| Taushiro | |
|---|---|
| Pinche | |
| Native to | Peru |
| Region | Loreto Department |
| Ethnicity | 5Taushiro (2017)[1] |
Native speakers | 1 (2017)[2] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | trr |
| Glottolog | taus1253 |
| ELP | Taushiro |
 Taushiro is classified as Critically Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Taushiro, also known asPinche orPinchi, is anearly extinct possiblelanguage isolate of the PeruvianAmazon nearEcuador. In 2000SIL counted one speaker in an ethnic population of 20. Documentation was done in the mid-1970s by Nectalí Alicea. The last living speaker of Taushiro, Amadeo García García, was profiled inThe New York Times in 2017.[3]
The first glossary of Taushiro contained 200 words and was collected by Daniel Velie in 1971.[3]
Following Tovar (1961), Loukotka (1968),[4] and Tovar (1984),Kaufman (1994) notes that while Taushiro has been linked to theZaparoan languages, it shares greater lexical correspondences withKandoshi and especially withOmurano. In 2007 he classified Taushiro and Omurano (but not Kandoshi) asSaparo–Yawan languages.
Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities withTequiraca andLeco.[5]
Taushiro has 17 phomenic consonants.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | plain | lab. | pal. | |||||
| Stop | plain | t | k | kʷ | ʔ | ||||
| prenasalized | ⁿt | (ᵑk) | |||||||
| Nasal | n | (ŋ) | |||||||
| Fricative | ɕ | x | h | hʷ | hʲ | ||||
| Affricate | c͡ɕ | ||||||||
| Flap | (ɾ) | ||||||||
| Glide | w | j | |||||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | nasal | plain | nasal | plain | nasal | |
| High | i | ĩ | ɨ | ɨ̃ | u | ũ |
| Mid | e | ẽ | o | õ | ||
| Low | a | ã | ||||
Nasality spreads leftward within a word, only affecting glides/w/ and/j/.
Taushiro has two surface-level tones, high and low. Themora is the tone-bearing unit.
Known syllable shapes include V(ː), CV(ː), and CV(ː)C, with/ʔ/ as the only possible coda. Words apparently must be at least bimoraic.[6]
Word order in Taushiro isverb–subject–object.[7]
In June 2015, the sole remaining native speaker, Amadeo García García (bornc. 1949, Gómez Caño)[6] was residing in "Intuto on theTigre River in the northeastern Peruvian region ofLoreto." Zachary O’Hagan did targeted field work with him on topics such asethnohistory, genealogy, sociocultural practices, lexicon, and grammar.[8]
As of December 2017 government linguists from Peru’sMinistry of Culture, working with Amadeo, have created a database of 1,500 Taushiro words, 27 stories, and three songs.[3]
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