Taruma was thought to be extinct, since it was believed that the ethnic group had disappeared or had been assimilated into other indigenous groups by the mid-nineteenth century. Carlin, however, mentions a few
speakers in Maruranau, a Wapishana village in the Rupanuni, Guyana.

"In the early 1920s, the anthropologist/archaeologist Walter Roth claimed that the Taruma had all but become extinct as a separate group, which is corroborated by the missionary Father Cary-Elwes’s statements that in mid-1922 he had advised the Taruma to intermarry with the Waiwai: ‘Last time I was here [1919, EBC], I told the Tarumas that they were a sickly lot and clearly dying out, due probably to their in-marriage, and their only chance of survival was for them to take unto themselves Waiwai wives’ (Butt, Colson and Morton 1982:240; see also Rivière 1963:164). In spite of their incessant precarious situation over the last two centuries, there are still three Taruma speakers in Guyana, living among the Wapishana."