Written expression of indigenous languages in Latin America is a phenomenon tightly linked to a misionary project that set out on the second half of 20th century. It seems difficult to put this ideological and religious mark aside. Additionally, literacy among Tikuna indians is still precarious (and they are not an exception). We discuss the challenges of the linguist working as advisor, who produces educational materials for minority languages. We debate the narrow scope of the tasks that we historically assumed initially in this role, around the design of writing and the unification of alphabets. These early tasks left out elements that relate writing to grammar (the notion of word) and to the verbal arts (levels of specialized language). An understanding and an accurate representation of prosodic structure (tone) are not fully fulfilled yet. We point out the relevance of recovering and studying language (writing?) from the point of view of a complex orality, as well as the need to redirect the education of linguists, enlisting the support of other disciplines.