The Pidjanan languages are a subgroup of

Arawakan 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. Branch ...

languages of northern South America.

Names

The term ''Pidjanan'' was coined by

Sérgio Meira Sérgio Meira de Santa Cruz Oliveira (born December 31, 1968) is a Brazilian linguist who specializes in the Cariban and Tupian language families of lowland South America and in the Tiriyó language in particular. He has worked on the classific ...

(2019) from Wapishana ''pidan'' ‘people’, as can be seen in the ethnonyms ''Wa-pishana'' and ''Mao-pidian''.Meira, Sérgio. 2019
A Study of the Genetic Relation between Mawayana and Wapishana (Arawakan Family)

''Revista Brasileira de Línguas Indígenas''
(''RBLI''), vol. 2, no. 1 (Jan.-Jun. 2019), pp. 70-104. They are referred to as ''Mapidianic'' in ''

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

'' 4.3, and as ''Rio Branco'' by Nikulin & Carvalho (2019: 270).Nikulin, Andrey; Fernando O. de Carvalho. 2019
Estudos diacrônicos de línguas indígenas brasileiras: um panorama
. ''Macabéa – Revista Eletrônica do Netlli'', v. 8, n. 2 (2019), p. 255-305.
PDF
)

Languages

According to Meira (2019), the Pidjanan languages are: *Pidjanan ** Mawayana ( Mapidian, Maopidian), spoken by a dozen elderly people living in ethnic Waiwai and Tiriyó villages in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and

Suriname Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; i ...

Wapishana The Wapishana or Wapichan (or Wapisiana, Wapitxana, Vapidiana, Wapixana) are an Indigenous group found in the Roraima area of northern Brazil and southern Guyana. Location Currently the Wapishana are located in the State of Roraima, Brazil, nor ...

, spoken by over 6,000 people on both sides of the

Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...

border **? Atorad (Atorai) Wapishana is more conservative, while Mawayana has innovated more from Proto-Pidjanan. Ramirez's (2020) classification is: *Pidjanan ** Mawayana **Wapishanan *** ****

**** Atorai *** **** Parawana **** Aroaqui Parawana and Aroaqui are closely related, and may be the same language.

Proto-language

Proto-Pidjanan has been reconstructed by Meira (2019).

Phonology

Proto-Pidjanan consonant phonemes: : Proto-Pidjanan vowel phonemes: :

Morphology

Proto-Pidjanan person-marking prefixes: : Proto-Pidjanan person-marking suffixes: : The functions of person markers (verbs in the -ɲɨ ‘realis’/‘present’ form). : Nominal possession possessed and non-possessed forms. :

Lexicon

Unless indicated otherwise, the Mawayana and Wapishana data below is from

's field notes, as cited in Meira (2019). Meira's Mawayana data is from Marurunau,

, and his Wapishana data is from Mapuera (a village that is mostly ethnic Waiwai), Nhamundá-Mapuera Indigenous Area,

Pará State Pará () is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana an ...

, Brazil. The other sources are: *Howard (1985-1986) *Carlin (2006) *Carlin (no date) *WLP (2000) *Silva, Silva & Oliveira (2013) *WLP (2001)WLP (Wapishana Language Project). ''Wapishana Primer''. Lethem: Wapishana Language Project, Rupununi, Region 9, Guyana. Porto Velho: SIL International, 2001 (1986). :

Vocabulary

100-word

Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...

for Mawayana and Wapishana: :

Bibliography

*Melville, C.; Tracy, F. V.; Williams, O
Wapishana
''

Intercontinental Dictionary Series The Intercontinental Dictionary Series (commonly abbreviated as IDS) is a large database of topical vocabulary lists in various world languages. The general editor of the database is Bernard Comrie of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary An ...

''. 2007. Accessed on Oct. 30, 2007. *SB (Surinaams Bijbelgenootschap / Suriname Bible Society). ''Kaimana’o Tominkaru Paradan (The New Testament)''. Paramaribo, Georgetown: Suriname Bible Society and Guyana Bible Society, 2012.

References

{{Arawakan languages Arawakan languages Languages of Guyana Languages of Suriname Languages of Brazil