Native to Colombia, Ecuador ISO 639-3 kwi | Native speakers 13,000 (2008) Glottolog awac1239 | |
Ethnicity 15,000 Awa-Kwaiker (2007) Language family Barbacoan
Awan
Cuaiquer | ||
Awa or Awa pit, also known as Cuaiquer, is a Barbacoan language spoken by the Awa-Kwaiker people, who inhabit territory straddling northern Ecuador and southern Colombia (the language is sometimes also referred to as Coaiquer, Quaiquer, or Kwaiker in Colombia, and as Awapit in Ecuador). Awa pit is classified by UNESCO as a severely endangered language.
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Speakers and characteristics
The Awa pit language has around 21 thousand speakers, mostly residing on the Colombian Pacific slopes of the Andes, with about a thousand in an adjacent area of Ecuador. While most men also speak Spanish, the women and children are predominantly monolingual. Literacy among Awa speakers is less than 1% in their native language and under 5% in the secondary Spanish language.
The Awa pit language has a subject–object–verb structure and has adopted the Latin script. Grammatically, Awa pit uses a characteristic conjunct/disjunct system of verb suffixes for person-marking which displays similarities with some Tibeto-Burman languages, such as the Newari language of Kathmandu.
Phonology
The Awa pit inventory is as follows: