Taushiro, also known as Pinche or Pinchi, is a
nearly extinct possible
language isolate
A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
of the Peruvian
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 ...
near
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 ...
. In 2000
SIL counted one speaker in an ethnic population of 20. Documentation was done in the mid-1970s by Neftalí Alicea. The last living speaker of Taushiro, Amadeo García García, was profiled in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' in 2017.
The first glossary of Taushiro contained 200 words and was collected by Daniel Velie in 1971.
Classification
Following Tovar (1961), Loukotka (1968),
and Tovar (1984),
Kaufman (1994) notes that while Taushiro has been linked to the
Zaparoan languages, it shares greater lexical correspondences with
Kandoshi and especially with
Omurano. In 2007 he classified Taushiro and Omurano (but not Kandoshi) as
Saparo–Yawan languages.
Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with
Tequiraca and
Leco.
Grammar
Word order in Taushiro is
Verb–subject–object.
[Alicea, Neftalí. 1975. ''Análisis preliminar de la gramática del idioma Taushiro''. (Datos Etno-Lingüísticos, 24.) Datos Etno-Lingüísticos. Lima: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano.]
Amadeo García García
In June 2015, the sole remaining native speaker, Amadeo García García was residing in "Intuto on the
Tigre River in the northeastern Peruvian region of
Loreto." Zachary O’Hagan did targeted field work with him on topics such as
ethnohistory
Ethnohistory is the study of cultures and indigenous peoples customs by examining historical records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may ...
, genealogy, sociocultural practices, lexicon, and grammar.
As of December 2017 government linguists from Peru’s
Ministry of Culture Ministry of Culture may refer to:
* Ministry of Tourism, Cultural Affairs, Youth and Sports (Albania)
* Ministry of Culture (Algeria)
* Ministry of Culture (Argentina)
* Minister for the Arts (Australia)
* Ministry of Culture (Azerbaijan)Ministry o ...
, working with Amadeo, have created a database of 1,500 Taushiro words, 27 stories, and three songs.
Further reading
*Alicea Ortiz, N. (1975). Vocabulario taushiro (Datos Etno-Lingüísticos, 22). Lima: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
References
{{South American languages
Languages of Peru
Language isolates of South America
Critically endangered languages
Endangered language isolates