{{Short description|Indigenous language of Bolivia}} {{Infobox language | name = Yuracaré | states = Bolivia | region = Cochabamba Department | ethnicity = 3,300 Yuracaré people (2004)<ref name=e18/><br/>3,394 Yuracaré people (2012) (INE Census) | speakers = {{sigfig|2680|2}} | date = 2004 | ref = e18 | familycolor = American | family = Language isolate | nation = {{flag|Bolivia}} | iso3 = yuz | glotto = yura1255 | glottorefname = Yuracaré | altname = Yurakaré, Yurakar, Yuracare, Yurucare, Yuracar, Yurakare, Yurujuré, Yurújare | nativename = {{lang|yuz|Yurújare}} | pronunciation = {{IPA|[juˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e]}} }}

'''Yuracaré''' (also '''Yurakaré''', '''Yurakar''', '''Yuracare''', '''Yurucare''', '''Yuracar''', '''Yurakare''', '''Yurujuré''', '''Yurújare'''<ref name="Amazonian isolates 2"/>) is an endangered language isolate of central Bolivia in Cochabamba and Beni departments spoken by the Yuracaré people.

Speakers refer to their own language as ''Yurújare'' [juˈɹ̟uhaɹ̟e].<ref name="Amazonian isolates 2"/>{{rp|1323}}

==Distribution== There are 2,000–3,000 Yurakaré speakers in the upper Mamoré River valley of eastern Bolivia. They live along the Chapare and Ichilo Rivers in Cochabamba Department, as well as along the Isiboro and Sécure Rivers in Isiboro-Sécure National Park.<ref name="Amazonian isolates 2">{{cite book |editor-last=Epps |editor-first=Patience |editor-last2=Michael |editor-first2=Lev |title=Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume II: Kanoé to Yurakaré |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |date=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-043273-2}}</ref>{{rp|1325}}

Loukotka (1968) reported that Yuracaré was spoken at the sources of the Sécure River, and on the Chapare River and Chimoré River.<ref name="Loukotka">{{cite book |last=Loukotka |first=Čestmír |author-link=Čestmír Loukotka |title=Classification of South American Indian languages |url=https://archive.org/details/classificationof0007louk |url-access=registration |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1968 |location=Los Angeles}}</ref>

==Classification== Suárez (1977) suggests a relationship between Yuracaré and the Mosetenan, Pano–Tacanan, Arawakan, and Chon families. His earlier ''Macro-Panoan'' proposal is the same minus Arawakan (Suárez 1969).

Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with the Moseten-Tsimane languages.<ref name="Jolkesky-2016">{{cite thesis|last=Jolkesky |first=Marcelo Pinho de Valhery |date=2016 |url=http://www.etnolinguistica.org/tese:jolkesky-2016-arqueoecolinguistica |title=Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas |type=Ph.D. dissertation |location=Brasília |publisher=University of Brasília |edition=2}}</ref>

== Dialects == Two dialects, now extinct, were:<ref name="Loukotka"/> *''Western'' - Mansiño, Oromo *''Eastern'' - Mage, Soloto

''Coni'', ''Cuchi'', and ''Enete'' are possible dialects.<ref name="Brinton-1891">Brinton, Daniel G. 1891. ''The American race''. New York: D. C. Hodges.</ref>

==Usage== There are approximately 2,500 speakers. These numbers are in decline as the youngest generation no longer learns the language.<ref>[http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/yurakare Documentation of Endangered Languages].</ref> (See Language death.)

==Documentation== Yuracaré is documented with a grammar based on an old missionary manuscript by de la Cueva.{{Sfn|Adam|1893}} The language is currently being studied by Rik van Gijn. A Foundation for Endangered Languages grant was awarded for a Yuracaré–Spanish / Spanish–Yuracaré dictionary project in 2005.

==Phonology== === Consonants === {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" ! colspan="2" | !Labial !Alveolar !Palatal !Velar !Glottal |- ! rowspan="2" |Plosive/<br>Affricate !<small>voiceless</small> |{{IPAlink|p}} |{{IPAlink|t}} |{{IPAlink|t͡ʃ}} |{{IPAlink|k}} |({{IPAlink|ʔ}}) |- !<small>voiced</small> |{{IPAlink|b}} |{{IPAlink|d}} |{{IPAlink|dʲ}} | | |- ! rowspan="2" |Fricative !<small>voiceless</small> | |{{IPAlink|s}} |{{IPAlink|ʃ}} | |{{IPAlink|h}} |- !<small>voiced</small> | |{{IPA link|ɹ̝}} | | | |- ! colspan="2" |Nasal |{{IPAlink|m}} |{{IPAlink|n}} |{{IPAlink|ɲ}} | | |- ! colspan="2" |Lateral | |{{IPAlink|l}} | | | |- ! colspan="2" |Approximant |{{IPAlink|w}} | |{{IPAlink|j}} | | |}

*The glottal stop [ʔ] only occurs in intervocalic positions. */n/ may be pronounced as [ŋ] when preceding /k/.

