Tuxá language

Tuxá (Tusha; also Todela ~ Rodela, Carapató, Payacú) was the eastern Brazilian language of the Tuxá people, who now speak Portuguese and Dzubukuá. The language was believed to have ceased being spoken in the late 19th century, but in the 1960s a research team found two women that had been expelled from the Tuxa tribe in Bahia who knew some thirty words.

It was spoken along the São Francisco River near Glória, Bahia, and was reported by Loukotka (1968) to have more recently been in the village of Rodelas, Pernambuco (now part of Bahia).

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.

Tushá vocabulary collected by Antônio Likaro e Cordorina in Rodelas:

In 1961, Wilbur Pickering recorded the following word list in Juazeiro, Bahia from Maria Dias dos Santos. She was an elderly rememberer of Tuxá who was born in Rodelas, but later moved to Juazeiro.

• Meader, R. E. (1978). Indios do nordeste. Levantamento sobre os remanescentes tribais do nordeste brasileiro (PDF). Brasilia: SIL Internacional. (Tuxá wordlist §3.8, p30)
• Fabre, Alain (2005). "Tuxá". Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos (PDF).