Most people associate Latin America with Spanish, and indeed, most countries in Central and South America use Spanish as their lingua franca. Brazil, speaking Portuguese, is a well-known exception—but it’s not the only one. Guyana is one of two English-speaking countries in continental Latin America (the other being Belize), but the reality is that all continental Latin American nations are a lot more linguistically diverse than it may appear at first glance. Before Europeans arrived in the Americas, hundreds of unique languages were spread across the lands—and they still are today. And that brings us to Kapóng.
Kapóng is spoken as a native language by more than 10,000 people in South America, with a precise number of speakers difficult to ascertain across the few different nations it’s spoken. Kapóng is in relatively good standing, with steady transmission of the language to younger generations documented in at least some regions. However, Kapóng remains a minority Amerindian language and, like nearly all other indigenous languages in the Americas, is threatened by the imported languages that now dominate the lands. Few translation agencies are willing to work with such languages—but we at TranslationServices.com are proud to launch our new Kapóng translation services.
Want to know a bit more about Kapóng?
Kapóng is spoken primarily by two indigenous ethnic groups: the Akawaio and the Patamona peoples. Communities of Kapóng speakers exist across Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil, particularly in Guyana’s Mazaruni River Basin. Many Kapóng speakers remain nomadic to this day, but others reside in the Guyanese villages of Kamarang, Jawalla, Waramadong, and Kako; Brazil’s Roraima Indigenous Terra Raposa; and the Venezuelan states of Bolivar and Monagas. Kapóng is the healthiest indigenous language in Guyana, and usage of the language remains vigorous in its communities in Brazil.
Kapóng is a major member of the Cariban language family, a prominent family in northeastern South America and, previously, the Caribbean. In fact, it has more speakers than Carib, from which the family derives its name. Kapóng generally places the verb at the end of sentences in a subject-object-verb word order, but word order is flexible, changing depending on the elements the speaker wants to emphasize. Kapóng lacks grammatical gender as well as a gender distinction in its pronouns, but the numerous suffixes the language uses to convey grammatical meaning can make it complicated for learners. For example, Kapóng even has suffixes that turn words into similes, which are employed heavily in Kapóng writing.
Translating to and from Kapóng is our team’s pride and joy
We’re proud to offer high-quality Kapóng translation services, even as most other translation firms overlook this culturally valuable Amerindian language. Our translators are proud, too—as native speakers of Kapóng, they’re passionate about helping spread awareness of their indigenous culture and language, as well as generate more materials in Kapóng. They achieve this by translating from English to Kapóng as well as from Kapóng to English—whichever your project requires! And since our translators come from various areas of Guyana, Brazil, and Venezuela, we can offer translation services for different Kapóng dialects.
We’ve built our Kapóng translation team to handle many different types of translation needs.
Of course, since there aren’t a lot of Kapóng speakers, we’re somewhat limited—but to the best of our ability, we’ve found translators who specialize in different areas, including business translation, educational translation, literary translation, and more. We’ve also recruited Kapóng translators whose expertise stretches beyond translation—this way, we can even help you translate documents that contain technical jargon in various fields. So, calling all business leaders, NPO founders, researchers, professors, educators, language activists, authors, bloggers, software developers, and anyone else who may benefit from Kapóng translation services: our team is ready to serve you!
If you want Kapóng translation services you can rely on, you’ve come to the right place. All you have to do to get started is send us a message with the details of your project!