 Speakers of Tariana have been switching to the unrelated Tucano language (of the Tucanoan family), which became a lingua franca in the Vaupés region in the late 19th century.Arriving in the region in the 1920s, Salesian missionaries promoted the exclusive use of Tucano among Indians in an effort to convert them.Economic concerns have also led fathers to increasingly leave their families to work for non-Amerindian Brazilians, which has undermined the patrilineal father-child interaction through which Tariana was traditionally acquired.