Aewa language

Aewa, also spelled Aiwa (Aʔɨwa), and also known as Abishira, Tequiraca (Tekiráka), Ixignor, or Vacacocha, is an extinct language formerly spoken in Peru. It is presumed extinct some time in the 1980s, though in 2008 two rememberers were found and 160 words and short sentences were recorded. Today, most ethnic Aiwa people have shifted to Kichwa and Spanish.

Classification

The little data available show it to not be closely related to other languages, though a distant connection to Canichana was proposed by Terrence Kaufman (1994).

History

The last fluent speakers of Aʔɨwa in Puerto Elvira are thought to have died in the 1980s. Two people were reported to remember the language in 2008.

Names

Aʔɨwa has been referred to under a variety of names in the past, among them Abishira/Awishiri and variants, Tekiraka/Tequiraca, and Vacacocha. In particular, Awishiri is highly ambiguous as it has been used to reference no less than four different peoples and languages: the Aʔɨwa themselves, a subgroup of the Arabela people, who speak a Zaparoan language, the Waorani people, who speak a language isolate, and an otherwise unidentified group of Western Tukanoan linguistic affiliation during the colonial period. The name Aʔɨwa is the people's self-designation and the only one recognized by them. One of the consultants, Delia Andi Macahuachi, and her family members, thought the name Aushiri might refer to a group of "wild people" living on the Tiputini River, possibly referring to the Waorani. Günter Tessmann (1930) records that the "civilized" Aʔɨwa objected rather strongly to being called Auischiri, and the Sápara, who also speak a Zaparoan language, used the name Awishiri to refer generally to other Indigenous peoples, including the Chicham-speaking Shuar, other Sápara from the Curaray River, and Napo Kichua. Avencio Villarejo (1959) opted for the name Vacacocha 'Cow Lake', from the name of the location the Aʔɨwa lived at the time, now part of Puerto Elvira. The name Tekiráka was first used by Tessmann (1930) as he reported it as a self-designation by the Aʔɨwa, and has since been adopted by a number of other authors, although the Aʔɨwa consultants did not recognize the name as such.^{: 173, 175}

Phonology

Vocabulary

Sources

• Hammarström, Harald. 2010. "The status of the least documented language families in the world". In Language Documentation & Conservation, v. 4, p. 183.
• Fabre, Alain. 2005. Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos: AWSHIRI.
• Michael, Lev; Beier, Christine. (2012). Phonological sketch and classification of Aewa. (Manuscript).

Earlier lexical sources

• Tessmann, Günter. 1930. Die Indianer Nordost-Perus: Grundlegende Forschungen für eine Systematische Kulturkunde. Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter & Co. (112 lexical items)
• Espinoza, Lucas. 1955. Contribuciones lingüísticas y etnográficas sobre algunos pueblos indígenas del Amazonas peruano. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Bernardino de Sahagún. (17 lexical items)
• Villarejo, Avencio. 1959. La selva y el hombre. Editorial Ausonia. (93 lexical items)

References