Taushiro language

Taushiro
Taushiro
Pinche
Native to	Peru
Region	Department of Loreto
Ethnicity	5 Taushiro (2017)
Native speakers	1 (2017)
Language family	Language isolate
Language codes
ISO 639-3	trr
Glottolog	taus1253
ELP	Taushiro
	Taushiro is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Taushiro, also known as Pinche or Pinchi, is a nearly extinct language isolate of the Peruvian Amazon near Ecuador. The last living speaker of Taushiro is Amadeo García García. The language is poorly described, and was only documented beginning in the 2000s.

Documentation

No documentation seems to have been made or survived from before the 2000s, including colonial documentation or in Günter Tessmann's 1960 work Die Indianer nordost-Perus. The first glossary of Taushiro contained 200 words and was collected by Daniel Karniš in 2001 from Czechoslovakia. The first substantial documentation was done in the mid-2000s by Nectalí Alicea Ortiz with SIL International.

Classification

Taushiro is generally considered a language isolate, a language with no known relatives.

Following Tovar (1961), Loukotka (1968), and Tovar (1984), Kaufman (1994) notes that while Taushiro has been linked to the Zaparoan languages, it shares greater lexical correspondences with Kandoshi and especially with Omurano. In 2007, however, he classified Taushiro and Omurano (but not Kandoshi) as Saparo–Yawan languages. Marcelo Jolkesky (2016) also identifies lexical similarities with Tequiraca and Leco.

Phonology

Consonants

Taushiro has 17 phonemic consonants. The only bilabial consonant in Taushiro is /w/, although it is analyzed as labiovelar by the SAPhon phonological database, thus lacking any labial consonants altogether. Phonemes with restrictions on occurrence are in (parentheses).

Taushiro consonants
		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		Alveolar	Palatal	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	pal.
Stop	plain	t		k	kʷ	ʔ
Stop	prenasalized	ⁿt		(ᵑk)
Nasal		n		(ŋ)
Fricative			ɕ	x		h	hʷ	hʲ
Affricate			c͡ɕ
Flap		(ɾ)
Glide			j		w

/ɾ/ is restricted to grammatical morphemes. /ŋ/ only occurs in the suffix -ŋɨ and is only pronounced in careful speech, often nasalizing the preceding vowel instead. /ᵑk/ only occurs in the grammatical forms /aᵑka/ 'REL' and /niᵑka/. /w/ and /j/ have nasal allophones of [w̃] and [ɲ], respectively.

Vowels

	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

Nasality spreads leftward within a word, only affecting glides /w/ and /j/.

Tone

Taushiro has two surface-level tones, high and low. The mora is the tone-bearing unit.

Phonotactics

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.

Morphology

Noun phrases

Pronouns

Three persons and a first person inclusive are distinguished in independent pronouns, which have long forms, used as the core argument in verbs, and short forms, used to complement postpositions. Number is not distinguished for pronouns, with the first person exclusive expressed using the simple first person pronouns.

	long	short
1	úì	ú
1INCL	áì	á
2	íì	í
3	nácɕ͡ò	á

Noun class

Taushiro distinguishes inalienable versus alienable possession, without any other noun classes.

Postpositions

Taushiro utlizes postpositions to indicate non-core arguments into a clause, most of which express spatial relation. Core arguments do not bear case markers.

Selection of Taushiro postpositions
gloss	Taushiro
recipient	-ŋɨ̀
instrumental, comitative	-ha
locative	-kú
locative	-wà
allative	-wɨ̀
illative	-kúʔkɨ̀
ablative	-wẽʔwɨ̀
superessive	-kàné
adessive	-tàkɨ́

Syntax

Word order in Taushiro is verb–subject–object.

References

↑ Taushiro language at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020)
↑ Taushiro at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
1 2 Casey, Nicholas (December 26, 2017). "Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He's the Only One". The New York Times. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
1 2 3 O'Hagan, Zachary (November 17, 2015). Taushiro and the Status of Language Isolates in Northwest Amazonia (PDF). Fieldwork Forum.
↑ Alicea Ortiz, Nectalí (1975). Análisis fonético preliminar del idioma taushiro. Datos Etno-Lingüísticos 23. Lima: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Archived from the original on July 23, 2024.
↑ Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
↑ Moseley, Christopher; Asher, R. E.; Tait, Mary (1994), Atlas of the world's languages, London; New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-01925-5
↑ Kaufman, Terrence (2007). "South America". In Asher, R. E.; Moseley, Christopher (eds.). Atlas of the World's Languages (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 59–94. ISBN 978-0-415-31074-1.
↑ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
↑ Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Taushiro". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.
↑ Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2012). The languages of the Amazon. Oxford linguistics (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959356-9.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 O’Hagan, Zachary (January 16, 2023), "22 Taushiro", in Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev (eds.), Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré, De Gruyter, pp. 995–1028, doi:10.1515/9783110432732-009, ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2, retrieved February 1, 2026
↑ Alicea Ortiz, Nectalí (2008) [1975]. Análisis preliminar de la gramática del idioma Taushiro. Datos Etno-Lingüísticos. Vol. 24. Lima: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

[1] Taushiro language at Ethnologue (23rd ed., 2020)

[e25-2] Taushiro at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[Casey2017-3] 1 2 Casey, Nicholas (December 26, 2017). "Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He's the Only One". The New York Times. Retrieved December 26, 2017.

[:2-4] 1 2 3 O'Hagan, Zachary (November 17, 2015). Taushiro and the Status of Language Isolates in Northwest Amazonia (PDF). Fieldwork Forum.

[5] Alicea Ortiz, Nectalí (1975). Análisis fonético preliminar del idioma taushiro. Datos Etno-Lingüísticos 23. Lima: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano. Archived from the original on July 23, 2024.

[Loukotka-6] Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.

[7] Moseley, Christopher; Asher, R. E.; Tait, Mary (1994), Atlas of the world's languages, London; New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-01925-5

[8] Kaufman, Terrence (2007). "South America". In Asher, R. E.; Moseley, Christopher (eds.). Atlas of the World's Languages (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 59–94. ISBN 978-0-415-31074-1.

[Jolkesky-2016-9] Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.

[10] Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Taushiro". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.

[11] Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. (2012). The languages of the Amazon. Oxford linguistics (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959356-9.

[:0-12] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 O’Hagan, Zachary (January 16, 2023), "22 Taushiro", in Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev (eds.), Language Isolates II: Kanoé to Yurakaré, De Gruyter, pp. 995–1028, doi:10.1515/9783110432732-009, ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2, retrieved February 1, 2026

[:1-13] Alicea Ortiz, Nectalí (2008) [1975]. Análisis preliminar de la gramática del idioma Taushiro. Datos Etno-Lingüísticos. Vol. 24. Lima: Summer Institute of Linguistics.