The Kakwa or Cacua language is an endangered language^[2] spoken by a little over a hundred people in North Western South America, particularly Colombia and Brazil.^[2] Use of the language has been described as "vigorous"^[2] by Ethnologue.

Overview[link]

The language is spoken by indigenous American Cacua people that live in Colombian and Brazilian^[3] interfluvial tropical forests higher than 200 metres (660 ft) in elevation. The people have traditional livelihoods such as nomadic hunting-gathering and swidden agriculture.^[2] 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.^[4]

Literacy[link]

Reports gathered by SIL in 1982 stated that many speakers are monolingual, particularly children, which is considered a positive trait for linguistic survivability.^[2] 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.^[2]

Range[link]

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.^[2] (In Spanish: Departamento del Vaupés).

Grammar, literature, orthography[link]

The language uses both the subject-object-verb and object-verb-subject grammatical constructs in speech.^[2]

In 1975, Bible portions were translated into the written form of this language, providing a basis of literature, although not native literature.^[2] By 2008 the Bible had been completely translated, but as most Kakwa speakers are illiterate it was recorded into audio in its entirety.^[5]

Cacua uses a variation of the Latin alphabet.^[2]

Sample text in Cacua[link]

Ded pah jwiít jwĩ jwíih cãac cha pahatji naáwát^[6]

Related languages[link]

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.^[2]

There are two dialects: Vaupés Cacua and Macú-Paraná Cacua.

Cacua is mutually intelligible with Nukak,^[2] 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.^[2]

External links[link]

• Kakwa language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
• Entry for Cacua at Rosetta Project
• Global Recordings - Cacua audio recordings

Notes[link]

1. ^ Kakwa at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Ethnologue, report for Cacua, 1973-1999
3. ^ Cacua entry, Global Recordings
4. ^ Bogota Explosion!, Kids Ministry International
5. ^ Recording the New Testament in the Cacua Language, Faith Comes by Hearing, 2008
6. ^ (Cacua) Ded pah jwiít jwĩ jw...‭ 1997, Ethnologue