Achagua
Achawa
Native to	Colombia
Region	Meta Department
Ethnicity	Achagua people
Native speakers	(250 cited 2000)[1]
Language family	Arawakan Northern Upper Amazon Western Nawiki Piapoko Achagua
Dialects	?Ponares†
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aca
Glottolog	acha1250  Achagua pona1251  Ponares
ELP	Achagua
Achagua is classified as Severely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger.

Achagua, orAchawa (Achagua:Achawa), is anArawakan language spoken in theMeta Department ofColombia, similar toPiapoco. It is estimated that 250 individuals speak the language, many of whom also speak Piapoco orSpanish.^[1]

"Achagua is a language of theMaipurean Arawakan group traditionally spoken by the Achagua people of Venezuela and east-central Colombia."^[2]

A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Achawa or Piapoco.

There is 1–5% literacy in Achagua.^[1]

• /n/ is realized as[ɲ] when preceding palatal consonants.
• /k/ is palatalized[kʲ] when preceding /i/.
• Sounds /b, d/ are preglottalized[ˀb, ˀd] within accented syllables or after accented syllables.
• /b/ is realized as[β] when occurring intervocalically.
• /w/ is realized as[β] when preceding /i/.
• /s̪/ is realized as[ʃ] when preceding /i/.
• /ʝ/ is heard as an affricate[dʒ] in word-initial positions. It can also be realized as a glide[j] freely in intervocalic positions.
• /ɭ/ can be heard as a flap[ɾ] in free variation before /i/.^[3]

• Neira, Alonso de."Arte y bocabulario de la lengua achagua: Doctrina christiana, confessionario de uno y otro sexo e instrucción de cathecumenos".World Digital Library. Retrieved2013-05-23.
• Dryer, Matthew S.;Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013)."Achagua language".World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• OLAC resources in and about the Achagua language
• Achagua on Native Languages of the Americas
• Listen to a sample of Achagua from Global Recordings Network
• The Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin Americahttps://www.ailla.utexas.org/islandora/search/Achagua?type=dismaxArchived 2019-04-11 at theWayback Machine

• Languages of Colombia
• Arawakan languages
• Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas
• Severely endangered languages

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• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Achagua-language text
• Language articles with old Ethnologue 18 speaker data
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• Articles lacking reliable references from January 2026
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