Tequiraca (Tekiráka), also known as Abishira, Aiwa (Aewa, Aʔɨwa), Ixignor,
or Vacacocha, is an extinct language once spoken in
Peru
Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
. In 1925 there were between 50 and 80 speakers in
Puerto Elvira on
Lake Vacacocha (connected with the
Napo River). It is presumed extinct some time in the mid 20th century, though in 2008 two
rememberers were found and 160 words and short sentences were recorded. Today, most ethnic Aiwa people have shifted to
Kichwa and Spanish.
The little data available show it to not be closely related to other languages, though a distant connection to
Canichana was proposed by Kaufman (1994).
Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with
Taushiro, likely as a result of prehistoric contact within the circum-Marañón interaction sphere.
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
is the verbalizer
Vocabulary
Michael & Beier (2012)
Aiwa lexical items listed in Michael & Beier (2012):
[Michael, Lev and Christine Beier. 2012. ''Phonological sketch and classification of Aʔɨwa SO 639: ash'. Paper presented at the 2012 Winter meeting of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas]
SSILA
, Portland, OR, January 6, 2012.
:
Table comparing Aiwa (Tequiraca) with
Waorani,
Iquito, and
Maijiki (mã́ḯhˈkì; Orejón) from Michael & Beier (2012):
:
Loukotka (1968)
Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items for Auishiri.
:
Sources
*
Hammarström, Harald. 2010. "The status of the least documented language families in the world". In ''Language Documentation & Conservation'', v. 4, p. 183
*Fabre, Alain. 2005.
Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos AWSHIRI.
*Michael, Lev; Beier, Christine. (2012). ''Phonological sketch and classification of Aewa''. (Manuscript).
;Earlier lexical sources
*Tessmann, Günter. 1930. ''Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: Grundlegende Forschungen für eine Systematische Kulturkunde''. Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter & Co. (112 lexical items)
*Espinoza, Lucas. 1955. ''Contribuciones lingüísticas y etnográficas sobre algunos pueblos indígenas del Amazonas peruano''. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Bernardino de Sahagún. (17 lexical items)
*Villarejo, Avencio. 1959. ''La selva y el hombre''. Editorial Ausonia. (93 lexical items)
References
{{South American languages
Extinct languages of South America
Languages extinct in the 20th century
Language isolates of South America