Kanoê language

Kanoê or Kapishana is a nearly extinct language isolate of Rondônia, Brazil. The Kapishana people now speak Portuguese or other indigenous languages from intermarriage.

The language names are also spelled Kapixana, Kapixanã, and Canoé, the last shared with Awa-Canoeiro.

The Kanoê people, although disperse in the southeastern part of the state of Rondônia, live mainly along the Guaporé River. The language is nearly extinct, with only 5 speakers in a population of about 319 Kanoê people.

Although Kanoê is generally considered to be a language isolate, there have been various proposals linking it with other languages and language families.

Van der Voort (2005) observes similarities among Kanoê, Kwaza, and Aikanã, but believes the evidence is not strong enough to definitively link the three languages together as part of a single language family.

Price (1978) proposes a relationship with the Nambikwaran languages, while Kaufman (1994, 2007) suggests that Kunza is related.

Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with Kwaza, Aikanã, and the Nambikwaran languages due to contact.

For a long time Kanoê was too poorly attested to classify. Various proposals were advanced on little evidence; Price (1978) for example thought Kanoê might be one of the Nambikwaran languages. When it was finally described in some detail, by Bacelar (2004), it turned out to be a language isolate.