Today the Atikum are exclusively Portuguese-speakers, and have no memory of the lexicon of a prior language - except for very few words used for natural elements (for instance: sarapó = large, edible snake; toê = fire). Despite the fact that there is only one reference to Aticum (or Araticum) as an extinct language, and to Umã as the territorial area in which they moved about in the 19th Century, it is possible to suggest, with the support of Angyone Costa's Introdução à Arqueologia Brasileira (Introduction to Brazilian Archaeology) and of Baptista Siqueira's Os Cariris do Nordeste (The Cariri of the Northeast), that the Atikum belong to the Cariri family, although other authors mention an Umã language isolated or unknown.