Speakers of Eastern Tukanoan languages in Brazil and Colombia explain linguistic differences as group identity indices, essential to an intricate ontology in which language is a consubstantial, metaphysical product—a 'substance' in the evolution of the person. Via speech, speakers of the same language notify a corporality based in theories of shared ancestry and mutual belonging whereas speakers of distinct languages notify contrast. For Tukanoans, then, one shovels one’s self in the act of speaking. These ontological beliefs underlie speech practices, affecting language preservation and conducing to one of the most inordinate multilingualism examples recorded in the literature.