Otuke language

Otuke (Otuque, Otuqui) is an extinct language of the Macro-Jê family, related to Bororo. Otuke territory included what is now the Otuquis National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area in eastern Bolivia. It is only known from a wordlist recorded in 1831. The Kovareka (Covareca) and Kuruminaka (Curuminaca) languages, both extinct and poorly known, were close to Otuke, and have sometimes been considered dialects.^[2]

Otuke
Otuque
Native to	Brazil, Bolivia
Region	Mato Grosso; Santa Cruz
Ethnicity	Otuke
Extinct	c. 1920s[1]
Language family	Macro-Jê Bororoan Otuke–Covareca–Kuruminaka Otuke
Language codes
ISO 639-3	otu
Glottolog	otuk1240

Locations of the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos with present international borders

Etymology

Combès (2012) suggests that -toki ~ -tuki ~ -tuke (also present in the ethynonym Gorgotoqui) is likely related to the Bororo animate plural suffix -doge (i.e., used to form plural nouns for ethnic groups). Hence, the name Otuqui (Otuke) was likely etymologically related to the name Gorgotoqui.^[3]

Varieties

Loukotka (1968)

Several attested extinct Bororoan varieties were either dialects of Otuke or closely related:^[4]

• Covareca - Santa Ana mission, Bolivia
• Curuminaca - Casalvasco mission, Bolivia
• Coraveca (Curave, Ecorabe) - Santo Corazón mission, Bolivia (unattested)
• Curucaneca (Curucane, Carruacane) - San Rafael mission, Bolivia (unattested)
• Tapii - Santiago de Chiquitos mission, Bolivia (possibly Zamucoan)^[5]

Chiquitano speakers also lived in many of the missions.^[4] All of the peoples listed above switched to Chiquitano by the 19th century.^[6]

(See Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos for locations.)

Mason (1950) says the first four are "separate and very different", but Loukotka (1968) notes that nothing is known of Curave or Curucane (or of Tapii), that only 14 words of Curumina and 19 of Covare have been preserved.^[4]

Mason (1950)

Mason (1950) lists the following varieties of Otuke:^[5]

Otuke

• Otuké
• Covareca
• Curuminaca
• Coraveca (?); Curavé (?)
• Curucaneca (?)
• Tapii (?)

Mason (1950) notes that Tapii may have been either Otukean or Zamucoan.

Grammar

The suffix -ra is found in body part names. Similarly, the suffix -ka is found on words for round fruits.^[7]

Further reading

• de Créqui-Montfort, Georges and Paul Rivet. 1912. Linguistique Bolivienne: Le groupe Otuké. Journal de la Société des Américanistes IX: 317–352.
• de Créqui-Montfort, Georges and Paul Rivet. 1913. Linguistique Bolivienne: Les affinités des dialectes Otuké. Journal de la Société des Américanistes X: 369–377.
• Mulder, Sophie. 2024. Otuke: reviewing the only remaining data on an extinct Bolivian language. Master's thesis, Leiden University. https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3763735