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Resigaro is an Arawakan language that is spoken by the Arawak people of Peru. Due to the exploitation of the Resigaro people in the 1930s, the language has become endangered; with only 1 fluent speaker left in the world, living in Northeastern Peru. The Resigaro language could also be called Resigero but, is mostly known as Resigaro. It originated in southeastern Colombia in between the Putumayo River and the Caqueta River. The language is considered to be related to the Bora, Huitoto, and Ocaina languages.

Arawakan Language Family History
There are around 59 to 89 languages in the Arawakan language family; some of them include Caquinte, Wapishana, Yanesha, Yine, Achagua, and Resigaro. These languages are spoken in countries in South America like Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela and are spoken in the Bahamas, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, French Guiana and Nicaragua. The Amazon basin is most likely the home of Proto-Arawakan and is where people of more than 300 languages live. Language contact in the Arawakan language family has been ongoing and is very varied. Arawakan languages have had a strong influence on many different languages around the world; many other languages have influenced Arawakan languages as well. Unfortunately, ancient Arawakan languages have no written documents.

The People of the Center
The Resigaro people are known to be part of “The People of the Center,” which includes people who speak Bora, Muinane, Ocaina, Nonuya, Andoke, and Witoto. Their traditional territory was in between the Putumayo and Caqueta rivers. Out of all the groups, the Resigaros had the smallest population with an estimate of only 1,000, compared to the estimate of the other groups of 10,000 and 15,000, in 1909.The groups of people would celebrate their traditional festivals together, where they would sing songs and tell stories in each of their own languages.

The People of the Center have 14 festivals and are a way to build inter-community social networks. Out of the 14, Resigaro shares 10 festival types with the other groups; New house festival, Fruits festival, “Turtle” festival, “Carijona” festival, Palmfruit drink festival, Festival for a newborn, Dancing beam festival 1 and 2, Baptism festival, and “Heron” festival. Each group had a different song in their own language, for each festival. For example, at the dancing beam festival 1, the Boras’ song is called llaaríwa, the Resigaros’ is allí, Ocaina’s is sayíbica, Nonuya’s is dzayi’bejo’a and the Huitoto’s is lladiko.

Tobacco paste is an important item for the People for the Center. They consume this paste by licking it and mix it with cocoa powder. They not only use this for everyday life but also use it in ritual occasions. Another important item that is also an important symbol for the people, is an axe. The social reproduction between the groups relies on the axe because it is used in hunting, gathering and slash-and-burn agriculture. Their survival is dependent on these activities.

Endangerment of Resigaro
In the 1930s, the Peruvian rubber trading company, Casa Arana, exploited the Resigaros and enslaved them which led to a decline in their population and disrupted their traditions. They also took Ocainas, Boras, and Witotos. Today, there is only 1 fluent Resigaro speaker left, living in Nueva Esperanza; an Ocaina village in Northeastern Peru. His name is Pablo Andrade and has been the last Resigaro speaker ever since his sister, Rosa Andrade, died in 2016. They were both bilingual in Ocaina and Resigaro and also knew how to speak some Bora.

Relationship between Resigaro and Bora
The Resigaros and the Boras had a close relationship. Not only were they neighbors, but intermarriage between the two groups was popular. They have similar physical features as well as some similar lifestyle practices like rubbing sand on their skin as a way to clean themselves. Many Resigaro speakers used Bora and Resigaro regularly due to their close contact with each other. However, there is no proof that the Boras also speak Resigaro fluently. The influence of Bora on Resigaro was mainly due to the bilingualism between the Resigaro people.

Resigaro and Bora are related based on cognate words. 5% of Resigaro’s vocab comes from Bora and more than half of these are culturally important terms. Resigaro borrows many characteristics from the Bora language. It borrows grammatical morphemes like case and number markers and pronouns and borrows most of its classifiers from Bora. This borrowing causes a structural similarity between the two languages. However, this borrowing also led to Resigaro losing its split intransitivity in the 1900s. In the current version of the language, the absolutive marker in certain words, is replaced with a preposed pronoun or prefix. For example, from the 1920s to the 30s, “Tsa-mi kamā-gi” is what people would say when they wanted to express the phrase “he was drunk.” In today’s Resigaro, people would say Tsa-mi kamú or Gi-kamú to express that same phrase. This makes Resigaro a nominative-accusative alignment language.

