Trumai is an endangered language isolate spoken by the Trumai people of four villages in and near the Xingu Indigenous Park in central Brazil's Upper Xingu River region. Though surrounded by languages of the Tupian, Arawakan, Cariban and Gê stocks, Trumai shows no demonstrable relationship to any of them, and a proposal linking it to Joseph Greenberg's disputed Equatorial-Amerind grouping has been widely rejected. Speaker numbers grew from about 25 in earlier records to roughly 51 fluent speakers by 2006 among an ethnic population of about 120, though transmission to children has become unlikely as Portuguese and regional languages take over.
Facts
RegionSpoken in the Xingu Indigenous Park along the Upper Xingu River in central Brazil. 1 Speaker Count Proto-Language StatusTrumai is an isolated language surrounded by speakers of the Tupi, Arawak, Cariban and Ge language stocks. A widely rejected proposal by Joseph Greenberg placed it in the Equatorial branch of his Amerind grouping. 1 In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Trumai Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead sentence 1
located in the Xingu reserve along the Upper Xingu River in central Brazil
Lead paragraph, final sentence
there are 78 speakers as of 2003
Classification section, sentence 1
Trumai is an isolated language.
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