- Cashinahua
language
name=Cashinahua
nativename=
states=Perú ,Brazil
speakers=2,000 (2003, Ethnologue)
familycolor=American
fam2=Panoan
fam3=Southestern
iso2=cbs|iso3=cbsCashinahua, also spelled "Kaxinawá, Kaxynawa, Caxinawa, and Caxinawá", is an American indigenous language spoken by a few thousand of the 5,000-strong aboriginal Cashinahua people of western South America.
About five to ten percent of Cashinahua speakers have some Spanish language proficiency. Forty percent are literate and twenty to thirty percent are literate in second language Spanish.
The language is spoken by 1,600 people in Perú along the Curanja and Purus rivers; and in Brazil by 400 people in the state of Acre.
Language development
A Cashinahua dictionary has been compiled and published since 1980. Generatives are come before nouns. Articles and adjectives are placed after nouns. Cashinahua uses a distinct interrogative punctuation mark, different from the question mark. There are seven prefixes and five suffixes. Roman script is used.
References
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cbs Ethnologue]
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