746

voicing is otherwise optional.

Persons interested in developing Aymara literature
might do well to recall the lessons of ancient Greece.
According to Palmer (1949) each Greek city-state used
its own dialect in its public inscriptions. But apart
from this, each literary genre required the use of a
particular dialect, not necessarily that of the writer.

The epic dialect was a fusion of Aeolic and Ionic elements;
choric odes were always written in Doric; iambic and
trochaic poetry were written in Ionic. Still, certain
localisms persisted; Melic poetry was written in the dialect
of Lesbos, and the writings of Corinna of Tanagra were

in Boeotian (Palmer 1949:271-2). There seems to be no
reason why Aymara literature should not develop genres

based on local dialects, should its speakers desire to

do so. Persons literate in Aymara will decide.

10-4 Directions for Future Research

Future research into Aymara dialects should aim
toward the compilation of a linguistic atlas of the language,
and soon, lest certain dialects be lost before they are
recorded. For the reasons cited in 10-2.6, such an
admittedly utopian task will require the cooperative efforts
of Aymara native speakers trained in linguistic field
methods as well as of linguists who are native speakers

of other languages such as Spanish and Quechua. The