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Nukak-Kakwa languages

South American Language Families

Nukak-Kakwa is a small, closely related pair of indigenous languages of Colombia, Nukak and Kakwa, also called Cacua, spoken by hunter-gatherer communities in the Amazonian lowlands. The two are close enough that some linguists treat Kakwa as a dialect of Nukak rather than a separate language. Their wider relationships are unresolved: researchers going back to Paul Rivet in 1920 have proposed linking Nukak-Kakwa with the Puinave language and with the Nadahup languages in a broader Puinave-Maku family, but the connection remains a hypothesis rather than an established classification.

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