The Uru language, more specifically known as Iru-Itu, and Uchumataqu, is an extinct language formerly spoken by the Uru people. In 2004, it had 2 remaining native speakers out of an ethnic group of 140 people in the

La Paz Department, Bolivia The La Paz Department of Bolivia comprises with a 2024 census population of 3,022,566 inhabitants. It is situated at the western border of Bolivia, sharing Lake Titicaca with the neighboring Peru. It contains the Cordillera Real (Bolivia), Cordi ...

near

Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; ; ) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, both in terms of the volume of ...

, the rest having shifted to

Aymara Aymara may refer to: Languages and people * Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language ** Aymara language, the main language within that family ** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...

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 countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

. The language is close enough to the

Chipaya language Chipaya (endolinguonym ''Chipay taqu'') is a native South American language of the Uru–Chipaya language family. The only other language in the grouping, Uru, is considered by some to be a divergent dialect of Chipaya. ''Ethnologue'' lists t ...

to sometimes be considered a dialect of that language. Uru is also called Ochosuma (Uchuzuma), a historical name for the Uru ethnic group. In 2010, there was 1 single native speaker left of this language. By 2012 the language had no speakers left.

Identifying Uchumataqu

Since one of the Urus' names for their language was "Pukina", Uchumataqu has previously been mistakenly identified with

Puquina Puquina (or Pukina) is an extinct language once spoken by a native ethnic group in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia) and in the north of Chile. It is often associated with the culture that built Tiwanaku. Remnants of Puquin ...

. While the personal and possessive pronouns of the unrelated Puquina bear limited similarities to those of Arawakan languages, Uru differs drastically from Arawakan languages in its person-marking system and its morphology. The pronoun system of Uchumataqu is naturally very similar instead to its close relative Chipaya. Uchumataqu has also borrowed grammatical and lexical morphemes from prolonged exposure to Aymara, with which it is not related, however. Unlike Aymara, Uru is not

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 t ...

and has a phonemic five-vowel system /a e i o u/, while Aymara has a three-vowel system /a i u/. One contrast between Uru and the related Chipaya is that Uru does not identify gender morphologically as Chipaya does.

Dialects

There are mentions of two Uru dialects: Uru of Ch'imu and Sun Island. Though it is unclear whether the former was a dialect or its own language. Uru of Ch'imu was spoken in the town of Ch'imu and was first recorded in 1929 and while not published there are detailed notes of the language in existence. The second variety was spoken on ''Isla del Sol'' in Lake Titicaca and was first described in the 1960s though there it is far less documented.

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Orthography

Uru did not have a standardized orthography but when written it used the

English alphabet Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 Letter (alphabet), letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word ''alphabet'' is a Compound (linguistics), compound of ''alpha'' and ''beta'', t ...

or the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation ** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet * India pale ale, a style of beer * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA ...

Sample Text

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uru Language Languages of Bolivia Uru–Chipaya languages Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas Extinct languages Endangered languages