Chamicuro is an extinct
South American language
The languages of South America can be divided into three broad groups:
* the languages of the (in most cases, former) colonial powers, primarily Spanish and Portuguese;
* many indigenous languages, some of which are co-official alongside t ...
formerly spoken in
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
. The language was used by the Chamicuro people, who number around one hundred people. The Chamicuros currently live on a tributary of the
Huallaga river
The Huallaga River is a tributary of the Marañón River, part of the Amazon Basin. Old names for this river include ''Guallaga'' and ''Rio de los Motilones''. The Huallaga is born on the slopes of the Andes in central Peru and joins the Marañó ...
, in Peru, in an area called
Pampa Hermosa, though many had been dislocated to the
Yavarí and
Napo River
The Napo River () is a tributary to the Amazon River that rises in Ecuador on the flanks of the east Andean volcanoes of Antisana, Sincholagua and Cotopaxi.
The total length is . The river drains an area of ca 103,000 km2. The mean annual dis ...
s and to Brazil.
As with all native languages in Peru, Chamicuro was by default an official language in the area in which it was spoken. A dictionary has been published by the Chamicuro, however no children can speak the language as the community has shifted to
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas
**Spanish cuisine
**Spanish history
**Spanish culture
...
.
There is dispute as to whether the unattested
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
of the
Aguano people was the same language as Chamicuro. Loukotka (1968)
had identified it with Chamicuro, but the Chamicuro report that the Aguano people spoke
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...
.
Phonology
Chamicuro has five vowels: /a, e, i, o, u/. All vowels have both short and long forms.
See also
*
Language death
In linguistics, language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. By extension, language extinction is when the language is no longer known, including by second-language speakers, when it becomes known as an extinct langua ...
References
Languages of Peru
Arawakan languages
Indigenous languages of the South American Northwest
{{Arawakan-lang-stub