Yuracaré language

Yuracaré
Yuracaré
Yurakaré, Yurakar, Yuracare, Yurucare, Yuracar, Yurakare, Yurujuré, Yurújare
Yurújare
Pronunciation	[juˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e]
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Cochabamba Department
Ethnicity	3,394 Yuracaré people (2012) (INE Census)
Native speakers	900 (2025)
Language family	Language isolate
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yuz
Glottolog	yura1255
ELP	Yuracaré

Yuracaré (also Yurakaré, Yurakar, Yuracare, Yurucare, Yuracar, Yurakare, Yurujuré, Yurújare) is an endangered language isolate of central Bolivia in Cochabamba and Beni departments spoken by the Yuracaré people.

Speakers refer to their own language as Yurújare [juˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e].^: 1323

Distribution

There are 2,000–3,000 Yurakaré speakers in the upper Mamoré River valley of eastern Bolivia. They live along the Chapare and Ichilo Rivers in Cochabamba Department, as well as along the Isiboro and Sécure Rivers in Isiboro-Sécure National Park.^: 1325

Loukotka (1968) reported that Yuracaré was spoken at the sources of the Sécure River, and on the Chapare River and Chimoré River.

Classification

Suárez (1977) suggests a relationship between Yuracaré and the Mosetenan, Pano–Tacanan, Arawakan, and Chon families. His earlier Macro-Panoan proposal is the same minus Arawakan (Suárez 1969).

Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with the Moseten-Tsimane languages.

Dialects

Two dialects, now extinct, were:

Western - Mansiño, Oromo
Eastern - Mage, Soloto

Coni, Cuchi, and Enete are possible dialects.

Usage

There are approximately 2,500 speakers. These numbers are in decline as the youngest generation no longer learns the language. (See Language death.)

Documentation

Yuracaré is documented with a grammar based on an old missionary manuscript by de la Cueva. The language is currently being studied by Rik van Gijn. A Foundation for Endangered Languages grant was awarded for a Yuracaré–Spanish / Spanish–Yuracaré dictionary project in 2005.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	t͡ʃ	k	(ʔ)
Plosive/ Affricate	voiced	b	d	dʲ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ		h
Fricative	voiced		ɹ̝
Nasal		m	n	ɲ
Lateral			l
Approximant		w		j

The glottal stop [ʔ] only occurs in intervocalic positions.
/n/ may be pronounced as [ŋ] when preceding /k/.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Open	æ	a

/ɨ/ may also be heard as a front-rounded [y], in free variation among speakers.
Sounds /e, o, a/ may also be heard as [ɛ, ɔ, ɑ] when in closed syllables.

Grammar

Vocabulary

Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.

gloss	Yuracare
one	letha
two	läshie
three	lívui
tooth	sansa
tongue	erume
hand	té-banau
woman	señe
water	záma
fire	áima
moon	shúhui
maize	sil
jaguar	samo
house	siba

References

↑ "La milenaria lengua Yurakaré se resiste a la extincion gracias a un diccionario y a sus 900-hablantes". Elpais.com. Retrieved 21 September 2026.(registration required)
1 2 3 Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume II: Kanoé to Yurakaré. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2.
1 2 3 Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
↑ Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.
↑ Brinton, Daniel G. 1891. The American race. New York: D. C. Hodges.
↑ "Yurakaré". Dobes.mpi.nl. Retrieved September 21, 2026.
↑ Adam 1893.
↑ van Gijn, Erik (2006). A Grammar of Yurakaré. Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

Bibliography

Adam, Lucien (1893). Principes et dictionnaire de la langue Yuracaré ou Yurujuré composés par le R. P. de la Cueva et publiés conformément au manuscrit de A. d'Orbigny. Bibliothèque linguistique américaine (No. 16). Paris: Maisonneuve.
Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The Languages of the Andes. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language History in South America: What We Know and How To Know More. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), Amazonian Linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American languages (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70414-3.
Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The Native Languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), Atlas of the World's Languages (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
Ribera, J.; Rivero, W.; Rocha, A. (1991). Vocabulario yuracaré-castellano, castellano-yuracaré. Trinidad: MISEREOR.
Suárez, Jorge. (1969). Moseten and Pano–Tacanan. Anthropological Linguistics, 11 (9), 255-266.
Suárez, Jorge. (1977). La posición lingüística del pano-tacana y del arahuaco. Anales de Antropología, 14, 243-255.
van Gijn, Rik. (2004). Number in the Yurakaré Noun Phrase. In L. Cornips & J. Doetjes (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2004 (pp. 69–79). Linguistics in the Netherlands (No. 21). John Benjamins.
van Gijn, Rik (2005). Head Marking and Dependent Marking of Grammatical Relations in Yurakaré. In M. Amberber & H. de Hoop (eds.) Competition and Variation in Natural Languages: The Case for Case. (pp. 41–72) Elsevier.
van Gijn, Rik (2006) A Grammar of Yurakaré. Ph.D. dissertation Radboud University Nijmegen. hdl:2066/41440

External links

Proel: Lengua Yurakare
FEL Grants 2005 (Foundation for Endangered Languages)
DoBeS : General presentation of the Yurakaré language and people
Lenguas de Bolivia Archived 2019-09-04 at the Wayback Machine (online edition)
Yurakaré DoReCo corpus compiled by Sonja Gipper and Jeremías Ballivián Torrico. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.

[1] "La milenaria lengua Yurakaré se resiste a la extincion gracias a un diccionario y a sus 900-hablantes". Elpais.com. Retrieved 21 September 2026.(registration required)

[Amazonian_isolates_2-2] 1 2 3 Epps, Patience; Michael, Lev, eds. (2023). Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume II: Kanoé to Yurakaré. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-043273-2.

[Loukotka-3] 1 2 3 Loukotka, Čestmír (1968). Classification of South American Indian languages. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.

[Jolkesky-2016-4] Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2016). Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas (Ph.D. dissertation) (2 ed.). Brasília: University of Brasília.

[Brinton-1891-5] Brinton, Daniel G. 1891. The American race. New York: D. C. Hodges.

[6] "Yurakaré". Dobes.mpi.nl. Retrieved September 21, 2026.

[FOOTNOTEAdam1893-7] Adam 1893.

[8] van Gijn, Erik (2006). A Grammar of Yurakaré. Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

Yuracaré
Yurakaré, Yurakar, Yuracare, Yurucare, Yuracar, Yurakare, Yurujuré, Yurújare
Yurújare
Pronunciation	[juˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e]
Native to	Bolivia
Region	Cochabamba Department
Ethnicity	3,394 Yuracaré people (2012) (INE Census)
Native speakers	900 (2025)
Language family	Language isolate
Official status
Official language in	Bolivia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`yuz`
Glottolog	`yura1255`
ELP	Yuracaré