Awa Pit language
Awa or Awa pit, also known as Cuaiquer, is a Barbacoan language spoken by the Awa-Kwaiker people, who inhabit territory straddling northern Ecuador and southern Colombia. Awa pit is classified by UNESCO as a severely endangered language.Speakers and characteristics
The Awa pit language has around 21 thousand speakers, mostly residing on the Colombian Pacific slopes of the Andes, with about a thousand in an adjacent area of Ecuador. While most men also speak Spanish, the women and children are predominantly monolingual.
Literacy among Awa speakers is less than 1% in their native language and under 5% in the secondary Spanish language.
The Awa pit language has a subject–object–verb structure and has adopted the Latin script. Grammatically, Awa pit uses a characteristic conjunct/disjunct system of verb suffixes for person-marking which displays similarities with some Tibeto-Burman languages, such as the Newari language of Kathmandu.Phonology
The Awa pit inventory is as follows:
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