*** Welcome to piglix ***

Kwaza language

Kwaza
Koaiá
Native to Brazil
Region Rondônia
Ethnicity 40 Kwazá (2010?)
Native speakers
7 (2010)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog kwaz1243
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.

Kwaza (also written Kwazá or Koaiá) is an endangered language spoken by the Kwaza people of Brazil. Like many other languages in the area, it is an unclassified language, but there are hypothesized long-distance genetic relationships.

Little is known about Kwaza people and language due to the minimal historical sources available; if mentioned in reliable documents, it is usually in reference to its neighbors. What is known, is that the Kwaza people were at one point a fierce nation of a few thousands persons, which could be subdivided into various groups.

As of 2005 there were only 25 known speakers who make up two ethnically mixed families. They live South of the original habitat on the Indian reserve Tubarão-Latundê and speak Kwaza on a day-to-day basis. Most of the speakers are trilingual in Aikanã and Portuguese

Due to the extremely limited documentation, combined with the semi-nomadic lifestyles of the Kwaza speakers and the lack of permanent settlements from a slash and burn agriculture, the historical location of the people is largely unknown. In addition, disease brought by Western contact and the imposed culture actively worked to destroy the local materials and societies. However, according to oral tradition and sporadic instances of documentation, the Kwaza lived along the São Pedro and Taboca rivers in addition to along the headwaters of the Pimenta Bueno River.

In the modern day, speakers live on the indigenous reserve of Tubarão - Latundě. This lies on the headwaters of Apediá or Pimento Bueno River, in the southeast of the federal Brazilian state of Rondônia. Rondônia is part of the Guaporé region, the most diverse linguistic region of South America. Over 40 indigenous languages can be found here, including 8 unique macro-families, and possibly 10 isolates. Kwaza is therefore set in extreme linguistic diversity. However, like Kwaza, most of the languages here are endangered with extinction and are poorly documented.

The most prominent neighbors of Akainã people groups lived along Tanaru tributary, 20 km South, but all the tribes in the area formed alliances across linguistic borders. The first contact with Euro-Americans is hypothesized to have been around the mid 16th century from Spanish expeditions. The middle of the 17th century offered Jesuit missionaries in Northeast Bolivia. A relationship of avoidance developed between Portuguese and Natives, flaring to hostility in cases of contact. The 19th century rubber boom caused non-Indians to settle permanently in Rondônia, and the posture of avoidance and indifference turned into one of enslavement for the Kwaza people. The effects of this are seen in the turn of the language towards the Euro-Americans. Increased contact also caused detrimental epidemics among the indigenous populations. Occasionally the native groups believed the cause of the epidemics were instigated by sorcery of other tribes, which caused violent clashes between the groups and further dwindled numbers to the extreme. When the highway B-364 opened, impoverished Brazilians, logging companies, and cattle ranchers infiltrated the area and force the indigenous people off the best lands and onto reserves, further encouraging them to let go of their native language. By 2004, the indigenous population barely hits 5,000 out of a total population of 1.5 million.


...
Wikipedia

...