Uru

Uru, also called Uchumataqu or Ochosuma, is the extinct language of the Uru people, the reed-boat fishermen and island-dwellers of Lake Titicaca, Lake Poopó and the Desaguadero River on the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia. Together with Chipaya it forms the Uru–Chipaya family; the Uru called themselves sons of the Sun and built floating villages of totora reed that could be moved when danger threatened.

Long contact with neighbouring peoples left lexical traces from Aymara, Quechua, Kunza and Puquina. The Inca conquest of the fifteenth century brought taxation and forced labour.

In colonial times the Uru traded and intermarried with Aymara communities on the shore, gradually abandoning their tongue for Aymara and Spanish. A long conflict with the Aymara that began in 1722 further weakened their separate position. Uru itself shrank to only a handful of remote families.