| Kakwa | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Colombia: Vaupes Brazil: Amazonas |
| Region | South American Northwest |
| Native speakers | unknown (150 cited 1982) |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Latin |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cbv |
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Location of Vaupes Department in Colombia
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The Kakwa or Cacua language is an endangered language[1] spoken by a little over a hundred people in North Western South America, particularly Colombia and Brazil.[1] Use of the language has been described as "vigorous"[1] by Ethnologue.
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The language is spoken by indigenous American Cacua people that live in Colombian and Brazilian[2] interfluvial tropical forests higher than 200 metres (660 ft) in elevation. The people have traditional livelihoods such as nomadic hunting-gathering and swidden agriculture.[1] There are some non-native speakers of Cacua that are predominantly missionary workers. Their presence has resulted in the translation of religious Christian texts, notably the Christian Bible.[3]
Reports gathered by SIL in 1982 stated that many speakers are monolingual, particularly children, which is considered a positive trait for linguistic survivability.[1] Another promising aspect is that even though literacy is low by international standards, literacy is higher in the aboriginal language at around 10%, unlike most indigenous languages of the Americas,. This compares to a literacy rate of under 5% in Spanish, the dominant national language of Colombia.[1]
The speakers are located in Wacara (In Cacua: Wacará) which is 30 kilometres (19 mi) from Mitu (In Cacua and Spanish: Mitú) in the lower Vaupes Region.[1] (In Spanish: Departamento del Vaupés).
The language uses both the subject-object-verb and object-verb-subject grammatical constructs in speech.[1]
In 1975, Bible portions were translated into the written form of this language, providing a basis of literature, although not native literature.[1] By 2008 the Bible had been completely translated, but as most Kakwa speakers are illiterate it was recorded into audio in its entirety.[4]
Cacua uses a variation of the Latin alphabet.[1]
Ded pah jwiít jwĩ jwíih cãac cha pahatji naáwát[5]
Some speakers are reported to be bilingual by Ethnologue in the Cubeo, Desano, and Guanano languages, but not Spanish, which seemingly contradicts the fact that about 5% were reported to be literate in that language. It may be inferred that Spanish is only used as a literary language.[1]
There are two dialects: Vaupés Cacua and Macú-Paraná Cacua.
Cacua is mutually intelligible with Nukak,[1] and is considered a dialect of the latter by Martins (1999).
Other names for this language include: Macu de Cubeo, Macu de Guanano, Macu de Desano, Báda, and Kákwa.[1]