Guajiboan (also Guahiban, Wahívoan, Guahiboan) is a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
spoken in the
Orinoco River region in eastern
Colombia and southwestern
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
, a
savanna
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland- grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
region known as the
Llanos.
Family division
Guajiboan consists of 5 languages:
*
Macaguane (also known as Hitnü, Macaguán, Makawane, Agualinda, Agualinda Guahibo, Támude)
* Southwest Guajiboan
**
Guayabero (also known as Cunimía, Mítiwa, Mitúa, Mitu, Hiw, Jiw, Wayavero, Guaviare)
**
Churuya (also known as Bisanigua, Guaigua) ''(†)''
* Central Guajiboan
**
Guajibo (also known as Guahibo, Sikuani, Sicuani, Chiricoa, Hiwi, Jiwi, Jivi, Wahivo, Wahibo, Guaybo, Goahibo, Guaigua, Guayba, Goahiva)
*** Waü (west)
*** Newütjü (also known as Tigrero)
*** Parawá (east)
*** Hamorúa (also known as Amorúa, Jamorúa)
*** Dome (also known as Playero, Cajaro)
**
Cuiva (also known as Wamonae, Cuiba, Kuiba, Deja, Cuiba-Wámonae)
*** Pimenepiwi (Meta river)
*** Aitopiwi (Ariporo river)
*** Yaraüraxi (Capanaparo river)
*** Waüpiwi (also known as Wipiwi, Yomati)
*** Siripuxi (also known as Tsiripu, Siripu)
*** Mayaraxi (also known as Mariposo, Mayalero)
Churuya is now
extinct. It was formerly spoken in
Meta, Colombia.
Macaguane is listed as a
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
of Guajibo in Kaufman (1994) and Campbell (1997). Gordon (2005) lists
Playero (also Rio Arauca Guahibo), a dialect of Guajibo, as a separate language with a "low intelligibility of other Guahibo".
Guajibo and Cuiva form a
dialect continuum
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
.
Guajibo has the most speakers (over 23,000) and is the largest indigenous group in eastern Colombia. Approximately 9,000 in Venezuela.
Guayabero is the most divergent language of the family.
Genetic relations
Guajiboan has often been grouped together with
Arawakan,
Arauan, and
Candoshi by many classifiers. However, this now seems unlikely as the similarity between Guajiboan and Arawakan has been attributed to
language contact.
Language contact
Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the
Yanomami
The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
Etymology
The ethnonym ''Yanomami' ...
,
Arawak
The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Great ...
,
Nadahup,
Puinave-Kak,
Bora-Muinane, and
Choko language families due to contact.
Meléndez-Lozano (2014) has also noted that Guahiban has borrowed from
Arawakan languages
Arawakan (''Arahuacan, Maipuran Arawakan, "mainstream" Arawakan, Arawakan proper''), also known as Maipurean (also ''Maipuran, Maipureano, Maipúre''), is a language family that developed among ancient indigenous peoples in South America. Branc ...
, especially the
Achagua and
Piapoco
Piapoco is an Arawakan language of Colombia and Venezuela.
A "Ponares" language is inferred from surnames, and may have been Piapoco or Achagua.
History
Piapoco is a branch of the Arawak language, which also includes Achagua and Tariana. P ...
languages.
An automated computational analysis (
ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)
[Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ]
ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013)
'. found that there are apparent lexical similarities with
Yanomami
The Yanomami, also spelled Yąnomamö or Yanomama, are a group of approximately 35,000 indigenous people who live in some 200–250 villages in the Amazon rainforest on the border between Venezuela and Brazil.
Etymology
The ethnonym ''Yanomami' ...
and
Ticuna-Yuri. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the similarities could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing, genetic inheritance, or chance resemblances.
Proto-language
Below are Proto-Guahiban reconstructions by Christian and Matteson (1972):
[Christian, Diana R., and Esther Matteson. 1972. Proto-Guahiban. In Esther Matteson (ed.), ]
Comparative Studies in Amerindian Languages
', 150-159. The Hague: Mouton.
References
Bibliography
* Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). ''The languages of the Andes''. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press.
*Berg, Marie L. and Isabel J. Kerr. (1973) ''The Cuiva language: Grammar''. Language Data, Amerindian Series, 1. Santa Ana, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). ''Language in the Americas''. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1990). Language history in South America: What we know and how to know more. In D. L. Payne (Ed.), ''Amazonian linguistics: Studies in lowland South American languages'' (pp. 13–67). Austin: University of Texas Press. .
* Kaufman, Terrence. (1994). The native languages of South America. In C. Mosley & R. E. Asher (Eds.), ''Atlas of the world's languages'' (pp. 46–76). London: Routledge.
* Keels, Jack. (1985). "Guayabero: Phonology and morphophonemics." In Ruth M. Brend (ed.), ''From phonology to discourse: Studies in six Colombian languages'': 57-87. Language Data, Amerindian Series, 9. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
* Queixalós, Francisco. (1988). "Presentación"; ''Diccionario sikuani–español'': i-xiii. Bogotá: CCELA Universidad de los Andes. ISN 0121-0963.
*
Rivet, Paul (1948) "La famille linguistique Guahibo"; ''Journal de la Société des Américanistes'' XXXVII: 191-240. Paris.
External links
* Proel
Sub-Familia Guajiboana
{{South American languages
Language families
Indigenous languages of the South American Northeast
Macro-Arawakan languages