With the exception of Haiti and Paraguay, every country in the Americas has solely designated European languages as their official languages at the national level (Haiti’s official languages are French and Haitian Creole, while Paraguay’s national-level official languages are Spanish and Guaraní). But that paints a vastly simplified picture of the complex linguistic landscape of the Americas, with hundreds of languages from dozens of families having been spoken all across the land mass for millennia. Many Amerindian languages still exist today, even if they’re endangered—and that brings us to Shiwiar.
Like most other Amerindian languages today, Shiwiar is endangered and spoken by only a few thousand people—roughly 8,000, to be exact. The ubiquitous presence of Spanish in South America puts considerable strain on the proud autochthonous language, but Spanish isn’t the only threat Shiwiar faces—larger indigenous languages like Kichwa and Shuar also contribute to the erosion of the Shiwiar language. The Ecuadorian government officially affords the Shiwiar people, as well as the country’s other 12 indigenous ethnolinguistic groups, the right to use their native language in education, but resources for Shiwiar remain scarce. Naturally, there aren’t a lot of translation services available, either.
Here at TranslationServices.com, we want to help promote endangered languages like Shiwiar—so we put together our very own Shiwiar translation team. Want to see a quote for our Shiwiar translation services? Just ask!
What more would you like to know about Shiwiar?
Shiwiar is indigenous to Ecuador and Peru—specifically, the parts of these countries that occupy the Amazon Rainforest. Peru accounts for roughly 4,500 Shiwiar speakers, while Ecuador is the home of the remaining 3,500 or so. The people are known as the Achuar, and the language may also be called Achuar or Achuar-Shiwiar. As a member of the small Chicham family, sometimes called Jivaroan, Shiwiar is closely related to Shuar, the second-biggest indigenous language in Ecuador.
Taking a look at Shiwiar grammar, we see a default word order of subject-object-verb. While this may seem unusual to an English speaker, it’s actually the most common word order among global languages. Like most other indigenous languages in South America, Shiwiar incorporates a great deal of morphological inflection, which is usually expressed through suffixes. The language also features noun cases, like in German or Russian, which it marks through suffixes on nouns. Even negation in Shiwiar is expressed through a suffix—truly, it’s a suffix-based language.
We’ll be your guides through your Shiwiar translation journey.
Here at TranslationServices.com, we’re interested in offering the best Shiwiar translation services we can. There may not be a lot of Shiwiar speakers out there, but we’ve done our best to compile a team of the best translators from the Shiwiar-speaking regions of Ecuador and Peru, and their passion for their unique language is what keeps them striving to deliver the utmost translation quality. And it doesn’t matter which translation direction you’re aiming for, either, since our translators work with projects from Shiwiar to English as well as from English to Shiwiar.
Whether you’re from Ecuador, Peru, elsewhere in South America, or any other country in the world, we’re determined to bring you reliable Shiwiar translation services for a wide array of projects. Of course, since the number of Shiwiar speakers is quite low, we simply can’t cater to every niche—but we’ve put together the most diverse team possible, populated by Shiwiar translators from both Ecuador and Peru who’ve gained translation experience working in different types of projects. From business documents and research surveys to literature, historical documents, and digital media, our team can handle it all. And depending on the field, we may even be able to work with esoteric texts—tell us if you need a subject-matter expert, and we’ll look through our team for the best match!
Our Shiwiar translators are passionate about their language and can’t wait to start working on your project. So why not message us today about your Shiwiar translation needs?