=== Vowels ===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" ! !Front !Central !Back |- !Close |{{IPAlink|i}} |{{IPAlink|ɨ}} |{{IPAlink|u}} |- !Mid |{{IPAlink|e}} | |{{IPA link|o}} |- !Open |{{IPAlink|æ}} |{{IPAlink|a}} | |}

* /ɨ/ may also be heard as a front-rounded [y], in free variation among speakers. * Sounds /e, o, a/ may also be heard as [ɛ, ɔ, ɑ] when in closed syllables.<ref>{{Cite book |last=van Gijn |first=Erik |title=A Grammar of Yurakaré |publisher=Nijmegen: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen |year=2006}}</ref>

==Grammar== {{Expand section|date=April 2025}} * Verb-initial * agglutinating * prefixes, suffixes * reduplication

==Vocabulary== Loukotka (1968) lists the following basic vocabulary items.<ref name="Loukotka"/>

:{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Yuracare |- | one || letha |- | two || läshie |- | three || lívui |- | tooth || sansa |- | tongue || erume |- | hand || té-banau |- | woman || señe |- | water || záma |- | fire || áima |- | moon || shúhui |- | maize || sil |- | jaguar || samo |- | house || siba |}

==See also== * Yuracaré

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==Bibliography== * {{Cite book |last=Adam |first=Lucien |url=https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11646443?page=,1 |title=Principes et dictionnaire de la langue Yuracaré ou Yurujuré composés par le R. P. de la Cueva et publiés conformément au manuscrit de A. d'Orbigny |date=1893 |publisher=Maisonneuve |series=Bibliothèque linguistique américaine (No. 16). |location=Paris}} * Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The Languages of the Andes''. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge University Press. * Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-509427-1}}. * Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language History in South America: What We Know and How To Know More. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), ''Amazonian Linguistics: Studies in Lowland South American languages'' (pp.&nbsp;13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. {{ISBN|0-292-70414-3}}. * Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The Native Languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the World's Languages'' (pp.&nbsp;46–76). London: Routledge. *Ribera, J.; Rivero, W.; Rocha, A. (1991). Vocabulario yuracaré-castellano, castellano-yuracaré. Trinidad: MISEREOR. * Suárez, Jorge. (1969). Moseten and Pano–Tacanan. ''Anthropological Linguistics'', ''11'' (9), 255-266. * Suárez, Jorge. (1977). La posición lingüística del pano-tacana y del arahuaco. ''Anales de Antropología'', ''14'', 243-255. * van Gijn, Rik. (2004). Number in the Yurakaré Noun Phrase. In L. Cornips & J. Doetjes (Eds.), ''Linguistics in the Netherlands 2004'' (pp.&nbsp;69–79). Linguistics in the Netherlands (No. 21). John Benjamins. * van Gijn, Rik (2005). Head Marking and Dependent Marking of Grammatical Relations in Yurakaré. In M. Amberber & H. de Hoop (eds.) Competition and Variation in Natural Languages: The Case for Case. (pp.&nbsp;41–72) Elsevier. * van Gijn, Rik (2006) A Grammar of Yurakaré. Ph.D. dissertation Radboud University Nijmegen. {{hdl|2066/41440|hdl-access=free}}

==External links== {{sister project |project=wiktionary |text=Wiktionary has a word list at '''''Appendix:Yuracaré word list'''''}} * Proel: [http://www.proel.org/mundo/yurakare.htm Lengua Yurakare] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20051223070238/http://www.ogmios.org/261.htm FEL Grants 2005] (Foundation for Endangered Languages) * DoBeS : [http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES/projects/yurakare General presentation of the Yurakaré language and people] * [http://www.ru.nl/lenguasdebolivia/ Lenguas de Bolivia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904080403/http://www.ru.nl/lenguasdebolivia/ |date=2019-09-04 }} (online edition) * [https://doreco.huma-num.fr/languages/yura1255 Yurakaré DoReCo corpus] compiled by Sonja Gipper and Jeremías Ballivián Torrico. Audio recordings of narrative texts, with transcriptions time-aligned at the phone level and translations.

{{Languages of Bolivia}} {{language families}} {{South American languages}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yuracare language}} Category:Language isolates of South America Category:Indigenous languages of the South American Southern Foothills Category:Languages of Bolivia Category:Endangered language isolates Category:Endangered Indigenous languages of the Americas Category:Mamoré–Guaporé linguistic area