| Torá | |
|---|---|
| Toraz | |
| Native to | Brazil |
| Region | Dos Marmelos River |
| Ethnicity | 330 Torá (2014)1 |
| Extinct | early 2000s2 "few" semispeakers (2018)2 |
Chapacuran
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | trz |
| Glottolog | tora1263 |
| ELP | Torá |
 Torá is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
Torá (Toraz) is an extinct Chapacuran language that was once spoken along the lower stretches of the Marmelos River in Brazil. Only a few people were reported to remember a few words in the language, although the Torá people have interest in the revival of their language.1
History
The last fluent speaker is believed to died in the 2000s. In 2006, there were two fluent speakers left, but it only has semi-speakers as of 2018, "at least few".2 In 2018, only a few words of the language had been preserved.3
Documentation
It is known only from a wordlist recorded by Curt Nimuendajú in 19214 and 19225 and published in 1922 and 1925.46
Revival
The Torá have expressed interest in reviving their language.5 According to Stan Anonby (2018), "[t]here was some talk of revitalizing the language, but no one seemed to have enough memory of Torá to get anywhere with the idea".3: 13
Syntax
Word order
Like its relatives in the Chapacuran family, Torá exhibits verb–object–subject word order.5
References
References
- Peggion, Edmundo Antonio (2018-03-26). "Torá - Indigenous Peoples in Brazil". pib.socioambiental.org. Retrieved 2025-07-19.
- Torá at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- Anonby, Stan (2019-02-01). A Sociolinguistic Survey of the Ethnolinguistic Groups Around the Intersection of the Marmelos River and the Trans-Amazon Highway. SIL Global. Archived from the original on 2024-09-14. Retrieved 2026-07-11.
- Nimuendajú, Curt; do Valle Bentes, E. H. (1922). "Documents sur quelques langues peu connues de l'Amazone". Journal de la société des américanistes. 14 (1): 215–222. doi:10.3406/jsa.1922.3999.
- Synclair, Akasha (2026-05-16). "Torá: A Description of a Dormant Chapacuran Language from Legacy Materials". Linguistics ETDs.
- Curt Nimuendajú. "As tribus do Alto Madeira" [The tribes of the Upper Madeira] (PDF) (in Portuguese). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-06-15.