Akuntsu is a
Tupian language
The Tupi or Tupian language family comprises some 70 languages spoken in South America, of which the best known are Tupi proper and Guarani.
Homeland and ''urheimat''
Rodrigues (2007) considers the Proto-Tupian urheimat to be somewhere between ...
of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. Peaceful contact with the
Akuntsu people was only made in 1995; they had been massacred by cattle ranchers in the 1980s. The Akuntsu language is spoken only by members of the tribe and not fully understood by any outsider.
It is considered unlikely that the Akuntsu language or culture will survive following the deaths of the tribe's remaining members. For this reason several observers have described the tribe as the victims of
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
. The neighbouring Kanoê have been similarly reduced in number through contact with settlers, as were the people of a man recently encountered living alone in the
Igarapé Omerê reserve who is apparently the sole survivor of his tribe.
References
Further reading
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External links
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Phonological Inventory
TuLaR (Tupian Languages Resources)
Tupian languages
Endangered Tupian languages
Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area
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