Candoshi-Shapra language

Not to be confused with Murato language.
Candoshi
Shapra
Native to Peru
Ethnicity 3,000 (2007)[1]
Native speakers
 1,100 (2007)[1]
Candoshi–Chirino?
Dialects
Kandoashi
Chapara
Language codes
ISO 639-3 cbu
Glottolog cand1248[2]

Candoshi-Shapra (also known as Candoshi, Candoxi, Kandoshi, and Murato) is an indigenous American language isolate, spoken by several thousand people in western South America along the Chapuli, Huitoyacu, Pastaza, and Morona river valleys. There are two dialects, Chapara (also spelled Shapra) and Kandoashi. It is an official language of Peru, like other native languages in the areas in which they are spoken and are the predominant language in use. Their people are pride of their language, which seems to be prospering, 88.5 percent of people being bilingual with Spanish. There is 10 to 30 percent literacy and 15 to 25 percent in the second language Spanish. There is a Candoshi-Shapra dictionary, and grammar rules have been codified.

Classification

Candoshi is not closely related to any living language. It may be related to the extinct and poorly attested language Chirino. Four words of Chirino are mentioned in Relación de la tierra de Jaén (1586), and they resemble words in modern Candoshi. A somewhat longer list of words is given in the same document for Rabona, across the modern border in Ecuador and include some names of plants that resemble Candoshi, but such words can easily be borrowed.

Among modern languages, Loukotka (1968), followed by Tovar (1984), connected Candoshi with Taushiro (Pinche). Kaufman (1994) tentatively proposed a Kandoshi–Omurano–Taushiro language family, with Candoshi the most distant of the trio. However, Kaufman (2007) placed Omurano and Taushiro but not Candoshi in Saparo–Yawan.

David Payne (1981) proposes that Candoshi is related to Jivaroan, which Payne calls Shuar. Together, Shuar and Candoshi make up a putative Shuar-Candoshi family, for which Payne (1981) provides a tentative reconstruction of Proto-Shuar-Candoshi.

References

  1. 1 2 Candoshi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Candoshi-Shapra". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.


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