Záparo is a nearly dead language spoken by the Sápara, or Záparo, people of

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

. As of 2000, it was spoken by only one person out of a total population of 170 in

Pastaza Province Pastaza () is a Provinces of Ecuador, province in the Oriente (Ecuador), Oriente of Ecuador located in the eastern jungle. The capital is Puyo, Ecuador, Puyo, founded on May 12, 1899, with a population of 33,325. The city is now accessible by pave ...

, between the Curaray and Bobonaza rivers. Záparo is also known as Zápara and Kayapwe. The members of the Záparo ethnic group now speak Quichua, though there is a language revival effort beginning. Záparo is sometimes confused with Andoa, though the two languages are distinct. Záparo has a subject–verb–object word order.

History

The Záparos were one of the most numerous peoples of western Amazonia, and it is thought the language was spoken by more than 100,000 people at some point. The number of speakers steadily declined after the arrival of

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ans under the effect of old world diseases and wars with other Amazonian people driven off by the progress of European settlement. At the beginning of the 20th century, Záparos fell victims to the rubber boom. As with many Amazonian peoples, they were virtually enslaved and used as cheap labor to collect rubber. As a result, their communities were heavily disrupted, and their scattered members began to intermarry with neighboring tribes. The use of the Záparo language was progressively discontinued in favor of Quechua. Only 150 to 170 ethnic Záparos remain today, most of them in the Loreto Canton, and all of them are Quechua speakers. Very few people have some command of Záparo, and those are elderly and isolated. The language is no longer used in everyday conversations, even though a language revival is currently underway. Brenda J. Bowser, a professor of anthropology at CSUF, is working to capture the linguistic and oral history of the Záparo of Ecuadorian Amazonia with the help of a grant by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

. She hopes to fill a large gap in the understanding of the precolonial social and cultural history of the upper

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

. The Záparo have also collaborated with Juan Casco, an Ecuadorian type designer, in discussing a

syllabary In the Linguistics, linguistic study of Written language, written languages, a syllabary is a set of grapheme, written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) mora (linguistics), morae which make up words. A symbol in a syllaba ...

system that facilitates in writing their language.

Phonology

Záparo phonology is relatively simple, with only four vowels and 14 consonants. * /h/ can be pronounced as or * /u/ can vary between or

Bibliography

*Moya, R. (2009). Pana sápara atupama, Nuestra lengua sápara: Diccionario trilingüe Sápara-Castellano-Quichua (Colección Runakay, Diccionario Escolar Intercultural Bilingüe de las Lenguas Ancestrales, 1.). Ecuador: Ministerio de Educación. * Peeke, Catherine M. 1991. ''Bosquejo Gramatical del Zaparo'', Cuadernos Etnolingüisticos, n°14, Quito: Instituto Lingüistico de Verano, * Peeke, Catherine. 1962. "Structural Summary of Zaparo," in SEIL I, 125–216. * Stark, Louisa R. 1981. "La lengua zápara del Ecuador", in Miscelánea Antropológica Ecuatoriana 1. 12–91.

History

Phonology

Bibliography

References

External links