Tacanan is a family of languages spoken in

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

, with Ese’ejja also spoken in Peru. It may be related to the

Panoan languages Panoan (also Pánoan, Panoano, Panoana, Páno) is a family of languages spoken in western Brazil, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia. It is possibly a branch of a larger Pano–Tacanan family. Genetic relations The Panoan family is generally bel ...

. Many of the languages are endangered.

Family division

*Tacanan ** Ese Ejja ( Ese’eha, Tiatinagua, Chama, Huarayo, Guacanawa, Chuncho, Eseʼexa, Tatinawa, Ese exa) **Araona–Tacana *** Araona ( Carina, Cavina) ***Cavineña–Tacana **** Cavineña ( Kavinenya) ****Tacana ***** Tacana ( Tupamasa, Takana) ***** Reyesano ( San Borjano, Maropa) *****

Toromona The Toromona are an indigenous people of Bolivia. They are uncontacted people living near the upper Madidi and Heath Rivers in northwestern Bolivia. Bolivia's Administrative Resolution 48/2006, issued on 15 August 2006, created an "exclusive, ...

(?) Toromono may be

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. Another possibly extinct Tacanan language is Mabenaro; Arasa has been classified as Tacanan, but appears to have more in common with Panoan.

Loukotka (1968)

Below is a full list of Tacanan language varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties. * Tacana - language with many relationships with the Arawak and Pano languages, spoken on the

Beni River The Beni River () is a river in the north of Bolivia. It rises north of La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. Wit ...

Tuichi River The Tuichi River (in Spanish Río Tuichi) is a river in the Madidi National Park in the north of Bolivia. The Tuichi flows through the rainforest and joins the Beni River upstream from the town of Rurrenabaque Rurrenabaque is a small town in the ...

, and Tequeje River, territory of Colonia, Bolivia; now spoken by only a few families. Dialects are: **Tumupasa / Maracáni - spoken on the Uchipiamona River in the same region. **Isiama / Ydiama - spoken on the Unduma River and around Ydiama. * Araona - spoken on the

Madre de Dios River The Madre de Dios River () is a river shared by Bolivia and Peru which is homonymous to the Peruvian region it runs through. On Bolivian territory, it receives the Beni River, close to the town of Riberalta, which later joins with the Mamore Riv ...

and Manuripi River in Colonia, Bolivia * Capechene / Capaheni - unknown language spoken on the

Xapuri River Xapuri River is a river of Acre state in western Brazil. It forms small parts of the Brazil–Peru and Brazil–Bolivia international boundaries. The river runs through the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, a sustainable use environmental unit cr ...

and Rosiano River, Acre territory, Brazil. (Unattested.) * Sapiboca - extinct language once spoken at the old mission of Reyes, Beni province, Bolivia. * Chirigua / Shiribá - extinct language once spoken at the old mission of Santa Buenaventura, Beni. (Unattested.) *Guarizo - extinct language once spoken at the old missions of Reyes and San Antonio de Isiama. * Maropa - spoken in the vicinity of

Lake Rogoaguado A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

, Beni, now probably extinct. *Guacanahua / Chama / Ese'ejja - spoken by a small tribe on the

Madidi River Madidi () is a river located in the La Paz Department of Bolivia. It is a tributary of the Beni River and a part of the Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributary, tributaries. T ...

and Undumo River, La Paz province, Bolivia. * Mabenaro - spoken on the Manuripi River. *Caviña / Cavineña - once spoken on the Cavinas River,

, and

, now probably extinct. *

- once spoken between the

, and

, now perhaps extinct. * Arasa - language spoken by the greater part of the Arazaire tribe (of Pano stock) on the Marcopata River and Arasa River. * Tiatinagua / Mohino / Chuncho / Huarayo / Baguaja / Tambopata-Guarayo / Echoja - spoken by a tribe on the Peru-Bolivia border, on the

Tambopata River The Tambopata River is a river in southeastern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. Most of the Tambopata is in the Madre de Dios and Puno regions in Peru, but the upper parts of the river forms the border between Peru and Bolivia, and its origin is in ...

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Kayuvava, Tupi, and

Arawak The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), w ...

language families due to contact.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for the Tacanan languages. Sample vocabulary of four Tacanan languages, along with Proto-Panoan for comparison, from Nikulin (2019): :

Verbal morphology

Associated motion

Tacanan languages, in particular Cavineña and Ese Ejja, have among the richest associated motion systems in the world's languages.Guillaume, Antoine. 2016. Associated motion in South America: Typological and areal perspectives. ''Linguistic Typology'' 20(1). 81–177

Notes

References

* Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The languages of the Andes''. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. . * Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), ''Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages'' (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. . * Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the world's languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.

External links

* Proel
Familia Tacanana

Tacana language dictionary online from IDS
(select simple or advanced browsing) {{South American languages Pano-Tacanan languages Indigenous languages of South America (Central) Indigenous languages of Western Amazonia Languages of Bolivia Languages of Brazil Languages of Peru *