Native speakers 340 (2010) Glottolog para1310 | Ethnicity Arara people ISO 639-3 aap | |
Language family CaribanPekodianAraraArára | ||
Arára is a Cariban language of Pará, Brazil. It is spoken by the Arara and perhaps other related groups.
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Area
The language is spoken by a people who includes tribes still uncontacted. They live mainly in three villages: Cachoeira Seca, Laranjal and Maia. However, the natives of the latter have switched to Portuguese, while 85 speakers still remain in Cachoeira Seca and 250 in Laranjal.
Animal talk
Linguist Isaac Costa de Souza studied the language and concluded some words were modified when used to talk to different animals. The table below shows some modified words used when speaking to a capuchin monkey.
Different modifications are used according to the species of animal being addressed. The word ikpa, for example, might be modified as tɔkpa when addressing a dog, or as ĩkpã when addressing a howler monkey. Specific modifications may be used when talking to woodpeckers, tortoises, and coatis, among other animals.