Verbs in Uchumataqu

Abstract

"Uchumataqu is the by now almost extinct language of the Uru people of Iruitu, a community along the Desaguadero river, which runs from Lake Titicaca into the Bolivian altiplano, the high plateau stretching from La Paz to Oruro and beyond.2 Together with its sister language Chipaya, it forms the small Uru or Uru-Chipaya language family. The language has never been described very well, and when Muysken visited the community in 2000 and 2001 it was too late: only knowledge of words and fixed phrases remains, except for one speaker, who learned the language from her grandmother and could speak it haltingly. That speaker passed away in 2004. From the archival sources and the published earlier materials it is clear that Iruitu was never a large community; speaker numbers may never have been higher than 100 or so"