Other Arawakan Languages
Although related, Resigaro sounds completely different from the Ocaina and Huitoto (Witoto) languages. Between Huitoto and Resigaro and Ocaina and Resigaro, there are only a few similar cognates found. Since all these languages are considered to be related, they are all classified as Arawakan. Along with the languages, Baniwa/ Kurripako and Tariana, Resigaro has classifiers in multiple functions. In total, Resigaro has 56 classifiers; 9 of them are from Arawakan origin while the rest are borrowed. 1 of the 56 classifiers is a reflex (a word or sound that is derived from an older linguistic system/element) of a Proto-Arawak marker that is nonfeminine. The classifier -gí means “human male and all nonhuman animates.” Resigaro also shares the reflexive suffix, -vu, with other Arawakan languages. In the language Waura and Parecis, the suffix –vu coincides with –wi, in Terena it’s -vo, and in Palicur, -vu corresponds with –wa.

Grammar & Morphology
Resigaro’s grammatical structure, like basic clause structure, the expression of objects, and subject prefixes on words, is also from Arawakan origin. Resigaro also inherited obligatory objects and fixed word order from the Arawakan language while it borrowed demonstrative pronouns, numerals, and the formation of nouns from the Bora language.

When it comes to morphology, Resigaro borrowed things like plural and dual markers, dual free pronouns, and dative case with the verb “give” from Bora and inherited most free pronouns, verbal tense-aspect-mood markers and subject/possessor prefixes from Arawak. There is one morphological valency-increasing device in this language and it is the causative marker -(o)ta ~ -(o)tu. There are 4 processes that are associated with causative marking. The first being that causative suffix follows the general phonological rule that causes a to become a u. Secondly, the vowel of the stem that attaches to -(o)ta ~ -(o)tu, becomes an o. Then, the syllables of the verb stem become low in tone in the causative marker. Finally, there might be a change in the position of the glottal stop because of causative marking. The morphosyntax of the language’s causative marking are that direct and subject object noun phrases are unmarked and subjects can be cross-referenced by prefixes but there is no cross-referencing of objects.

Phonology
For phonology, Resigaro has a low and high tone; both of which were borrowed from Bora. Aspirated stops and voiceless nasals were inherited from Arawak. One phenome that is believed to have been borrowed from Bora is ɯ. There are many loaned Bora morphemes in the Resigaro language that have ɯ. Resigaro has also used open- and closed-class morphemes from the Bora language before incorporating ɯ into its lists of vowels.

Vocabulary
Like mentioned earlier, some of Resigaro’s vocab is loaned from Bora and most of these words are culturally important. There are 5 different categories these terms belong in. The first is terms that are food related. Matsʰaákɯ, meaning peanut, and taʔakábɯ, meaning soursop fruit, are only 2 vocabulary words that are important in the Resigaro culture. The second category has to do with game animals. Some terms in this category are bahí, which means stingray, and toopáɯ, which is a panguana bird. The third category is ritual/ceremony related. Maáníʔɯ́mí, translates into mask, and hibii, translates into coca. The fourth is house building and some terms in this category are maání, meaning a pitch or tar, and nɯ́ɯ́higɯ, meaning a shelter. The last category is kinship which includes the terms mɯɯ́bé, which translates to husband or brother, and mɯ́ɯdʒé which means wife.

There are also some culturally neutral words that were borrowed from Bora. In this case, there are only 3 categories: non edible animals, verbs, and other nouns. Some examples for non-edible animals are paagáɯ, meaning spider, and todokáakɯ, meaning toad species. For verbs, there are dʒídʒaá, which is “to be big,” and heeβéʔií, which means measure. Lastly, for the category of other nouns, some terms include pakó, which means water, and boʔotáhí, which translates to plate.