Tequiraca language

{{short description|Language spoken in Peru}}

{{distinguish|Aushiri language|Waorani language}}

{{Infobox language

| name = Tequiraca

| altname = Aiwa, Aewa

| nativename = {{lang|ash|Abishira}}

| extinct = mid-20th century

| region = Puerto Elvira

| familycolor = American

| fam1 = Tequiraca–Canichana?

| iso3 = ash

| glotto = abis1238

| glottorefname = Aewa

| states = Peru

| ethnicity = Aiwa

| speakers2 = 2 rememberers (2008)

}}

Tequiraca (Tekiráka), also known as Abishira,{{refn|Alternate spellings include Abigira, Abijira, Abira, Awishiri, Abixira{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Patricia Roberts |title=Tribal Names of the Americas: Spelling Variants and Alternative Forms, Cross-Referenced |date=21 October 2009 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5169-2 |page=10 |language=en}} Avishiri, Auishiri, Agouisiri, Avirxiri, Abiquira.}} Aiwa (Aewa, Aʔɨwa), Ixignor,{{cite book |last=Loukotka |first=Čestmír |author-link=Čestmír Loukotka |title=Classification of South American Indian languages |url=https://archive.org/details/classificationof0007louk |url-access=registration |publisher=UCLA Latin American Center |year=1968 |location=Los Angeles}} or Vacacocha, is an extinct language once spoken in Peru. In 1925 there were between 50 and 80 speakers in Puerto Elvira on Lake Vacacocha (connected with the Napo River). It is presumed extinct some time in the mid 20th century, though in 2008 two rememberers were found and 160 words and short sentences were recorded.{{cite web |url = http://www.cabeceras.org/cap_2010update.htm |title = Cabeceras Aid Project Winter 2010 Update |access-date= 14 April 2013}} Today, most ethnic Aiwa people have shifted to Kichwa and Spanish.{{cite book |editor-last=Epps |editor-first=Patience |editor-last2=Michael |editor-first2=Lev |title=Amazonian Languages: Language Isolates. Volume I: Aikanã to Kandozi-Chapra |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |date=2023 |isbn=978-3-11-041940-5}}

The little data available show it to not be closely related to other languages, though a distant connection to Canichana was proposed by Kaufman (1994).

Jolkesky (2016) also notes that there are lexical similarities with Taushiro, likely as a result of prehistoric contact within the circum-Marañón interaction sphere.{{cite thesis|last=Jolkesky |first=Marcelo Pinho de Valhery |date=2016 |url=http://www.etnolinguistica.org/tese:jolkesky-2016-arqueoecolinguistica |title=Estudo arqueo-ecolinguístico das terras tropicais sul-americanas |type=Ph.D. dissertation |location=Brasília |publisher=University of Brasília |edition=2}}