Taruma language

Taruma
Native to	Guyana, formerly Brazil
Region	South of Aishalton
Native speakers	one family (as of 2009)
Language family	Katembri–Taruma ? Taruma
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tdm
Linguist list	qoi
Glottolog	taru1236

Taruma (Taruamá) is a divergent language of northeastern Brazil. It has been reported to be extinct several times since as far back as 1770, but Eithne Carlin discovered the last speakers, and is documenting the language. It would seem that "Saluma" is the same language.

Taruma is unclassified. It has been proposed to be distantly related to Katembri (Kaufman 1990), but this relationship has not been repeated in recent surveys of South American languages (Campbell & Grondona 2012).

References

• Eithne B. Carlin (2011) "Nested Identities in the Southern Guyana Surinam Corner". In Hornborg & Hill (eds.) Ethnicity in Ancient Amazonia.
• Eithne B. Carlin (2006) "Feeling the Need: The Borrowing of Cariban Functional Categories into Mawayana (Arawak)". In Aikhenvald & Dixon (eds.) Grammars in Contact: A Cross-Linguistic Typology, pp. 313–332. Oxford University Press.