Urarina is an isolated language spoken in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, specifically in the

Loreto Region Loreto () is Peru's northernmost department and region. Covering almost one-third of Peru's territory, Loreto is by far the nation's largest department; it is also one of the most sparsely populated regions due to its remote location in the Ama ...

of Northwest Peru, by the Urarina people. There are around 3,000 speakers in Urarinas District (along the

Chambira River The Chambira River is a major tributary of the Marañón River, and has been the traditional territory of the Urarina peoples for at least the past 350 years, if not longer. Located in the Amazon jungle of Peru, otherwise known as the Selva, the Ch ...

). It uses a

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

. It is also known as Itucali, Simacu or Shimacu. It has a canonical word order of object–verb–subject.

Classification

The classification of Urarina remains contentious: academics have placed the language in at least four different language families including

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

Tupian 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 ...

, Macro-Tucanoan, and Amerind. However, the proposed language families share few similarities with Urarina, meaning it is likely best described as either “unclassified” or as a

language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

. It is usually assumed that it is a language isolate given Urarina’s complete lack of lexical overlap with any languages surrounding Urarina territory.

Language contact

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

Leko Leko may refer to: * Leko (surname) * Leko languages, a small group of African Savanna languages * Leco language, a moribund isolate language of Bolivia * Lekolite or Leko, a type of stage spotlight * Alexandro da Silva Santos or Leko, Brazilian fo ...

, and Omurano language families due to contact.

Status

Urarina is currently spoken by the 2,000-3,000 members of the Urarina tribe, the majority of whom have retained the ability to speak the language. However, bilingualism and use of Spanish in everyday life is on the rise, as more and more Spanish-speaking mestizos have immigrated to the valley where the Urarina live. While there is a bilingual education system, most bilingual schools almost exclusively use Spanish, as the majority of the teachers do not speak Urarina. The version of Urarina that is spoken by younger generations has lost a substantial degree of grammatical complexity and vocabulary, as correlated to the loss of traditional cultural practices and beliefs. The language is considered potentially endangered.

Phonology

The following is the phonology of Urarina as described by Olawsky.

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

Urarina has several rare grammatical characteristics. The language follows the OVS word order: of all the languages that use OVS word order, Urarina is among the strictest adherents to this word order in speech. Another feature of Urarina is its complex system on all verbs (excluding borrowings). Every verb is marked according to one of three paradigms, as determined by a complicated set of pragmatic and syntactic conditions. Urarina follows a similarly unique word class system. Numerals and adjectives that are borrowed from

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

and

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 Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

are placed in a completely separate class from indigenous Urarina words. Urarina also follows syntactic rules wherein the pitch-accent system changes the tone of a word, based on the preceding word class. The language's set of unique features has recently garnered special attention from linguists. However, Urarina's distinctive grammatical features are gradually disappearing as younger generations speak a Urarina that is being influenced by a growing bilingualism in Spanish Like many other Amazonian languages, Urarina follows a

polysynthetic In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to ...

, agglutinative word morphology in relating to verbs.

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Itucale. :

Flora and fauna

List of selected plant and animal names in Urarina: