Abstract
In this article, we present the last surviving Amazonian indigenous languages after more than four centuries of colonization in the Brazilian Amazonia. To expand the study, we divided the languages into five categories: living, extinct, dead, weakened and revitalized. The methodologies used were the quali-quanti approach and ethnographic and descriptive research. The techniques employed were meta-research with a focus on bibliographic data and field study. The study found that of the 495 indigenous languages of the Brazilian Amazonia, only 27 still survive and are spoken fluently, 265 have become extinct, 3 are dead and have only written records, 195 are weakened and are spoken by people over 40 and 5 have been revitalized and reintroduced into the practice of interaction and communication in the linguistic community.
Supplementary materials
Title
Amazonia: the last surviving Amazonian indigenous languages
Description
In this article, we present the last surviving Amazonian indigenous languages after more than four centuries of
colonization in Brazilian Amazonia. To expand the study, we divided the languages into five categories: alive,
extinct, dead, weakened and revitalized. The methodologies used were the quali-quanti approach and ethnographic
and descriptive research. The techniques employed were meta-research with a focus on bibliographic data and
field study. The study found that of the 495 indigenous languages of Brazilian Amazonia, only 27 still survive and
are spoken fluently, 265 have become extinct, 3 are dead and have only written records, 195 are weakened and are
spoken by people over 40 and 5 have been revitalized and reintroduced into the practice of interaction and
communication in the linguistic community.
Actions