Tukano

Facts

  • Language: Tukano
  • Alternate names: Tucano, Tukána, Tukana, Takuna, Daxsea, Dasea, Ye'pâ-masa,
  • Language code: tuo
  • Language family: Tucanoan, Eastern Tucanoan, Tucano (SIL classification)
  • Number of speakers: 13,996
  • Vulnerability: Vulnerable
  • Script: Latin script.

More information:

    Tukano is a widely-spoken lingua franca in the region. It is difficult to get an accurate count of speakers; sources vary considerably for this, and it is difficult to get figures for the speakers in Colombia. Confusion seems to come from the fact that many use Tukano as a second language, and some counts lump all speakers of all Tukanoan languages together under the label "Tukano". Socioambiental (2014) has population numbers: 6241 (Dsei/Foirn, 2005) in Brazil, 6,330 (1988) in Colombia (and 11 (INE, 2001) in Venezuela), but seems to be including ALL Tukanoan languages in that – Crevels' (2012) numbers may be complicated by this. In Colombia, the "Informe preliminar: auto-diagnostico sociolingüístico de la lengua tucano" (2009, done for the Ministry of Culture) identified 1,460 speakers of Tukano from an ethnic population of about 2104.