The Pidjanan languages are a subgroup of Arawakan 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 classificat ...

(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'' 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.
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Languages

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

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and Suriname *

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, n ...

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

border *? Atorad (Atorai) Wapishana is more conservative, while Mawayana has innovated more from Proto-Pidjanan. Ramirez's (2020) classification is: * 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, Guyana, and his Wapishana data is from Mapuera (a village that is mostly ethnic Waiwai), Nhamundá-Mapuera Indigenous Area, Pará State, 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 The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatednes ...

for Mawayana and Wapishana: :

Bibliography

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