collection is comprised of archival and published texts as well as recorded sounds and images related to the Aymara language.  Aymara is in the Jaqi linguistic family, which includes two other languages: Jaqaru and Kawki. Resources collected here include some of the first resources in printed Aymara together with later reprints.  

Aymara is a language of the high Andean plain between the highest peaks of the Andes mountains and of the shores of the world's highest navigable lake. Aymara is the first language of approximately one-third of the population of Bolivia, the dominant language of the southern area of Perú and down towards the coast in Moquegua, Tacna, with branches into Arequipa, and is the indigenous language of northern Chile. 

The Aymara Collection is particularly indebted to the work of Dr. Martha James Hardman.  During her fifty years of research in the region, Dr. Hardman recorded more than 93 audio interviews with speakers of the Jaqi languages - many now deceased village elders - and transcribed these recordings in as many field notebooks documenting Jaqaru and Kawki linguistics.  The Collection is augmented with visual resources, the bulk taken between 1959 and 1975 of villages, farms, market scenes, homes, and schools.