Key facts
- Pronunciation
- /ʔàpài̯ˈtʃîːsò/
- Native to
- Brazil
- Region
- Maici River
- Ethnicity
- Pirahã
- Native speakers
- 250–380 (2009)
- Language family
- Mura Pirahã
- Writing system
- Latin
- Iso 639 3
- myp
- Glottolog
- pira1253
- Elp
- Pirahã
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- modern language
- Subclass of
- Mura
- Country
- Brazil
Show 6 more facts
- topic's main category
- Category:Pirahã language
- indigenous to
- Amazonas
- linguistic typology
- language isolate
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 389
- dialect of
- Mura
Sources (9)
via Wikidata · CC0
~27 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Pirahã (also spelled Pirahá, Pirahán), or Múra-Pirahã, is the indigenous language of the Pirahã people of Amazonas, Brazil. The Pirahã live along the Maici River, a tributary of the Amazon River.
Pirahã is the only surviving dialect of the Mura language, all others having died out in the last few centuries as most groups of the Mura people have shifted to Portuguese. Pirahã can therefore be considered its own language now. Suspected relatives, such as Matanawi, are also extinct. Pirahã is estimated to have between 250 and 380 speakers. It is not in immediate danger of extinction, as its use is vigorous and the Pirahã community is mostly monolingual.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Pirahã” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.