Arawakan
Maipurean
Geographic distribution	Extant in every country in South America, except for Ecuador, Uruguay and Chile. Formerly spoken in Central America and the Caribbean.
Linguistic classification	Macro-Arawakan ? Arawakan
Proto-language	Proto-Arawakan
Subdivisions	Northern Southern
ISO 639-5	awd
Glottolog	araw1281
Maipurean languages in South America (Caribbean and Central America not included): North-Maipurean (pale blue) and South-Maipurean (deeper blue). Spots represent location of extant languages, and shadowed areas show probable earlier locations.

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. Branches migrated to Central America and the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean and the Atlantic, including what is now the Bahamas. Almost all present-day South American countries are known to have been home to speakers of Arawakan languages, the exceptions being Ecuador, Uruguay, and Chile. Maipurean may be related to other language families in a hypothetical Macro-Arawakan stock.

Name

The name Maipure was given to the family by Filippo S. Gilii in 1782, after the Maipure language of Venezuela, which he used as a basis of his comparisons. It was renamed after the culturally more important Arawak language a century later. The term Arawak took over, until its use was extended by North American scholars to the broader Macro-Arawakan proposal. At that time, the name Maipurean was resurrected for the core family. See Arawakan vs Maipurean for details.

Dispersal

The Arawakan linguistic matrix hypothesis (ALMH)^[1] suggests that the modern diversity of the Arawakan language family stems from the diversification of a trade language or lingua franca that was spoken throughout much of tropical lowland South America. Proponents of this hypothesis include Santos-Granero (2002)^[2] and Eriksen (2014).^[3] Eriksen (2014) proposes that the Arawakan family had only broken up after 600 CE, but Michael (2020) considers this to be unlikely, noting that Arawakan internal diversity is greater than that of the Romance languages.^[1] On the other hand, Blench (2015) suggests a demographic expansion that had taken place over a few thousand years, similar to the dispersals of the Austronesian and Austroasiatic language families in Southeast Asia.^[4]

Language contact

As one of the most geographically widespread language families in all of the Americas, Arawakan linguistic influence can be found in many language families of South America. Jolkesky (2016) notes that there are lexical similarities with the Arawa, Bora-Muinane, Guahibo, Harakmbet-Katukina, Harakmbet, Katukina-Katawixi, Irantxe, Jaqi, Karib, Kawapana, Kayuvava, Kechua, Kwaza, Leko, Macro-Jê, Macro-Mataguayo-Guaykuru, Mapudungun, Mochika, Mura-Matanawi, Nambikwara, Omurano, Pano-Takana, Pano, Takana, Puinave-Nadahup, Taruma, Tupi, Urarina, Witoto-Okaina, Yaruro, Zaparo, Saliba-Hodi, and Tikuna-Yuri language families due to contact. However, these similarities could be due to inheritance, contact, or chance.^[5]

Languages

Classification of Maipurean is difficult because of the large number of Arawakan languages that are extinct and poorly documented. However, apart from transparent relationships that might constitute single languages, several groups of Maipurean languages are generally accepted by scholars. Many classifications agree in dividing Maipurean into northern and southern branches, but perhaps not all languages fit into one or the other. The three classifications below are accepted by all:

• Ta-Maipurean = Caribbean Arawak / Ta-Arawak = Caribbean Maipuran,
• Upper Amazon Maipurean = North Amazonian Arawak = Inland Maipuran,
• Central Maipurean = Pareci–Xingu = Paresí–Waurá = Central Maipuran,
• Piro = Purus,
• Campa = Pre-Andean Maipurean = Pre-Andine Maipuran.

An early contrast between Ta-Arawak and Nu-Arawak, depending on the prefix for "I", is spurious; nu- is the ancestral form for the entire family, and ta- is an innovation of one branch of the family.

Kaufman (1994)

The following (tentative) classification is from Kaufman (1994: 57-60). Details of established branches are given in the linked articles. In addition to the family tree detailed below, there are a few languages that are "Non-Maipurean Arawakan languages or too scantily known to classify" (Kaufman 1994: 58), which include these:

• Shebaye (†)
• Lapachu (†)
• Morique (also known as Morike) (†)

Another language is also mentioned as "Arawakan":

• Salumã (also known as Salumán, Enawené-Nawé)

Including the unclassified languages mentioned above, the Maipurean family has about 64 languages. Out of them, 29 languages are now extinct: Wainumá, Mariaté, Anauyá, Amarizana, Jumana, Pasé, Cawishana, Garú, Marawá, Guinao, Yavitero, Maipure, Manao, Kariaí, Waraikú, Yabaána, Wiriná, Aruán, Taíno, Kalhíphona, Marawán-Karipurá, Saraveca, Custenau, Inapari, Kanamaré, Shebaye, Lapachu, and Morique.

Kaufman does not report the extinct Magiana of the Moxos group.

Aikhenvald (1999)

Apart from minor decisions on whether a variety is a language or a dialect, changing names, and not addressing several poorly attested languages, Aikhenvald departs from Kaufman in breaking up the Southern Outlier and Western branches of Southern Maipurean. She assigns Salumã and Lapachu ('Apolista') to what is left of Southern Outlier ('South Arawak'); breaks up the Maritime branch of Northern Maipurean, though keeping Aruán and Palikur together; and is agnostic about the sub-grouping of the North Amazonian branch of Northern Maipurean.

The following breakdown uses Aikhenvald's nomenclature followed by Kaufman's:

Aikhenvald classifies Kaufman's unclassified languages apart from Morique. She does not classify 15 extinct languages which Kaufman had placed in various branches of Maipurean.

Aikhenvald (1999:69) classifies Mawayana with Wapishana together under a Rio Branco branch, giving for Mawayana also the names "Mapidian" and "Mawakwa" (with some reservations for the latter).

Ramirez (2001)

Internal classification of Arawakan by Henri Ramirez (2001):^[6]

2 subgroups, 10 divisions († = extinct)

Walker & Ribeiro (2011)

Walker & Ribeiro (2011), using Bayesian computational phylogenetics, classify the Arawakan languages as follows.

The internal structures of each branch is given below. Note that the strictly binary splits are a result of the Bayesian computational methods used.

Jolkesky (2016)

Internal classification by Jolkesky (2016):^[5]

(† = extinct)

Nikulin & Carvalho (2019)

Internal classification by Nikulin & Carvalho (2019: 270):^[7]

Phonological innovations characterizing some of the branches:^[7]

• Maritime: loss of medial Proto-Arawakan *-n-.
  • Lokono-Wayuu: first person singular prefix *ta- replacing *nu-. Carvalho also reconstructs the suffix *-ja (possibly a deictic) and *kabɨnɨ 'three' as characteristic of this subgroup.
• Campa: lexical innovations such as *iNʧato 'tree', *-taki 'bark', *-toNki 'bone', etc. There are also typological innovations due to contact with Andean languages such as Quechua.

Ramirez (2020)

The internal classification of Arawakan by Henri Ramirez (2020) is as follows.^[8][9][10] This classification differs quite substantially from his previous classification (Ramirez 2001^[6]), but is very similar to the one proposed by Jolkesky (2016).^[5]

12 subgroups consisting of 56 languages (29 living and 27 extinct) († = extinct)

Varieties

Below is a full list of Arawakan language varieties listed by Loukotka (1968), including names of unattested varieties.^[11]