Aruá language (Rondônia)

Aruá
Native to	Brazil
Region	Rondônia, Mato Grosso
Ethnicity	121 Aruá (2020)[1]
Native speakers	5 (2014)[2]
Language family	Tupian Monde Aruá
Dialects	Aruáshi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	arx
Glottolog	arua1261
ELP	Aruá
Aruáshi is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
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Aruá is a nearly extinct Tupian language of the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, in the Amazon region of Brazil. There were 121 Aruá in 2020 and 5 people who speak Aruá as a maternal language.

Linguistic features

• Consonants: Aruá exhibits a typical Tupian consonant inventory, including stops (/p/, /t/, /k/), nasals (/m/, /n/), and glides (/w/, /j/)
• Vowels: A five-vowel system (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) with nasalization contrasts.
• Morphology: Agglutinative structure with extensive verb serialization. Example: kõjã-pit ("to walk-while-talking").
• Syntax: Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) word order, common in Tupian languages.^[3]

References

1. "Aruá - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
2. Moore, Denny; Meyer, Julien (December 2014). The Study of tone and related phenomena in an Amazonian tone language: Gavião of Rondônia. University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-9856211-2-4.
3. Fabre, Alain (2005). "Diccionario etnolingüístico y guía bibliográfica de los pueblos indígenas sudamericanos. TUPI" (PDF). University of Helsinki, Ling.fi. Retrieved 2025-06-02.