Catuquinaru language

Not to be confused with Catuquina language.

Catuquinaru or Catuquinarú is the extinct and unclassified language of the Catuquinaru tribe of Brazil, preserved in a few words collected by Jose Bach and published by G. E. Church in 1898. The name is a common derivative of Catuquina. Loukotka, among others,^[1] includes it among the Tupi languages, describing the people as Tupinized Catuquina. However, the little preserved vocabulary does not resemble that of the Tupi languages, Catuquinan languages, or Panoan languages (compare Panoan Catuquina).

Catuquinarú
Catuquinaru-Bach
Native to	Brazil
Region	Amazonas
Ethnicity	Catuquinaru
Era	attested 1890s
Language family	unclassified (Tupi?)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)
Glottolog	catu1242

Vocabulary

The following words are given by Loukotka:

taka-su 'head'

saña 'tooth'

punü 'hand'

uhehü 'water'

Bach reported that the Catuquinaru used a coded version of their language to communicate over distances of up to 1.5 km via drums called cambarysus.^[2][3]