Ticuna language

From Freepedia

Ticuna is a language spoken by approximately 21,000 people in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia. It is the native language of the Ticuna people. Ticuna is classified as a language isolate.

Ticuna is also known as Magta, Tikuna, Tucuna, Tukna, and Tukuna.

Sociolinguistic situation

In spite of its few speakers, Tikunas (in Brazil at least) have got a written literature and an education provided by the Brazilian National Foundation for the Indian (FUNAI). Textbooks in Tikuna are used to teach the language to the Tikuna children and their myths and legends have been written down.

The language used in the Tikuna books provided by the Brazilian government has been provided with a writing system that uses conventions similar to those found in Brazilian Portuguese (except for K instead of C and the letter Ñ instead of NH).

Linguistic structure

Ticuna is a fairly isolating language morphologically, meaning that most words consist of just one morpheme. The language is tonal.

External links

• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, translated into Ticuna