Páez (also Paez, Paes; or the autonym Nasa Yuwe 'Nasa language') is a language of Colombia, spoken by the Páez people. Crevels (2011) estimates 60,000 speakers out of an ethnic population of 140,000. The language is spoken by the second largest Colombian indigenous community, the Páez, in the north of the Cauca Department, in southwestern Colombia. However, the people had to move to other departments of Colombia like Huila, Tolima and Valle del Cauca. Classification Páez is generally considered to be a language isolate, or at least the only surviving member of its family (Adelaar & Muysken 2004). Language contact Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Chibcha, Barbakoa, Choko, Tukano, Andaki, and Kofan language families due to contact. Varieties Below is a full list of Paezan language varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties. Paez / Paisa – the language spoken in the villages of the Paez River, the department of Huila. Dialects include: Nasayuwä – spoken in the village of Pitayo. Okoshkokyéwa – spoken in the village of La Peña. Paniquita – spoken in some villages, Paniquita, and others, in the Huila region. Panzaleo / Latacunga / Quito – an extinct language once spoken in the provinces of Pichincha, Cotopaxi, and Tungurahua, Ecuador. Alausí – once spoken in the village of Alausí, Chimborazo province, Ecuador. (Unattested.) History Although dozens of indigenous languages have been extinguished at the hand of the Spanish (and later Colombian) Empire, there remain more than 60 languages within the boundaries of what is now known as Colombia. Most of these languages are classified into 10 linguistic families: Chibcha, Arawak, Carib, Quechua, Tukano, Guahibo, Makú-Puinave, Bora-Witoto, Piaroa-Sáliba, and Chocó. During the 1900s, initial research suggested that Nasa Yuwe was part of the Chibcha language family, which includes Arwako, Kogi, Wiwa, Tunebo, Motilone, Chimila, and Cuna. However, Nasa Yuwe is now considered to constitute a small language family of its own—the Paezan languages. Today, many Misak live in some primarily Nasa settlements creating a situation of language contact and in some cases bilingualism. Agriculture is the basis of the Nasa economy and as such, they have been fighting to maintain their current land holdings and expand into their traditional lands. The language has been threatened by colonial policies for centuries, however recent positive attitudes toward the language have begun to reverse the tide of language extinction. The first threat to