Taruma language

Taruma is a nearly extinct, divergent language isolate of northeastern South America. It has been reported to be extinct several times since as far back as 1770, but Eithne Carlin discovered the last three speakers living in Maruranau among the Wapishana, and is documenting the language. The people and language are known as Saluma in Suriname.

Classification

Taruma is a language isolate. It has been proposed to be distantly related to Katembri, but this relationship has not been repeated in recent surveys of South American languages.

History

Taruma was spoken around the mouth of the Rio Negro during the late 1600s, but the speakers later moved to southern Guyana. In the 1940s, the Taruma tribe were reported to no longer exist as a distinct group. However, their presence has recently been confirmed in the Wapishana village of Marunarau, where they are recognized as a distinct tribe. Only one of the three knows Taruma well enough to produce "coherent texts", and the other two have "a much weaker knowledge" of Taruma.

Language contact

Jolkesky notes that there are lexical similarities with the Chibchan, Katukina-Katawixi, Arawak, Jeoromitxi, Tupi, Arawa, Jivaro, Karib, Mura-Matanawi, Tukano, Yanomami, and Kwaza language families due to contact.
The following table illustrates some of the aforementioned borrowing situations:
Similarities with Chibchan may be due to the former presence of Chibchan speakers in the Northeast Amazons. Similarities with Tucanoan suggest that Taruma had originated in the Caquetá basin.

Vocabulary

Loukotka lists the following basic vocabulary items.
For a list of Taruma words from Jolkesky, see the corresponding Portuguese article.