Pankararú language
extinct language of eastern Brazil
Pankararú (Pancaré, Pankaré, Pancaru, Pankaruru, Pankarará, Pankaravu, Pankaroru, Pankarú, Brancararu) is an extinct language, probably a language isolate, of eastern Brazil. There are 6,000 ethnic Pankararú, but they all speak Portuguese. In 1961, only two elders could remember anything of the language. Today, they live in Brejo dos Padres and other villages of Tacaratu, Pernambuco State. The language was originally spoken between the Moxotó River and the Pajeú River.
In the 19th century the people split into multiple ethnic groups, including the Pankararú and the Pankararé. One quarter of the Pankararé retain their traditional religion. Their language, however, is unattested, and can only be assumed to be a dialect of Pankararu. According to Meader (1978), the Pankararu regarded themselves as belonging to the "Macarú" nation.
Classification
Pankararú has no proven relatives and remains unclassified.
“Pankararú language” enters the record as extinct language of eastern Brazil. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pankararú, language and extinct can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pankararú language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.