Crossmedia Talks – Intraducibles

Intraducibles: reviving indigenous languages through art, books, and digital media

Honored with a Special Mention at the BolognaRagazzi CrossMedia Award 2022, Intraducibles is a project that was born from a joint idea by the Mexican Institute of Culture of Mexico in Houston and poet and activist Irma Pineda. Its goal? To bring new visibility and dignity to Mexico’s Indigenous languages through 63 “untranslatable” words - rich, layered concepts that cannot be rendered with a single word in Spanish - brought to life through illustrations, itinerant murals, and a free digital platform. We spoke with Gabriela Ayala and Pamela Izebel Garduño Cruz from Santillana Mexico, who explained to us how the project blends urban art, publishing, and technology into a powerful initiative for linguistic and cultural preservation.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

Speakers of the native people of Mexico are the heart of this project. Gabriela Ayala as director of the Mexican Institute of Culture of Mexico in Houston initiated the project and joined Irma Pineda. Together they created the idea for this UNESCO project and looked for 3 key institutions: Santillana as the publishing house, INALI  as the Indigenous Language Institution in Mexico and WATR as the digital developer. There were also more than 60 visual artists involved, illustrating pages or painting itinerant murals in different cities of Mexico.

Could you tell us about your project?
The idea came from our ancestral language books where words were taught. In addition to that, Mexico has 68 indigenous languages, with 364 language variants besides Spanish. These languages are spoken by approximately 7.5 million people across the country, reflecting a great linguistic and cultural diversity. Sadly, many of those languages are disappearing due to discrimination, migration and oblivion.

Once we had the idea, we launched a call to all corners of Mexico for the native speakers to share with us the linguistic treasures. The words we were looking for need to have a main characteristic: they won’t be able to be translated with one word into Spanish. This means that each of those words is kind of a microuniverse, involves a whole concept and a cosmovision inside and that's the reason they couldn’t be translated with a unique word. Surprisingly we received almost 250 words from many indigenous languages.

The following call was addressed to the art areas of various Universities in Mexico to collaborate with illustrators of great talent: we gathered young illustrators and some others that already have a great career in graphic art. They were responsible for giving to our untranslatable words, a skin through different styles and techniques in the book pages and in our Itinerant murals.

These walls have been in 24 cities across the Mexican Republic and were part of 6 book fairs, 4 museums and 7 cultural festivals. Over 65,000 people across Mexico have witnessed these expositions and in 2026 is expected to land in Europe and the US. The book is printed but it can also be downloaded for free from our web page.

Can you describe your project’s unique ingredients?
We want to break the global trend of being sticked to a device. Intraducibles uses technology as a way to give for free the 63 words to as many people as possible, however, urban art is what defines this project, the walls taken by the people for the people. The wall is a space with an ancestral heritage of communication. Intraducibles is a recognition for the indigenous peoples from Mexico and from the world. It’s an invitation to look up and understand that the world is not described with a single word, or a single language. The untranslatable (Intraducible) surrounds us everywhere. We wanted to take the streets with the power of words with the main goal that everyone can have access to the diversity of our people. This is the great success and the special ingredient of Intraducibles.

How do you see the future of storytelling for children and young adults?
Storytelling is as ancient as humankind. It has accompanied all cultures, all languages and all times, so its future is as diverse as imagination and the way people and communities evolve.
The great challenge will be to maintain the narrative quality in a world where the immediacy and the algorithm can hinder the creation of quality content. We believe that the publishing world must change from an editorial to a crossmedia production system and develop collaborations of all kinds. Not just thinking of digital devices.

Why should a publisher/developer/author... participate in the BRCMA?
To demonstrate that the publishing world is an active, dynamic ecosystem and in search of literary creation beyond a page, it is the chance to expand the creation with the force of technology and imagination. Participating in BRCMA is a window for viewing these projects.

The BolognaRagazzi CrossMedia Award is the prize of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair that celebrates publishing projects able to expand their narrative world beyond the book, through games, podcasts, web series, films, and more. It’s open to anyone who has created cross-media experiences, not just publishers: authors, production companies, IP developers, specialised studios... anyone who has brought the story to life across different platforms. For all the details and rules, check out the official award page.