It’s a bank holiday in the UK today – but I’ve still got this post for you all! Today we have the letter U and the Ulwa language.
Ulwa is a Misumalpan language spoken in the east of Nicaragua, currently by around 350 people who mostly live in the village of Karawala. Out of all the languages that made up the Sumo branch of the Misumalpan family, Ulwa is the only northern language which still exists – and even this language is currently categorised by UNESCO as being critically endangered.
Though the Ulwa language only appears to have had an oral form for a long time, a dictionary has been developed. It is hoped that this may go some way towards changing the decline of the language; however, there are very few children who speak Ulwa, so it is certainly possible that Ulwa will become extinct in the future.
Sources/Further Reading
SLaXicon: The ULWA Language Home Page
Koontz-Garboden, Andrew: Ulwa Verb Class Morphology
Ethnologue: Ulwa
Linguamon: Ulwa
Native-Languages: Ulwa Indian Language