| Also Known As: Chiripuno,Chiripunu
Description:
Arabela is an indigenous American language of the Zaparoan family spoken in two Peruvian villages in tropical forest along the Napo tributary of the Arabela river.
Also known as Chiripuno and Chiripunu, it is spoken by about 50 people out of an ethnic population of about 500. However, some of the speakers have a passive understanding of Arabela, but do not speak it. Due to the very low number of speakers, it is classified as a seriously endangered language.
Since there are so few speakers of Arabela left, its speakers speak either Spanish or Quechua as a second language. The literacy rate for Arabela as a first language is about 10-30%, and about 50-75% for a second language. It uses a SVO order (SVO) order, a very common word order, used in English, Albanian, Chinese, Spanish, and Xhosa.
Like all native languages in Peru it has an official statut in areas where it is spoken.
Arabela is a language of the zaparoan family of languages. Zaparoan tongues were once widely spoken in the rain forest of north-eastern Peru. Zaparoan speaking people have been decimated by diseases, wars with neighboring native groups and by quasi-enslavement during the rubber boom. Most zaparoan communities..... full article at Wikipedia |
